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Postsecondary Accountability


The Perkins Pundit

Monday, September 20, 2010

Salt, Oil, and Data as Soil

One of the earliest pure substances of commerce was common salt.  Yep, that shaker on your kitchen table contains something that once played a significant role in the development of human history.  Its importance was connected to its utility in preserving food.  Prior to the industrial revolution, salt was so important to the development of human civilization that any irregularity in supplies or control could be detrimental to the independence of communities.  That is why the Roman Empire concentrated their infrastructure near new salt sources or along salt routs.[i]


Today, oil is critical to the global economy because it is the world’s major source of primary energy, accounting for approximately 39 percent of global energy consumption.  Oil is especially vital to ground, air, and sea transportation, providing approximately 95 percent of all energy used for this purpose.  In addition, it is the basic component for most plastics, pesticides, paints, solvents, and other vital products.  Because oil plays such a critical role in fueling the world economy, any prolonged shortage in its availability can produce a global economic recession, as occurred in 1974 following the Arab oil embargo, 1979 following the Iranian revolution, and 1990 following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.[ii]


At one time, salt played a dominate role in determining the power and location of the world’s great cities; it created and destroyed empires.  Through innovation and the industrial revolution the relative importance of salt in the world has waned significantly.  Today, oil is arguably as vital to our national security as was salt to the world of antiquity.  Yet, again we are undergoing a radical change in innovation, an information revolution. This raises the question, might the fuel of today’s innovation, data, radically demote the role of oil in the world?


In a lecture delivered by David McCandless discussing data visualization, he shared that as a data journalist he regularly hears people proclaim, “Data is the new oil” – it is a resource that we can shape to provide new innovation and can be mined very easily.  However, he prefers a slight twist on the slogan to instead read, “Data is the new soil”.  David sees data as a fertile, creative medium for “growing” visualizations to enhance our understanding.[iii]


Unlike salt and oil, data is not a commodity.  It is not fungible, that is, it is not equivalent regardless of who produces it.  In this respect, I agree with David.  Data today more resembles soil than oil, it is quite fertile in some places, nearly barren in others, and it is the element from which we produce meaningful and valuable inferences.  Data in and of itself has no intrinsic value, its worth is rooted in how effectively and efficiently it can be utilized or reutilized.  But from this new soil, a digital soil, may grow the commodities of the future.  And, perhaps, as a result, years from now our successors will look at oil as today we look at salt – just a feature on the kitchen table.


In the coming weeks we plan to launch a new website – NCE Data & Research.  Here, we intend to offer an array of Perkins related data visualizations as a way to embrace the idea shared a few weeks ago;  “If data is to promote and inform accountability it must be well understood, and for data to be understood it must be simple – that is, accessible, palatable and, dare I say, fun.”  


Until next week…

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