What came first, the data or the context?

If you ask a random person for their thoughts on data, you’ll likely be met with a wave of lacklustre responses on why the topic piques little interest in their mind.

I don’t understand it; I’m not really into Excel, I find it kind of... bland.

And on face value, data can very well be bland - spreadsheets full of numbers and words can send even the most astute of us into a 3 pm coma.

But, like it or not, I have evidence to suggest that data fascinates us all.

“All of us?” I hear you ask.

Yes, even you.

Like it or not, we’ve been exposed to data since childhood. Sports scores, swim meets, even your high-school grades. All of those things are little pieces of data, representing some part of the world around you, some part of the world that interests you. Now, if I offered you a book with a blank cover and told you it was full of statistics, you wouldn’t be too motivated to pick it up and start reading. But you'd dive right in if I offered you a book of your and your classmate’s swim meet times from the 7th grade.

So, what’s the difference?

The latter is dripping with context.

It’s the context that links us to the data. It’s the context that breeds relevance, and relevance is what makes data interesting.

Why should I pay attention to this number, this trend, this comparison?

What is the context?

Now, we will arm ourselves with this shiny new tool. It’s only small in size but packs a considerable punch. It works like a metal detector, scanning the landscape and finding the gold. But, instead of terrain, it scans data and finds something similar to gold.

Context.

From here and through your analytical journey striving to find context in a dataset will set you apart from your peers. And while elevating you, it will make the process of working with data much more straightforward. This leaves us to answer the classic question of which came first.

The data or the context?

If you have the answer, could you let me know…