The curved ball

After attending the Data Lab`s Data Festival last week, which included a Data Talent event aimed at employers and students, the Data Summit (over two days) and a range of Fringe events, the value of data in Scotland is clear. There is also major growth happening and a thirst for opportunities in a variety of areas including business, research and urban living.

I was also impressed with the quality of speakers at the Summit. Each one painted a picture of data possibilities, ranging from informing health research and patient care, global use for social good, Using predictive tools, big data has the power to deliver improvements that are informed and evidenced.

However, whilst big data realisation may be the buzz words on the block, where I live and work, in the public sector, this level of possibility is still a distance away. Having the right skills available is only the tip of the iceberg. Data optimisation requires governance, quality assurance, shared standards and sound processing skills. It needs a managed infrastructure that connects data to data, understands those connections, and sees the possibilities for service change and improvement that would improve life for city dwellers. We may want to embrace a data driven society, where our decision making is supported by data analysis but have we the necessary components to do so?

This is starting to happen. Local authorities are understanding that by integrating and analysing data sets previously viewed separately and for single use, they can gain a rich urban understanding that will enable effective decision making, and better tracking and evidencing of change. At a national level, work is underway in Health (Spire) that will begin to build patterns that will give us new knowledge about disease patterns and patients’ treatment not previously possible.

However, there may be a flaw in all of this. Do public sector workers have the right kind of thinking for using data in this way? Data scientists and analysts can model data and give us new insights and potential options, but do we have the knowledge, creative thinking and innovative nerve to seize the opportunity this offers? Limited by budget and driven to be careful of risk, public sector officers must re-think their decision-making processes, and begin to behave more like a commercial business where risk is part of the game, without putting core essential services at risk.

The interesting message I kept hearing throughout Data Fest was the need for building interdisciplinary teams for data work. These teams included data scientists as well as innovators, policy makers, digital makers, designers, partners and knowledge experts. It’s not all about the richness of the data, we need a richness of teams, and a new type of thinking, to make a data driven Scotland a real possibility