What exactly is ‘Data’ and why do we need to be mindful of it?
It’s been quite some time now since we have been hearing this word ‘Data’ in our daily lives. Most of us might hear the mention of this word at least once a day. So, what exactly is it and why is it still a hot topic after quite some time now?
In the simplest of terms, Data is basically the bits of information which all of us living on this planet are producing every second. That sounded big, right? That is exactly what it is. According to a recent study conducted by Finances Online, the amount of data generated solely in 2022 will reach around 94 zettabytes by the end of this year. That is how big of a topic it is.
Why exactly should we be mindful of it?
The rule of success is to be mindful of all of the circumstances that can either hinder our success or pave a way clear for it. If we are aware of the situation, we can definitely make better decisions that can in turn help us grow. This is exactly the job of the data. It is produced by us, for us. It makes us aware of the situation and gives us exact facts and figures and makes us intelligent enough to potentially make better decisions.
How to be mindful of the data?
This is the step that requires our efforts. The data which is being generated every minute by all of us, in its raw form it isn’t much of a help. It is not understandable. In order to make that data useful and beneficial for us, we need to clean it and remove the ambiguities and abnormalities from it and convert it into the form which is meaningful for our studies and deductions. In other words, we need to work on the data and convert it to a form which would serve our purpose.
How to work on the data?
The data which is big in size and which serves a certain organization is stored in a proper manner and this proper store house of the data in technical terms is called as a database. All the working that we perform on this data is performed within that database. We have a number of tools and languages available to communicate with that data within the database and engineer and structure it according to our needs. The one that I am going to demystify in my blog today is SQL. So, let’s begin.
What is SQL?
SQL stands for “Structured Query Language”. This is the language with which we communicate with the data stored within the database and apply different operations on it. Using SQL, firstly, we can perform all the necessary cleaning required to make the data readable and secondly, we can enhance our data and add a lot of new values and features to our data. Data, in any organization is the most valuable asset. It can be a cause of a huge success of an organization if handled with intelligence as well as it can also be a cause of a downfall if not handled with proper privacy and security.
