Welcome to Datadoodle, where storytelling goes to work
Datadoodle speaks with a distinctive voice in the data industry by focusing on the human side of technology rather than just the technical specifications.
Since launching in 2008, Datadoodle positioned itself at what founder Ted Cuzzillo calls "the fraught fault line between data technology and the people who use it." While most industry coverage fixated on features and vendor announcements, Cuzzillo consistently examined how real people actually work with data tools - their frustrations, resistance, and occasional breakthroughs.
His early posts reveal prescient observations about problems the industry still grapples with. In 2008, he was already noting how executives preferred coffee and muffins to keynote presentations until someone started telling stories with the Southwest Airlines case. That insight about storytelling's power became central to his coverage years before "data storytelling" became industry orthodoxy.
The archive shows Datadoodle evolving alongside the industry's hype cycles - from the "big data" fervor through visualization's rise to today's AI promises. But Cuzzillo's perspective remained consistent: skeptical of vendor claims, attentive to user experience, and focused on the gap between marketing promises and messy reality.
His coverage of civic technology and smart cities represented another unique angle, examining how data initiatives actually affect communities rather than just celebrating technological possibilities.
Perhaps most significantly, Datadoodle served as a bridge between the technical community and business users who were often overwhelmed by tools marketed as "easy to use" but requiring substantial expertise. Cuzzillo amplified voices questioning whether organizations truly wanted to be "data driven" and whether resistance to analytics might be rational rather than ignorant.
In an industry prone to breathless enthusiasm about each new trend, Datadoodle offered something rarer: thoughtful skepticism grounded in understanding how people actually work.
