warm data

We are, each and every one of us, a collection of our lived experiences. Our lived experiences shape us, how we interact with the world, and how we live in the world. And our experiences are valid.

Can even the most unfathomable statistic feel real if it's not accompanied by a singular human's story? We need both stories and stats. The hyper-personal and the sense of scale.

The deep knowledge about a place is most likely held by farmers and engaged locals. But it is not likely to be in a form demanded by policymakers to substantiate calls for spending. It’s not just about quantifying, it’s about qualitative data of the kind that amounts to a form of collective intelligence.”

It teaches them that data is created, not found; and that creating it well demands humanity, rather than objectivity

I've had a few tear-my-hair-out moments while trying to figure out how to incorporate statistics in my book. On one hand, they give a piece of nonfiction writing some heft. With a topic as big and broad as adulthood, the appearance of a number says, "Hey, don't take my word for it! This is quantifiable !" But as a reader, my eyes glaze ov

despite the undeniably consistent picture that we see across studies of scientific data collection, the desire to remove the human from the data in order to enhance objectivity remains very strong. Invariably, it seems like the ethical move.

“When we gear our society around efficiency, we produce more and more of the measurable, while the immeasurable, the qualitative, and the things we don’t think to measure drain away. Bedazzled by quantitative abundance, we might not be able to see what is lost, but we can definitely feel its absence.”