Unwrapping Data

With the holidays having just come and gone, I was thinking about the excitement of opening a wrapped package on Christmas Day - the possibility of what might be inside, the anticipation of possibly seeing something you’ve wanted for a long time, that breathless moment when it’s revealed and you immediately start thinking about how great it is to have this new thing.

Now, of course, there’s always the experience of opening a gigantic pink bunny onesie, like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, but hopefully those are fewer and far between.

As a data geek, I get that feeling whenever I have the opportunity to dive into data with a new client, or a new team. Being able to unwrap the package, as it were, and see what tables and columns and so forth are contained within. For me, that’s always an exciting moment.

Ooooh, this must be the customer table. Ooooh, over here are their inventory tables. Oh look! Transaction logs! For me, seeing new data, understanding how it fits together, and being able to see what’s possible with it is one of the most exciting parts of the journey with a client.

Part of that is because there are always opportunities; there are always possibilities to explore that will add value to their business beyond what’s already there. There are ways to use data that maybe haven’t been thought of before, or perhaps just haven’t gotten all the way down the runway. Maybe there are small gaps that just take a little bit of ingenuity to fill, that will allow for a whole world of exciting applications.

It can be difficult to explain to a non-data-geek, this feeling of Christmas-morning excitement that comes with peeling back the covers on a new set of data, but it’s real, and like Santa Claus and his reindeer, it’s magical. Seeing the relationships leap out from the data, seeing real data that support the story of that business, sitting the on the screen, raw and full of potential - it’s the same feeling I got as a kid when a new set of Lego bricks emerged from under the wrapping paper.

Or that Ralphie had when he unwrapped that official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred-shot range model air rifle.

And, at least with data, I’m not gonna shoot my eye out.