Data Dashboards Are Making Communicators Dumber
Not long ago, we walked into a pitch with a regional brand team. They proudly showed us their “cutting-edge” PR dashboard: a glossy interface packed with charts, graphs, and numbers that spun and updated in real time. It looked impressive. But five minutes in, we asked a simple question: “So, what decisions are you making based on this data?” Silence. The truth is most dashboards are beautiful distractions. They count clicks, mentions, impressions, and sentiment scores; but rarely tie those metrics back to business outcomes. Worse, they give leaders a false sense of control: as if more colourful charts somehow equal smarter strategy. In practice, we’ve seen teams paralysed by dashboards. They obsess over vanity spikes (“Look! Engagement’s up 35% this week!”) but can’t explain whether customer trust actually improved, whether stakeholders feel reassured, or whether sales conversations got easier. That gap -- between what’s tracked and what actually matters -- is where communicators los...