When you pick a sports team do you choose each player in order of the best to the worst according to a metric such as the number of goals scored, as a computer algorithm would? Or do you choose your friends?
There are many things that influence our selections – gut-feeling, as well as a personal interpretation of who is the most skilled. Similarly, when you select a product in a supermarket you know that labels and marketing can affect the choice but why you go for one brand over another is not clear.
These subtle influences on our decisions can be described as intangible data, because we cannot at the moment get a grip on them. But the advance of technology may be about to change that.
