We talk about data constantly and understand it poorly. Not technically but culturally.

Alf Rehn wrote about this recently. Data is “recorded difference fixed for operational use. ” Tree rings, cuneiform tablets, your postcode, your browsing history, the gap where your medical record should be.

That last one is the point. The gap is also data and its absence is structural, not accidental.

Data does not emerge neutrally: it follows desire – for profit, for power, for operational control. Where desire is absent, collection stops and Rehn calls these data deserts. These are not a technical failure but a consequence of how accumulation works.

Thinking about Rehn’s essay, I realised organisations reproduce this logic without noticing. Learning systems follow intensity: high-potential groups, priority functions, and measurable roles. The work and learning which is invisible to the system doesn’t get developed and capability that cannot be recorded does not get recognised.

Rehn’s argument is not only about Big Tech but it maps directly onto organisational life and the L&D approach to ‘skills gaps’.

Where are the data deserts in your picture of your workforce? What decisions are you making as if those gaps do not exist?