Connecting Bits, Words and People

As the head of my university’s computer science department, I try to keep a protective eye on many students. One of them recently visited me for the first time and asked for help. I inquired whether he was a new student, and he answered that this was in fact his third year at the university but he had only passed a few courses and was at serious risk of being terminally suspended. So I checked his transcript to identify his problem and was shocked by what I saw. Why had he not sought help earlier? His answer was that he previously had bad experiences with two different advisers and thought no one could ever help him. I wondered aloud what had gone wrong with them, and he said in a melancholy way, “They did not care to listen or help!” 

“Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.”  ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Most of my work at the university revolves around communication(s). Communication and communications are two similar words—differing only with the letter “s”—but their usages are quite different. While communication relates mainly to connecting people through speech and words, the latter relates to connecting electronic devices through the transmission of bits.

As I teach Computer Network courses, work as the department head and dispense academic advice, I frequently cross the boundaries between the two different worlds of communication, exchanging knowledge, skills and wisdom between these two worlds; I will explain how I do so.

The basic foundation of both communication and communications is about creating a link between two entities. The quality of that connection is highly dependent on the predisposition of the entities involved. After establishing the connection, one of the entities starts to talk while the other needs to listen. So here again, whether the second node is listening or just hearing makes a big difference in the overall connection. 

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." — Jimi Hendrix

Now, let me go beyond establishing a link to creating a reliable network among the involved members. By means of an analogy with basic computer network protocols, I can state that creating a network requires the following tasks:

• Connect with everyone, one person at a time, listen well and learn about their status. 
• Synchronize the connections; make sure that people can understand each other.
• Balance the flow of information and ensure that no one is overwhelmed with the sent data or requested jobs.
• Be constantly aware of the possible occurrence of errors and give a helping hand in solving them.
• Be the glue among the different members, and create a resilient and efficient inter-network in spite of any possible differences.
• Provide a good interface to the external world by using all available modes of interconnection and social media.

I enjoy my work greatly because it enables me to move constantly between the two realms of communication and allows me to have a high level of interaction. Students talk to me, and I listen intently and empathize with them. They share with me their joy and problems. When I take time to listen, it's amazing what I can learn from what they say and most importantly what they haven’t said.

Part of being a good communicator, or a superconnector as we call it now, is the ability to accept others for who they are and acknowledge that we are all different in the way we perceive the world, in what we like or dislike.  It is also important to let others feel that they are not alone, we care for them and they can trust us. In this way, they can talk to us freely and their problems become less overwhelming and manageable. Just like my student who decided to change his major after our discussion and promised to keep coming for advice and help. 

“Let's remind ourselves that being alive requires an effort far greater than the simple fact of breathing." — Pablo Neruda

Seeing the Big Picture

In my role as a professor, there is something I do at the beginning of each semester. The first class of any course is devoted to informing my students of just what the course entails: I give them the big picture. Depending on its clarity the students decide whether to take or drop the course. 

“When leadership brings clarity, decisions become unmistakable.” –Lolly Daskal

In every aspect of our daily lives we are bombarded by data from every direction. We can’t use all the data we collect, but we apply our own intelligence and judgment when a decision has to be made. Our brains have to process this influx of disjointed data, editing them as we go. This is facilitated by our intuition and imagination.

As with visual information where one can visualize a picture even though some of the pixels are missing, our imagination is used to fill in the gaps in the available patterns of non-visual data, letting us draw conclusions and make judgments based on uncertain and incomplete information. How accurate is the big picture that we are drawing? To what degree is it influenced by our moods and other subjective factors?

“One person’s data is another person’s noise.” – K.C. Cole 

Data are instances of basic events and existences. The one that is favored tends to survive and matures just like wine. Storytelling is a major way to help us render data meaningful, as it provides a soul and context to our data. 

Things get done only if the data we gather inform and inspire us and others. Our goal, therefore, is to turn data into information, and information into insight. However, with too little data, we are unable to make any conclusion that we trust. Even with loads of data, some inferences may not be correct. Collecting a mountain of data should not be the goal; it’s to create a clear and trustworthy big picture that matters. 

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley 

What is now called “big data” has become part of everyone’s life. Current communication systems ravenously collect information about people and businesses. We all have volunteered volumes of our personal data through social media services in addition to loads of geo-spatial data arising from the tracking of our smart phones. 

Big data can be used for the extraction of some generalities that are useful in some social and business fields. For instance, the discovery of previously unknown market segments, such as men driving home from work stop to buy diapers and beer.

However, Big Data is not only about the extraction of generalities it could identify individuals, their names, birth dates, and take advantage of this particular information. An unfortunate scenario is when the collected data leads to information falsely associated with us such as when a credit agency refuses to give us a loan because we wrongly fit an obscure violation model.

Also big data could be used to analyze current and historical facts and behavior to make predictions about future events. An embarrassing example for predictive analysis is when social media services know that your daughter is pregnant before you do.

Tell the story

Hence, in order to bring our data to life we need to effectively tell its story. Big data storytelling, like any other kind of storytelling, has certain rules that can determine its success or failure. Here are the four most important ones:

1. Concentrate on the essence of your story and skip the unnecessary details. Simplify and combine data. “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” –Hans Hofmann
2. Disregard the obvious as no one is interested in simple facts. "He who would search the pearls must dive below." – John Dryden
3. Summarize don't refine or twist facts to suit your own theories. There is a natural tendency to exploit big data and ignore that it’s illegal to misuse it. This can result in faulty inferences with some potential negative outcomes that could extend far beyond the individual, but to affect the social, economic, and political sectors.
4. Empathize with your audience. Finish your story within the time limit and let go even if it’s not perfect. Old information is of little if any value. Remember, your readers can always extrapolate from your story.

Successful interpretation of big data requires efficient storytelling. Without a human interface, data will only be a major source of confusion and false interpretation. It’s up to us to know how, why and when to use it.