Ireland’s failure to be an economy and society which is as effective as it is rich isn’t just down to the quality of our elected representatives or officials it’s largely the result of having probably the worst data sets and analysists in the developed world. We’re absolutely useless at collecting raw numbers, collating them and understanding them so to be able to plan a successful economy and society.
Add in to that estate agents asking for all kinds of personal information over email, guaranteed to not be stored securely.
Both Daft and MyHome are private companies with a vested interest in the Irish property market. I always find it odd to see data from these companies mentioned on RTE news.
A lot of data is needed to support good decision making but there are dangers, traps and fallacies around getting data. The first trap I have hit: gathering data is not something you can do for free. You can’t just use your existing staff and have them spend 10% of your time gathering data, you will be at least 10% less productive and you won’t improve a thing and annoy everyone.
The biggest danger though is that changing the data becomes the goal rather than the result. There used to be a practice of moving long term unemployed people off the register by saying they had a mental condition. It got used as way to reduce unemployment figures.
But Ireland does really start to get on this sort of stuff. The government had a policy of limiting the number of houses built to match the projected population growth. The population grew by more than expected and less houses were built than expected. This carried on for years.
5 comments
Ireland’s failure to be an economy and society which is as effective as it is rich isn’t just down to the quality of our elected representatives or officials it’s largely the result of having probably the worst data sets and analysists in the developed world. We’re absolutely useless at collecting raw numbers, collating them and understanding them so to be able to plan a successful economy and society.
Add in to that estate agents asking for all kinds of personal information over email, guaranteed to not be stored securely.
Both Daft and MyHome are private companies with a vested interest in the Irish property market. I always find it odd to see data from these companies mentioned on RTE news.
A lot of data is needed to support good decision making but there are dangers, traps and fallacies around getting data. The first trap I have hit: gathering data is not something you can do for free. You can’t just use your existing staff and have them spend 10% of your time gathering data, you will be at least 10% less productive and you won’t improve a thing and annoy everyone.
The biggest danger though is that changing the data becomes the goal rather than the result. There used to be a practice of moving long term unemployed people off the register by saying they had a mental condition. It got used as way to reduce unemployment figures.
But Ireland does really start to get on this sort of stuff. The government had a policy of limiting the number of houses built to match the projected population growth. The population grew by more than expected and less houses were built than expected. This carried on for years.
Why don’t the CSO do this job?
Seems obvious when you think about it.