Data Influences Decision Making

In the case of IDEO, data influences decision making in how they innovate for their new products. They have people from many different areas of expertise and study, such as biology, engineering, business, linguists, marketing experts, psychologists, and much more. They use all of their personal information from their areas of study to their full advantage when brainstorming ideas for their successful products. They do all of their research on things, such as the revamping of a shopping cart, and knowing that when it gets windy out, a shopping cart has been clocked at 35 MPH. With this data, they decided to use a completely different type of structure for the shopping cart so that if it does hit into your car, there can be minimal damage done. They also look at the danger factors that shopping carts pose to children who go shopping with their parents, and what they could do to minimize those dangers to children. This danger concern was brought to their attention by data presented by one of the women who made it important to know that many children are hospitalized from accidents with shopping carts while their parents are too busy looking for their items. Another thing that IDEO looked at in this example was the rate of theft for shopping carts-who knew that shopping carts would be stolen anyway. Because they used shopping baskets in the new design, stealing the cart would be useless because you can’t use it without the baskets, which would be collected after your items are bagged and hung on the hooks that surround the frame of the cart.

IDEO harbors the use of data to make their decisions in their company and look at all of their options before making the best decision, they weigh out the benefits for each thing and actually vote on what they think is the best. They use all of their minds and put them together to make the best product with all of their resources. The use of everyone’s ideas from the top prototypes for shopping carts, provided a completely different outlook on grocery shopping for everyone. They took the preconceived notion of what we would say to be a “normal” shopping cart and turned it into a completely different look, and idea on shopping. By taking into account all of the data that they were presented with, such as crowds in the store, they were able to show how grocery shopping doesn’t really have to be so stressful like it usually seems. Having the ability of leaving the cart behind and going through your desired aisle with a basket allows for less crowded aisles and happier people, because they won’t be waiting for some inconsiderate person to move their bulky carriage out of the way or get bumped into by one because the soccer mom was rushing to get to her kids game. There is one drawback of this though – what if someone decides that they see your cart unattended and they are a huge asshole and steal some of your merchandise out of the baskets?

As a whole I think that data always influences decision making especially when it is provided in bulk. Another example of this could be the Holocaust. Sounds crazy I know, but the amount of data provided to the Germans to turn against the Jews during this time was unaccountable. Propaganda was everywhere and it drastically changed the view that Germans previously saw when they looked at Jews. In my opinion the data that was provided was absolutely absurd from what I have learned in my seminar, and the fact that views were changed so drastically without question to these accusations is beyond me.