Allotments and data metaphor

The week we had the first lockdown in the UK was the the day I handed back my allotment. I’d had it for about 3 years and had only managed to grow raspberries from the canes that were there when I took the plot on, and weeds, lots of weeds. I’d spent a lot of time weeding. I was pretty good at it. I managed to clear the entire plot by the day I handed it back so that I could claim back my deposit. Of course I hadn’t completely wiped out all the weeds, that’s nigh on impossible, but it was pretty weed-free to the casual onlooker and so I earned that deposit back and that made me happy.

A few weeks before I’d been accused by my neighbouring plot holder of “scratting” about on the allotment and “letting the side down”. He was absolutely right. While he was tending two plots, producing cabbages the size of your head and more potatoes than would be needed by a family of four for a year, I’d “scratted”. To be fair I feel like I was a great scratter (if that’s even a word) because I weeded by hand and avoided chemicals. But nobody really cares for weeders. They admire the fruits of people labours, all those colours and shapes. Even a half plot of cabbages is quite a beautiful sight but my plot always looked derelict and deserted, littered as it was with weeds and brown patches where I’d cleared the ground. His plots still had weeds of course, lots of them, but people don’t see those. They see the stuff he grows and they obscure those weeds.

My work often feels like that allotment. I clear away the mess and tidy the data to start the process of analysis, the growing. From that cleared data all sorts of things could be grown: dashboards, data visualisations and statistical analysis are but a few. Of course there will always be weeds in there, and most people won’t see them, but the data analysts and scientists will know they are in there; often just lurking under the surface. They know that, like the seasons, the data cleaning will always come around again no matter how many datasets you manage to “weed”. But, unlike the allotment where the weeding was only for my benefit, the weeding of data is often for the benefit of others.

Thumbnail photo of gardening tools in a pot near gloves by Gary Barnes from Pexels