The idea in The Little Prince —that what is essential is not always visible at first glance— makes me think about how we use data to understand people.
A CRM can tell us when someone contacted a company, what they asked, or when they stopped responding. That is useful information. But it does not always explain what they expected, what made them hesitate, or what had happened before.
As I look at these tools, I wonder whether we sometimes confuse what we can record with everything that is happening. A number describes something specific, but different reasons may lie behind it. And some things, such as an expectation that was never expressed, may never become data at all.
AI can help us find patterns and organise a great deal of information. Even so, the result depends on what we ask and what was recorded. If context is missing, analysing more data does not necessarily bring us closer to understanding.
I do not think we have to choose between data and intuition. I am interested in how we can combine them with research and judgement, without assuming we already understand what another person is experiencing.
For now, I try to pause over these questions: what are we observing, what are we interpreting, and what might be left out?
Perhaps understanding also begins by recognising what we do not yet know.
Eugénie Morant Vermeersch