A while  back Stephen Few argued that data can not be described as being beautiful. At that point in time I did not agree to this statement. I do think data can be beautiful, but as the term “smart data” is popping up more and more I find myself unable to use this term to describe data. Am I being a hypocrite? Can data be beautiful, but not smart?

To me data is one of the dumbest things out there, it just exists. Data on it’s own creates absolutely nothing, it wouldn’t even have existed if someone didn’t create it. So even though I find myself saying that data can be beautiful I don’t like the term smart data. Data can be structured, organized and formatted beautifully, but being smart? No!

By stating that data is smart we take away the credit from many people who works with data each day. Smart people, really smart people! They are the ones that deserves the credit for all the amazing things data can be used for, not the data itself. Do we call trees smart just because we can do amazing things with them? No, but the inventors of paper, housing and so on they were geniuses!

Give credit where credit is due. Data is lazy, it would lie on the couch all day if it could. The people that works with data on the other hand and gets the data up from the couch and creates amazing products and services with it, they do all the dirty work and should also get all the glory!