Last night, I participated in another webinar on data. Multiple speakers used the term “data is the new oil.” It is not. I thought it might be useful to republish this piece from April 2019 on why data should not be compared to anything, because faulty analogies lead to flawed policy responses. Data is data. Not oil. Not, as the piece states, avocados or pears, not oxygen or fuel.…[Reposted content] He was specifically referring to a saying that “data is the new oil.” Such a description has become commonplace, especially among government officials. There is a reason why this description resonates. Oil helps lubricate the economy. Data, in a digital world, does something similar. Oil needs to be processed. On its own, oil has little utility. Data, in form of raw bits and pieces of information, has limited use. But as Søndergaard suggested, data is not like oil. For one thing, oil doesn’t go anywhere. It sits in the ground until it is brought up and used. It can be used all at once or just some at a time while the rest remains waiting. Oil can be stored forever (or at least for a very long time) without significant problems. Data, by contrast, is like an avocado. It has a clearly defined shelf-life. Data collected and used too early is pointless. Data harvested too late is often of no use at all.