The Beginning – The Flow of Data
Data is the new gold of the 21st century, but what is it? Why is it important? Why should you know what data is and what you can do with it? More than ever, it’s important to have data and make decisions based on that data. Everyone uses information every day.
In this chapter, we’ll find out what data is, where it comes from, and how it’s used to make decisions today. We’ll also explain what data literacy is and why it’s so important for both our everyday lives and our business lives. We’ll show you some real-world examples and help you understand the basics of making decisions based on data or Data-Informed Decision Making (DIDM).
By the end of this chapter, you’ll recognize the most important parts of data and how we use it in our daily lives and at work. This will be explained with examples from the COVID-19 pandemic and stories from our own work lives.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- Understanding data in our daily lives
- Analyzing data
- An introduction to data literacy
- The organizational data flow
