Showing posts with label Connect the Dots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Connect the Dots. Show all posts

September 14, 2018

Actual From Abstract

A colleague's daughter drew this. 

At first glance, I wasn't sure what I was looking at. 

Do you see what it is?

At first, I was thinking something a little alien perhaps. 

But there it is right in front of you.

It's the head, ears, nose, and tusks of an elephant. 

I really like the abstractness of this art. 

All from simple circles, and voila you have an elephant. 

Look carefully at what you think you see, and let your mind put the whole picture together. 

That's how you come to the actual from the abstract! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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May 1, 2018

Information Is Power

Just wanted to share something I heard and liked about data and information:
"Everything is a record, record, record
in a table, table, table."
Can everything in life really be reduced to lines of records, with fields of data in tables of information?

This is the information age!

Analytics and Big Data rule!

Knowledge is power!

In any conflict, we seek information dominance and supremacy!

Artificial intelligence is the future!

Records are unique with their own sys.id.

Creativity and innovation are also records in the table--even if they are the one in a million. 

The more records and tables--the more dots and connections between them--the more intelligence we can glean. 

Yes, everything is a record, record, record in a table, table, table. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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September 27, 2017

A Mountain Of Data

So I heard this interesting perspective on information and data analytics...

Basically, it comes down to this: 
"Most organizations are data rich, but information/insight poor."

Or put another way:
"Data is collected, but not used."

Hence we don't know what we don't know and we end up making bad decisions based on poor information. 

Just imagine if we could actually make sense of all the data points, connect them, visualize them, and get good information from them.

How much better than a pile of rocks is that? 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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February 2, 2015

Design Is Cool

I took this photo of this Design logo on the side of a bag this guy was carrying. 

It is from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in NYC (and if I am ever back in town there, I'd like to go there).

I like this logo a lot...everything from DE*SIGN to all the descriptions of design and why it's so important to us.

- "Design is art people use." (Design is artisitic and creative)

- "Design is communication." (A picture is worth a thousand words)

- "Design is the stuff around us." (It's practical and functional)

- "Design is a verb." (Design is something we do from coming up with the concept to creating the end product)

- "Design is systems." (Design is how we format and package and is integral to making the content easy to use and come alive)

- "Design is a way of thinking." (Design is big-picture thinking that connects the dots)

- "Design is problem-solving." (Design uses visualization to understand and think through process and problems). 

A good designer is invaluable and design is absolutely cool. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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March 27, 2013

Big Data, Correlation Or Causation?

Gordon Crovitz wrote about Big Data in the Wall Street Journal (25 March 2013) this week.

He cites from a book called "Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think," an interesting notion that in processing the massive amounts of data we are capturing today, society will "shed some of its obsession for causality in exchange for simple correlation."

The idea is that in the effort to speed decision processing and making, we will to some extent, or to a great extent, not have the time and resources for the scientific method to actually determine why something is happening, but instead will settle for knowing what is happening--through the massive data pouring in.

While seeing the trends in the data is a big step ahead of just being overwhelmed and possibly drowning in data and not knowing what to make of it, it is still important that we validate what we think we are seeing but scientifically testing it and determining if there is a real reason for what is going on. 

Correlating loads of data can make for interesting conclusions like when Google Flu predicts outbreaks (before the CDC) by reaming through millions of searches for things like cough medicine, but correlations can be spurious when for example, a new cough medicine comes out and people are just looking up information about it--hence, no real outbreak of the flu. (Maybe not the best example, but you get the point). 

Also, just knowing that something is happening like an epidemic, global warming, flight delays or whatever, is helpful in situational awareness, but without knowing why it's happening (i.e. the root cause) how can we really address the issues to fix it?

It is good to know if data is pointing us to a new reality, then at least we can take some action(s) to prevent ourselves from getting sick or having to wait endlessly in the airport, but if we want to cure the disease or fix the airlines then we have to go deeper, find out the cause, and attack it--to make it right. 

Correlation is good for a quick reaction, but correlation is necessary for long-term prevention and improvement. 

Computing resources can be used not just to sift through petabytes of data points (e.g. to come up with neighborhood crime statistics), but to actually help test various causal factors (e.g. socio-economic conditions, community investment, law enforcement efforts, etc.) by processing the results of true scientific testing with proper controls, analysis, and drawn conclusions.


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August 1, 2010

A Peek at The Future of Information Search, Analysis, and Visualization

I am not endorsing any vendor or product, but here's an impressive video on what Recorded Future is doing with what they call a "Temporal Analytics Engine" to analyze open source information on the web as well as structured data sources.

