Unlock Your “Therefore”
The art of making decisions from data.
Data is like a beautiful artifact, its alluring fragments make up a larger meaningful whole. Unlock its treasure, the therefore, and you hold the key to our new data-driven civilization.
Today we live in a world surrounded by flowing bits of information. Screens everywhere capture who we are and what we are doing. This gathered data is used to depict actual human behavior and enhance day-to-day lives. The big question for many is, how do we form meaning from all of this data?
The answer is simple, search for the therefore.
A data therefore is a discovery that is drawn from a large quantity of data. It is not merely one number, or one statistic, but a conclusion that is synthesized from the patterns, trends, and anomalies of the data set. Think of it as the power to see the idea beyond the numbers.
For example, use the query “yoga” in Google Trends and you will find open data on news interest, geographic interest, and related search terms. Off a first glance what do you notice? Probably a few spikes on the news headlines line chart, dark coloring for certain countries on the Google map, and words that have to do with the topic. It may look cool, but what does it tell us?
Let’s dig down a little futher to uncover some meaning.
The search begins.
Taking a look at the time series chart below gives us a clear picture of the search growth of the word “yoga” by Internet users. Certain events, as notated by letters, correlate to news topics, such as International Yoga Day, that influence what people search on search engines. On a high level we can infer that interest in yoga has gently increased over the last decade.
Exploring regional interest sheds light on the parts of the world that search for “yoga.” The dark blue countries have the most online searches, and the light blue countries have the least online searches.
From the map it appears that the United States, Canada, India, and Australia are the provinces most intrigued by the search term “yoga.” This ancient practice originated in India, and has quickly become a growth industry in many countries across the world. To prove this growth, we must see if parallels exist in yoga popularity by investigating some broad market trends.
Off to the media we go.
- Nearly 28 million Americans participate in yoga today, which makes the practice roughly as popular as the sport of golf in the United States.
- In Canada the retailer Lululemon, maker of yoga and exercise apparel, has quickly become one of the country’s fastest growing brands. Not a day goes by in NYC where you don’t see a pair of Lululemon yoga pants.
- People in Australia are experimenting with various types of extreme yoga such as, AcroYoga and Aerial Yoga. Sport is an important aspect of the Australian lifestyle, so there is only room for yoga popularity to increase.
This industry proof of yoga popularity parallels as a factor to the large search volumes in these countries. Get people interested in a topic, and chances are they will search for it online.
What we know so far.
After examining the data of the time series and regions we know that overall interest in yoga is growing, particularly in North America, Australia, and India. This is an important step in searching for your therefore, extrapolating a broad idea based on what you already know from the data set.
Parameters for truth.
Before a broad idea can be turned into anything actionable there must be a reason, or driver, behind it. We see that yoga interest is growing, but so what right? Looking at something from only one perspective does not allow us to get a complete picture. For that reason, we must add a parameter to the data to better understand the true interest of “yoga” as compared to a similar activity.
Because of this, the query “pilates” is added to the page.
Pilates and yoga are often thrown into the same category. The movements are similar and both activities often take place on a mat inside of a gym. Find the differences in data of these similar activities, and you have found a critical piece of the story for your therefore.
Dig a little deeper.
By looking at the time series above of the two terms a straightforward pattern is present. Search interest of “pilates” has slightly decreased in the past decade whereas “yoga” interest has increased, as we determined earlier.
Why is this the case? Yoga is popular, and pilates is similar, so shouldn’t interest be relatively the same?
Using the related search terms from Google Trends we make an interesting find. The top two search queries by those interested in “pilates” are “yoga” and “pilates yoga.” Related terms are the words that are the most frequently searched with the query you enter into the search engine.
This information indicates that people who search the Internet for pilates are in fact just as interested, if not more interested, in yoga. The cat is out of the bag pilates enthusiasts, we now know that you secretly wish you were doing yoga.
Onward towards the therefore.
You did it, you hung in there to the unveiling of the discovery, the therefore.
The first step of the therefore is finalizing our broad idea from the data.
Broad idea: Yoga interest is steadily rising in the United States, Canada and Australia; and enthusiasts of pilates are considering mutiny to go aboard the growing ship of yoga.
Once the broad idea is gained, its value is proven with the action that is taken. This action is the therefore, the decision that you make made based on your findings.
For example, if I own a gym the above information may lead me to believe that it is worth investing in more yoga classes than pilates classes. If I am a pilates instructor, I may consider also becoming certified in yoga to broaden my reach for potential customers. Whatever the scenario is, the discovery is the decision you make, the therefore that you create.
To recap here is the framework for finding your data therefore:
- Select a data set of a relevant topic for you or your business
- Identify a few high-level trends to further the analysis
- Investigate the data trends to have proof of its truth
- Add parameters, or segments, to deep-dive into your data
- Form a broad idea from the findings to support a decision, a therefore
The data therefore is like what Marcus Brody says to Indiana Jones in the Raiders of the Lost Ark, “It’s not something to be taken lightly. No one knows its secrets. It’s like nothing you’ve ever gone after before.”
