Post-data measures the past. Pre-data shapes the event.

distinction — attributed to Colja Dams

Dams describes three eras of event data. The no-data era, when nobody collected anything and success meant a photograph on the front page. The post-data era, when everyone collected data after the event but the world had moved on by the time it arrived; run the same event with the same people six months later and the data was essentially useless. And the pre-data era, the current moment, where a synthetic model of the audience gives a client predictive intelligence before the event rather than retrospective measurement after it. The distinction reframes what event data is for: not proving what happened, but deciding what to build.

For event teams building measurement programs. The question that sorts the two modes: does this data arrive in time to change the event it describes, or only in time to describe it.

data-eras, measurement, predictive-intelligence, event-analytics