This goes way beyond search as we do it today--this is a look into the future of iterative search, link analysis, information visualization (both temporally and spatially), and predictive analytics.

The video shows an example of how the technology can be used in counterterrorism efforts to "connect the dots" on the bad guys and protect our nation and its people.

Envision many other applications across government (including law enforcement), business, academia...check it out.


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November 27, 2009

Right In Front of Us, but We Are Blind to It

Last week, there was a 13-year-old boy, with Asperger’s syndrome, who ran away from home and rode away in the NYC subway system for 11 days undetected!!!

The boy went missing with $11 dollars in his pocket. “According to CNN, the boy's mother says he survived on fast food and candy he purchased in the subway system. He spent the majority of his time riding the trains. He wore the same clothes for the duration and lived underground, sleeping in subway cars and using underground restrooms.”

Many people were out looking for this boy, including the police, but neither the searchers nor the extensive surveillance apparatus in New York picked him out. Apparently, no one on the trains reported seeing this kid riding endlessly around 24x7, and the boy was invisible to the myriad of hardworking transit workers and officers who are all over the transit system, until day 11 when finally one officer recognized the boy from his missing picture.

How can a boy be there for almost two weeks, but be seemingly invisible to the thousands of riders and workers passing thru the subway system and what can this teach us about leadership and organizations?

Information Overload—This is truly the information age. We have morphed from not having enough information to being flooded with it and not being able to process it. With the missing boy on the NYC MTA subway system, he was literally lost amidst the more than 5 million riders a day and 468 stations. This is a common situation these days where we have access to stores of information, on databases and through the Internet, yet we frequently struggle to find the golden nuggets of information that really mean something. Post 9-11, our military and intelligence communities are being flooded by sensor information from a vast network of resources, and the challenge now is to find innovative ways to process it quickly and effectively—to find the proverbial “needle in the haystack” and to stop the next potential attack. Our organizations in the public and private sectors need faster, more accurate, and finely tuned systems to find the dots, connect the dots, and see the picture.

Process Matters—According to Digital Journal, “the disappearance was reported to police immediately, who treated it as a runaway. After five days had passed, it was being treated as a missing persons case.” The police were following their processes in handling this little boy, but it resulted in five days passing without the assumed more intense search that occurs with a missing persons case. Lesson to note is that having standardized, documented business processes are important in efficiently managing operations, but we should not get so caught up in the process that we become rigid and inflexible in handling cases according to the specific situation. While I am not an expert in this, the question does come to mind, whether the search for a child with a known disability may have been escalated/elevated sooner? And the point, I am really trying to make is that we need to keep our organizations and processes agile and responsive so that we can act meaningfully and in time.

Break through the Apathy—Having been a former New Yorker (and I suppose, it never truly leaves your blood), I am well aware of the accusations and jokes made about rudeness and apathy from people in the “city that never sleeps.” NY is a tough town, no doubt. The people are quick and sharp. They work and play hard. They are good, productive people. But living in a city with 8.3 million people in one of the most dense urban centers of the world can take a toll. Even with major clean-up efforts in recent years, NYC still has its fair share of crowding, pollution, and crime and this can take a toll on even the best people. I remember daily sights of panhandling, poor and ill people, aggressiveness not limited to the yellow cabbies. I suppose, one disabled boy could get lost amidst the city chaos, but the challenge is to break through the apathy or callousness that can easily overtake people and continue to care for each and every person that needs our help. This is no small challenge in a city with a 21.2% poverty rate (US Census Bureau 1999), let along in a world where 1 in 4 (or 1.3 billion persons) live on less than $1 a day. As leaders, we need to push for caring over apathy and for seeing and acting versus blinding ourselves to the pain and misfortune of others.

Could we have found this little boy sooner? Maybe. Could it have ended a lot worse? For sure.

While this missing persons situation is now over, we need to prepare ourselves for future events and contingencies. We can do this by continuing to create better systems and mechanisms to process information better, faster, and cheaper—it’s not longer just the quantity of information, but the quality and it’s timeliness and relevance; by reengineering our business processes so that we are alert, nimble and responsive—rigid processes lead to hard and fast rules that serve no one; and building camaraderie with one another—seeing that we are more the same, than we are different—and that everyone matters—even a kid underground in a subway system spanning 656 long and winding miles.

And lest anybody think I’m giving New Yorkers a hard time, believe me when I say – it is “the city” that has given me the street smarts to navigate the Beltway and challenge anyone who says that something can’t be done!


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