Making the most of a mountain

But leaving aside the implications for the journalism industry, the article raises an excellent point:

"The role of reporters today should be to act as 'silo busters' who can acquire information from diverse sources and present it in context ... for journalists, it's now about connecting, synthesizing and analyzing."

This, in a nutshell, is how data should be viewed and treated by everyone. With data collection and analytics now vital to any business, most companies generate data as a matter of course that can tell compelling stories about their organisation or industry. However in addressing the media or a wider audience, simply cherry-picking a few figures is unlikely to have much impact, as numbers in isolation are essentially meaningless. For example, sales might have rose 125%, but off what kind of base? And 70% of your customers may be repeat clients, but how does that compare to the industry average?

An organisation that sifts through data to identify and shed light on longer-term trends, however, can use it to position itself as an authority with plenty to say not only about its field, but wider issues. And this applies to just about everybody; a logistics firm, for example, will have intelligence on the state of infrastructure where it operates; an online florist could easily produce some tongue-in-cheek findings on the state of romance in the various markets it ships to. Teasing a story out of data doesn't necessarily require computer scientists or costly analytics engines; often it's a more matter of working with the right partners to highlight, repurpose and present existing information in the most engaging possible way. We've used company data to develop everything from research reports to ongoing proprietary indexes, which often produce the kind of rankings and headlines that can compete with the most blatant clickbait (with, of course, a lot more class and intellectual heft).

In a crowded content market, intellectual property is one of the most valuable currencies there is -- and most companies are sitting on a mountain of it. We'd humbly suggest 'connect, synthesise, analyse' works equally well as a mantra for business journalists and the best content programmes.