randomity

Data Alchemist: Turning Information into Facts: Intro

How do you tell if someone knows what they are talking about? How do you know if they’re scamming you, or they are grifters trying to steal your money? Or are they sincere and honest? Or blatant liars?

If you search the internet on this you’ll find all kinds of info on speech patterns, body language, etc., but if you do a deep dive, you’ll find that it takes experts years of study and experience to develop their skills enough to be fairly confident of their opinion, using those methods. It’s a science, not a guide that laymen like you and I can actually use.

How do you discover what’s really going on in a failing department or business?

In watching a video or listening to a speech, how do you know if what they are saying is factual or not?

I’ll show you in a series of articles here, information that you can actually use without years of study or any special skills besides paying attention and using the tips I will share.

Bad Data

Listen to what someone is telling you, and sometimes with a little digging, you’ll be able to tell if the data is valid or not. Heres where many people are going to say, “That’s not right! You can’t tell if what someone is saying is right or wrong without finding out through body language or speech patterns or researching the information myself.” I call Bullshit!

Bad Data Indicator #1
Totalities

“Don’t go there! They always get your order wrong.”
This sentence, if you analyze it, says basically nothing except that the speaker probably had his last order, or maybe even a few orders, messed up there. OR the speaker is possibly mad at the place or the waitress is their ex or a thousand other reasons they could have. But you have to take their opinion with a serious grain of salt.

Let’s break it down. “Always!” Always is a classical example of trying to influence the listener. If they had said, “Don’t go there! Last time I was there, they messed up my order,” then you would not get a false or exaggerated picture and could make your own educated opinion of the place. I seriously doubt that any place actually messes up every single order! Of course I can’t say ‘no place’ gets every order wrong any more than ‘they’ can say that a place always does.

It reminds me of a humorous quote from the great Yankees catcher, Yogi Berra. “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded!”

Other examples of key words to watch for are:

• Nobody/Everybody – Nobody goes there
• Always/Never – They Never get it right
• Everything/Nothing – Nothing is working
• Every/All/None – All my friends say the same thing

Any time you hear someone using these words you can pretty much dismiss what they are saying.
There are very very few times totalities can be true. “Every living person breathes air.” That’s one. Only ridiculously obvious statements can use totalities legitimately. Or perhaps in a Jury or a small group where there’s a vote and it’s unanimous. Any legitimate use of those words should be very obvious.

The person isn’t necessarily TRYING to lie or deceive. It’s human nature to feel like it’s all or none and to express our passionate feelings on the subject, a totality is likely to slip out. Just be aware of the phenomenon and don’t let it sway your thoughts or opinion.
So do yourself a favor. When you hear someone using these words, don’t listen to them or at the very least call them out on it. “Who’s everybody?” “ALL of your customers? You communicated with every single customer you have and they were 100% unanimous?” Etc.