How To Tell Your Kids About Data

Of late, few things make me cringe more than the mischaracterization of the word "data," particularly with regards to its variants in Data Science, Data Analytics, Big Data, and the like. However, I don't fault the perpetrators: data's influence on your life is increasing at a rate much faster than that at which efforts are being made to educate the majority of people on what it is and how it is translated into actionable insights. At this point, most of us realize that properly-leveraged data has many lucrative use-cases. In turn, businesses and organizations are seeking to tap into this movement without always knowing what its tangible benefits will be for their specific operations. I don't mean to echo any Revere-esque rhetoric to the tune of "The Data are coming!