Curiosity-Driven, Not Data-Driven
Beth Kanter, Beth's Blog, September 11, 2011.

Beth Kanter raises the question of data-driven decision making in the non-profit sector. Of course, most of us in the public sector in one place or another have had to deal with someone touting data-driven decision making as the only way to move forward. There's a good conversation on G+. Eric Petersen, she writes, prefers the term data-informed. And Kanter herself prefers "curiosity-driven". In a comment, I point out the well-known and oft-repeated fact that all data is theory-laden. The use of data to inform decision-making, therefore, is just another way to use theory to inform decision-making, albeit a less obvious and surreptitious way. I'm not thrilled by the expression "curiosity-driven" because it suggests irrelevance. I think there's a wide set of bases on which to ground decisions, and that it would be a mistake to abstract the process of decision-making from the context in which it occurs. (Hits Today: 1 Total: 1088) [Direct Link] [Tags: Web Logs, Google]

Share |

Comments

Comment



Title
Your comment:
Enter email to receive replies:

Your comments always remain your property, but in posting them here you agree to license under the same terms as this site (CC By-NC-SA). If your comment is offensive it will be deleted.

Automated Spam-checking is in effect. If you are a registered user you may submit links and other HTML. Anonymous users cannot post links and will have their content screened - certain words are prohibited and your comment will be analyzed to make sure it makes sense.