We have been using data to solve problems for millennia. Ancient Sumerian culture used tally sticks to count sheep. John Graunt, a London hat-maker and perhaps the first data nerd, helped authorities fight the bubonic plague in 1651 by collecting data about all the ways people died. (Deaths by Plague: 110. Deaths by Fainting in the Bath: 1.)

So, what’s different now? With personal technology like the PC, and then the smartphone, combined with internet access, our data production exploded. In the U.S., internet penetration broke 80% in 2012. Smartphone penetration reached 80% in 2019. With those advances, internet-connected human beings started producing data about themselves at an astonishing velocity.

Our browsing. Our purchases. Our videos. Our maps. Our messages. Our meetings. As a civilization we are producing data at the rate of 79 zettabytes per year. How can we put that in context? In pure data terms, that’s 35 billion times the works of Shakespeare… every minute. The planet doth protest too much.

Justin Evans, an English major who ended up working a 20-plus-year career as a marketing and advertising data professional, shares insights from his experience and through his interviews with other data people and how they solve problems. Turn to The Little Book of Data to better understand how the current data revolution impacts us all, learn how to spot the opportunities as well as the dangers that our increasing reliance on data poses, and eventually even become data people ourselves.