The environment today - data collection without consent and transparency - has limited our collective trust in technology, big data and the platforms that own and collect much of the digital datapoints about our lives. This reticence is well earned, for two key reasons. First, we are all inherently wary of the unknown. No one particularly afraid of the silly ad for shoes that follows you around the internet, but since you don’t know how that ad is finding you and who is responsible for serving it, you are left to wonder, “What do they know about me? What data of mine is out there? Who has it?” None of those questions generate feelings of comfort and security.

Second, since data & measurement technologies aren’t transparent about their collections, methods, and results, they are often granted the task of coming up with the decisions and outcomes from the data they’ve collected. An ad for something you don’t want following you around the internet is a waste of money, and a bad experience for the user but also for the brand that pays for the exposure. Why are such dumb things being done with our data? This is because without data & measurement transparency, we’ve ceded the responsibility of answering “why” and “what should we do” - the role we’d typically ascribe to a coach, teacher or strategist - to the people who collect all of the data.

And while in sports we seem to intuitively understand that coaching is not simply keeping score, we don’t seem to grasp this concept more broadly. The ability to answer the question “what happened” does not make one an expert in using that data to describe what should or could be done. But poor decisions coerced from ill-equipped measurement specialists are not an argument against measurement. Reactions such as “do not track”, the “right to be forgotten”, ad blockers and a myriad of other responses to this situation should certainly be our rights as free citizens, but must also not be mistaken as the answer to improving our lives and solving the problems that the digital information age has yet to solve. We shouldn’t stop collecting information. We shouldn’t stop sharing information. Society was not better off before we had all of this data. This reaction speaks to our instincts and our emotions, but no great coach would ever ask their staff to stop keeping score. We need to lean into measurement as much as ever. But what we need to stop placing the responsibility of answering “why did this happen?” and “what should we do?” on measurement companies, technologies, and practitioners.