Data is omnipresent and omniscient, we just need to collect it and decipher it to make fruitful use of it. Data is still collected and used but often people treat data as sacrosanct and gather it only for valuable and important functions. This is because data collection and data mining are still costly affairs. Competition in this area will soon make it economical, in fact, dirt cheap and then Data will take the seat of 'The God'.
Someone rightly said anything that can be measured, can be improved. Let's drop the sacrosanct aura behind Data and make it widely available, reliable, and widely used. Data needs to be collected for every possible measurable thing. Let's collect it for time-cost usage of the toll bridge, usage of a particular road lane wrt time, traffic pattern, ATM usage, stationary usage in a company, usage of a company pantry, productivity pattern wrt to days/months/festivals/mood, and data for every other imaginable thing. The more you collect data, the more you analyze, the more you implement things based on data, and the cycle goes on. Collect data in your daily personal life, collect it in your business, and urge your employer to do it.
Though Market forces (primarily demand and supply) will weed out or flourish products/services, market forces are continental-drift slow. Data will prevent mistakes or make amends faster by highlighting the glitches asap.
Data should and will be widely published and should not be stashed by some proprietary behemoth. Now Atheists and Agnostics have something to believe in.
PS: This post was originally posted on hoodasaurabh.blogspot.com