a data system is a hypothesis about the world

A file system is an expression of how you see the world.

Which things are like other things? Which things are different? Which categories are important? Which are unimportant?

Organizations have trouble creating a file system that works for everyone, because everyone sees the world differently.

And because they think a file system is objective. It should just “make sense.”

Each person’s file system makes sense to that person, because it’s aligned with that person’s worldview, habits and preferences.

Yet it seems objective, because it’s just… files.

The most frustrating thing for me as a “data person” (who is also a writer, a storyteller, a “leader” and a “program person”) is that people think data structures are objective.

They aren’t.

A database is an expression of how you see the world. A file system is an expression of how you see the world.

Get everyone on the same page about how they see the world of your group’s work, and the structure will emerge from that clarity.