The game of telephone, is simply data management. It starts at the source, with quality data, and then, through multiple steps in the process, gets to the end user who has something completely different to say.

Data is simply information, and data management is simply the maintaining of that information.

For years, I have worked in some form of data management. Whether it was in college, working in data collection, entry and sorting, to then working at a hospital in sorting data and maintaining my own database on safety events.

Very quickly, you learn that data runs the world.

With this experience, it now seems trivial when I look back at the goals I have been trying to achieve and how I have not been applying or tracking the data in it.

“I want to lose weight, I want to save money, I don’t know where my money goes, and I have my goal and I don’t know how to reach it”

All these simple goals and questions can be answered by looking at data, and then adjusting your behavior of the data.

Even if you know where things go, such as wasting your money on eating out all the time, seeing the hard data of exactly how much you spend, will maybe help jolt you awake! Even better, it shows you how re-allocating your funds can further another goal you have.

But it doesn’t just work for money, it works for other goals too.

By using the data you already have, and then projecting and tweaking your future decisions based off of this information, will actually allow you to accomplish your goal.

So get out there, lay out your goals, and get after it.

-Lil Kevy