How not to do data visualization

I was glancing over Hacker News and came across an article from the Economist Daily Chart blog.  The daily chart was about nations debt management.  The following can be shown here.

Seems innocent enough.  It shows in declining order the debt per nation.  What a second?  Why is Ireland have more debt than USA? After reading the article more thoroughly it looks like it is a percentage of GDP.  What a third time?  Is the bar graph the percentage of GDP or the number in the white box a percentage of GDP?  And how does this relate to debt management?  So apparently in the article it explains the change in primary balance for each nation to be 60% of GDP.  So the bar graph is a % change of GDP to get to 60% of GDP.  Are we crystal?  I'm not sure I totally understand but that is my basic understanding.

Data visualization is important in Analytics and Operations Research.  We need to model real world applications quite a lot.  Often times there is no better way to do this than to use a chart or graph.  The real art is conveying the crux of the message to the recipient.  There is an internet meme devoted to the art of bad chart making.  I feel bad using the Economist as an example because after all I did finally (I think) come away with the right idea.  But still notice how there are no data or axis labels across the top of the chart.  Also the numbers in the white boxes are not given any units.  I'm still not sure if those numbers in the white box are a percentage or a debt value.  Sometimes the visual art clutters the real message.  It is important to make sure that recipient has the right frame of reference and can understand each graphic and label.

In Memorium of Dr. Paul Jensen

I received discouraging news last week that we lost a colleague in the Operations Research and INFORMS community.  Dr. Paul Jensen passed away peacefully on April 4, 2011.  Dr. Jensen served a number of years at the Univ. of Texas in Austin as a great contributor to the Operations Research community and researcher.  As recently as 2007 Dr. Jensen was awarded the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of ORMS Practice.

I unfortunately did not know Dr. Jensen personally.  I was first introduced to his ORMM website through my graduate courses at SMU.  The ORMM website is a great resource to help educate the principles of Operations Research methods.  I was also able to use some of his Excel modeling add-ons in practice to demonstrate optimization problems.

Dr. James Cochran is going to hold a special session in memorium of Dr. Jensen.  This message from Dr. Cochran was sent on Dr. Jensen's ORMM mailing list.

Dear friends and colleagues,

Paul was a good friend and colleague.  I know each of us will miss him (as will many other friends throughout the OR community) and each of us is very sorry for the loss suffered by Margaret and the rest of Paul's family.

I will chair a special INFORM-ED sponsored session in Paul's memory at the 2011 INFORMS Conference in Charlotte (November 13-16).  Several of Paul's many friends will speak on his contributions to operations research education and share personal stories and remembrances about Paul.  Margaret and Paul's children will be invited to attend, and I hope each of you will also be able to attend (I'll try to reserve some time at the end of the session during which members of the audience will have an opportunity to share their thoughts).

INFORMS Transactions on Education (the online journal for which I am Editor in Chief) will also publish a special issue devoted to Paul's influence on OR education.  Dave Morton has kindly agreed to edit this special issue, so I am certain it will be a fine tribute to Paul.

Sincerely,

Jim

Welcome to the Insight Age

We are in the midst of the Insight Age.  In other words the end of the Information Age.  This has been explained on HPCwire quoting HP Labs distinguished technologist Parthasarathy Ranganathan.  No longer are we seeking ways to process information.  We are seeking ways to disseminate and draw conclusions from the information we already hold.

Does this sound familiar to anyone in Operations Research?  It should because this is what Operations Research has been doing for years.  I think I sound like a broken record sometimes.  Yet I guess the story needs to be told again.  But perhaps I'm being a little too snarky.  It could just mean that the Information Age is catching up to the decision science analysts.

The crux of the article is technology meeting the demands of information overload.  Yet that is not what the definition of insight is to me.  Insight is drawing conclusions based on the evidence.  The Operations Research analyst will undoubtedly be well prepared for this evolutionary advancement.  I'm sure HP is aware that technology alone will not help the Insight Age revolution. 

I hope we've all seen this new age coming.  The Insight Age is here and is ready to be tackled.  My next inclination is to think what will define the Insight Age.  The Information Age was defined by the internet, computing power, and globalization.  My prognostication to define the Insight Age is open data and decision science.  Open data is about having no barriers to information.  Data will be freely accessible and easy to disseminate.  Decision science is already here and will make an even bigger impact.  Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Optimization Algorithms will all be the cogs of the Insight Age mechanism. 

Insight Age is such a fitting name.  I'm really liking it the more I think about it.  I'm going to try to remember that in some of my future conversations.