## Metadata - Author: [[Katie Bauer from Wrong But Useful]] - Full Title:: The Next Data Bottleneck - Category:: #🗞️Articles - Read date:: [[2025-12-31]] ## Highlights > what people say want and what they actually do are rarely the same. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdsvqd2ph08rp61g07knkeg1)) > a non-trivial amount of data usage within most companies is posturing. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdsvrzd6rnmst3ze8wewzvv4)) ## New highlights added [[2026-01-01]] > When these people suddenly find themselves with unimpeded access to data, why are they just asking questions that could be answered with, well, a dashboard? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdwx78h7fgtw3kbt0w6cx2rr)) > Where are all the important business questions they’ve supposedly been blocked from asking up until this point? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdwx7b7bwvzb83majeaqhy2w)) > **work.** At any given moment, someone’s priorities are probably already set, shaped more heavily by their functional role or their boss than any chart they they looked at. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdwx7xn1k3etmycvxdgra1vc)) > The ability to determine what data is relevant for a question or task is a genuine skill, hard-won by many data professionals through years of wading through messy data and working with stakeholders to refine a vague question into something quantifiable. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdwx8n792hbsqdaee8dyysak)) > a lot of people don’t know what to do with data once they have it. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdwx9w7qyc9stmpssh0d2ch6)) > Being impactful does not require being a revolutionary, just identifying tractable problems and getting the right people working on them. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdwxb694d3bz6tvxt4ckd26q)) > I think this is the next big bottleneck in the data world: recognizing situations where data can be genuinely clarifying and knowing how to get it into the right state to make it a problem-solving tool². ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdwxbd2fampdaeykt3wqybcq)) > AI will certainly play a role in that, but it’s as much of a tool to be wielded by observant and solutions-oriented people as the data itself. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdwxbh0n7ac6y47wv4bffp1g))