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Fishing in a Sea of Information: An Introduction to Find the Data You Need to Get Ahead

Fishing in a Sea of Information: An Introduction to Find the Data You Need to Get Ahead. TEDA Primer on Data By Margaret Drain, Senior Research Associate, HCC 01/11/2011. Knowledge is power. Without data, you’re just guessing.

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Fishing in a Sea of Information: An Introduction to Find the Data You Need to Get Ahead

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  1. Fishing in a Sea of Information: An Introduction to Find the Data You Need to Get Ahead TEDA Primer on Data By Margaret Drain, Senior Research Associate, HCC 01/11/2011

  2. Knowledge is power. Without data, you’re just guessing It will give you critical edge in serving your consumers, patrons and funders to achieve your organization’s goals.

  3. What Information Do You Need? • Categorize your requests in Broad Categories: • Labor Market Information • Higher Education Information • Demographic Information • Reality Information • Economic Information • Combine Your Broad Categories If and Where The Information You Need Overlaps • Narrow Your Overlapped Categories to Address Your Specific Interest • example: Number of College Graduates by Ethnicity in a Specific Professional Field Trained in Gulf Coast Institutions and related Gulf Coast Labor Market Openings Available.

  4. Why Do You Need It? • Objective – Not just anecdotes • Persuasive - Convince the skeptics • Strategic - Make better decisions (what has a better impact?) • Smarter / More Efficient - Operate with less waste • Foundation - Build and develop stronger systems

  5. When Do You Need It? • One Major Limitation with Data is It’s Timeliness • Is the data up to date? • Is dated data all that is available? • What are the costs related to obtaining current data? • Do you know enough about the data to explain what it means?

  6. What DATA exactly is Required? • You need a research question! • What do you want to compare/identify/prove? • Do you know enough about the data to explain what it means? • Can you interpret the data? • Watch out for Data Complications, such as suppressed data, difficult to understand, different formats, different definitions.

  7. Who/Where is Your Best Source? • Another Major Limitation to Data is It’s Source • Not all sources are equal • The broader the source the less detail is available • The narrower the source the less generalizable the results • Select Your Results Margins If/When You Can Before Selecting Your Source. • Don’t Depend on Wikipedia or Google for Everything.

  8. Thanks for Listening and All Your Discussion --Now, Go About Your Data Fishing!

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