Signs you are data literate and perfect for data jobs
What is Data Literate? According to Wikipedia, Data Literacy is the ability to read, work, analyse, and argue with data.
So Data Literate means you have Data Literacy knowledge or act on one.
Data Literacy also tells the capability to do a job involving data.
There are many ways to measure literacy, of course. Although, here are my signs to see from people if they are Data Literate.
1. You communicate your point well
Do you understand what things are shown to you and how you should communicate them to others?.
One sign that I see for data literate people is that they could deliver their points well.
No over-complicated explanation, just merely the critical point.
Albert Einstein has quoted,
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. — Albert Einstein
2. You are not easily overwhelmed by information
Data is everywhere, and you could easily drown in it.
Just take an example in the pandemic situation right now. We have a lot of information regarding COVID-19, from the disease information, economic suffering from the pandemic, and how to wash your hands.
Information overwhelmed could cause you to ignore many important things and get distracted by others.
While working with the data, we always need to remember the business question and what information is essential.
3. You take action based on data
The importance of Data Literacy is that you can understand the data and take action based on the information.
While there is so much information out there, you could process the data well in your head to take any action based on that.
For example, you want to buy a computer from an online store. You see, there are many choices out there, so what you do first is, “What kind of Laptop do I need?”;
You could say it is for gaming purposes; then, you try to find on the internet which one is the best gaming laptop but within your budget.
How do you define best? You could try to set it by many good reviews, so you open many tech websites to see other people’s reviews. You were collecting the review and decided the best based on the data.
The above process is like defining the problem (gaming) and the scope (budget) -> collecting data (reviews) -> taking action.
4. You are fast to act but not too fast
Businesses move fast; the business decision needs to move even quicker. What makes things uncertain is when to act.
Acting too soon when we have less data is certainly reckless, but waiting to have a lot of data may be too late.
The decision of when to act is what Data Literacy needs. That is why the need to respond to change quickly is an essential mindset for Data scientists.
Take an example in dating; you could say it’s reckless if you propose marriage to someone you know for a few days, although waiting too long to make a move could mean that someone could be taken by the other.
You might want to collect enough data about the other person to decide if you’re going to take a step further or not.
By “enough”, it could be anything; it might be your values or physical characteristics.
If I make it into a business analogy, you might say the “enough” part is the essential part of your business data that need to be fulfilled before you take action.
5. You are interested in data
While some people are so overwhelmed by the data, some ignore it bluntly.
They did not care what happened in the world and did not even try to catch up with the latest information.
It is expected that data-literate people would be interested in data. I did not mean that they need to start mining data everywhere, but it is like being kept up-to-date with everything.
Speaking of interest in data, I started interested in Data Science when I was studying at DataQuest, as it was my first data science course ever.
Also, some people I know who were data literate are always interested in the art of data visualisation.
They were interested in the data and continuously pursued how to present the data in the most elegant form.
This is because they want the data to be communicated well, and everybody could take valuable information from the data.
6. You argue with data
When you look at the internet comments to look for arguments, you could see many of them are mostly baseless comments or strictly hoax.
It is not much different from real life; in my place, many people would argue only based on their feelings or what they think at the moment, while data-literate people would base their argument on data rather than a baseless object.
In the business environment, the Data person is the driver of the Data-Driven business.
In a Data-Driven business, many elements need to be convinced so that your business Data-Driven (Yeah, a Data-Driven business involves a lot of people who need to be convinced).
The Data person needs to be Data Literate to build a sound argument for that to happen.
Arguing with data is harder than we think because it takes an understanding of the data and communicating it well so the information would be received.
It also takes a big responsibility to argue with data as we need to clarify that the data we have is following the right criteria.
I love to argue with data when the occasion is present, but I would prefer silence if I did not have sufficient evidence.
7. You question things
In a world full of information, you would be bombarded by new data every day. While many are correct, some info is false or just merely irrelevant.
Data literate people would question the information they get; “Is it True or Not?” “It is useful for me or not?” “Do I need this data?” etc.
Data literate people would also be hungry for information; they keep questioning things to acquire new things. It might be something they are interested in or just a random idea suggested by search engines.
Conclusion
I have presented my personal view of the sign that people are data literate or have a talent for one. They communicate well, are not overwhelmed by information, take action using data, argue with data, take action fast enough but not reckless, are interested in data, and question things.