I still recall three years ago attending a workshop on creating data products given by Russell Perkins of InfoCommerce Group. His lets-build-an-almost-real-data-product example came from a government list of certified organic companies that sounded glowingly real and public. He showed us the list, how you can structure the data and add to it, what audience the data can serve, and how to create a product from it.

“’As long as you do not fully understand the behavior of your customers, you will not be able to develop any new products,’ said Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University. Those who develop digital products based on a gut feeling and not on a comprehensive pool of data are flying blindly and can only fail.” —SIIA member Dietmar Schantin of the Institute for Media Strategies writing on the INMA site. Data was one of his five takeaways from a high-profile media workshop he held earlier this year