you’re a computer scientist you you’re
also a data scientist or saw it a
philosopher and in our chats I sort of
thought about some of the questions that
I could ask you and one of them was so
in this increasingly complicated world
where we have so much noise how do you
find signal amidst the noise is a data
philosopher I think that one of the
things that I worry about most in this
discussion of signal and noise is that
we would think that at this point in
time we know what the difference is hmm
so I think that some of the things that
we might think of as noise currently may
turn out to be signal I mean have some
simple little examples like in our rare
book collection here on campus though is
a book that had a little smudge in the
margin and now that we have the
technology to sufficiently enlarge that
smudge it turned out to be a carefully
hand-drawn symbol which led a whole
bunch of insight into this manuscript
and it’s really great that the people
who preserve this manuscript preserved
it with reverence to the wholeness of it
and didn’t try and clean up a smudge
which might have exceeded us noise so
like all the advances that we’re looking
at in some ways are sort of may not be
seeing the full picture the reality of
things and so that story sort of
understates how how much we have yet to
discover along the way even about the
ground state yeah yeah even like our
attitudes there is a historian Jonathan
John Jonah Drucker who studies how
changing attitudes change history
because we see history differently one
of the places that she’s famous about
studying is the Salem witch trials and
we know we have a different attitude to
them now
we did when they were occurring so as we
mature as people our ideas of what
signal the noise may change is this idea
of sort of language and/or technology
there only allows us to be able to see
what it can at that point in time and
that changes as the technology
progresses is that what it was behind
that smudge along the way technology was
what made it possible to actually at
this point
reisi into that sponge that’s
interesting so the future looks kind of
interesting in some sort of way and I
want to kind of date probe a little bit
deeper on this notion of a data
philosopher do we need more of them and
what does that mean to you well you were
the first person who uses that term and
I I mean I don’t know I mean I kind of
thought oh maybe because ever since I’ve
been here I work with visualization so
I’m always working with data with all
kinds of different people’s data so I’m
thinking about data all the time and
thinking about how the people who are
expert in it are using it and how the
people who feel alienated might want
access to it so I think about it all the
time so speaking about data I mean it
doesn’t escape my observation that
there’s a lot of it out there and
supposedly what are the challenges and
opportunities over time and place in
history where in terms of signal versus
noise in the context of all this data
big data small data data all over oh
well one of the things so you probably
so now they talk about the data error
and we talked so much about big data but
you kind of get the impression that it’s
for big science and big industry and big
government because like it’s mammoth and
how would we actually access it or
understand it and I think this you know
like about a couple of decades ago they
talked about the information age and now
they talk about the data era
and I think there’s like secret in there
it’s because the word information
actually by definition means capable of
informing us as humans and the word data
means that it’s given and that it’s the
way it is and there’s nothing in it
about that we should be able to
understand it so to me that’s kind of
what all my research is about is can I
actually remake that data understandable
not just to machines but to us as humans
is this sort of this feeling of
overwhelming us I know I certainly have
around data how would I make sense of
the world around me like what would be
the kind of advice you would give me to
try and sort of say hey Rahim when
you’re overwhelmed in this world this is
how this is how you should navigate some
of the data well there’s a couple things
and one is that I think you know okay I
think there’s a sort of historical
parallel here that a long time ago we
shifted from a bartering society to a
currency money based society and that
was you know a much discussed difficult
shift for the general population who
didn’t at that point have access to what
we consider totally normal education now
so it was a difficult chip and we now I
mean I think it’s actually happened
we’ve we we have shifted to a data error
and I mean if you think about it like
data is the new currency so you think
about I mean and this has been said a
lot what’s the fastest growing taxi
company over yeah and do they buy any
taxis is it about money you know
similarly was the fastest growing
Hotelling business yes you know and
Facebook and Twitter and the people who
are thinking about how to get the data
or the information from the right people
to the right people at the right time so
that it’s useful those are the huge big
things that are
making huge big impact in our economy
and actually I think almost the younger
people that I meet the younger they are
the more they know that that’s what they
need to be able to do they want to be a
player in our world now they need to be
able to sink in data and we don’t really
teach that we don’t teach that in grade
school don’t teach that in high school
we don’t really teach it in university
even in computing science we teach data
management data programming but how to
actually think about moving information
around who has what information who
might want it when might they want it so
that all works together which you know
as we’ve seen over and over again it is
secret for huge enterprises right now
hmm
we don’t actually work with that and we
have actually encountered we’ve started
the first first year data thinking
course open to all disciplines to get a
basic idea about how to actually think
in data and I hear that of course is
subscribed like over the limit at this
point yeah it’s it’s full to overflowing
and they immediately put another one on
for the winter and it’s full see in
effect there are students who are
realizing that the movement of data is
where the value-add is yeah and at this
point with middle men I guess used to
say women who are the Airbnb is the
overs they’re trying to move that data
and extracting value out of it at a
point in time and what’s the next
evolution to take out that middle middle
man in some ways and for consumers to
connect with with data themselves people
to connect with your own data yeah I
actually think so I think I mean another
thing if we take another leaf from
history we as humans have been
collecting data for a long time they
have examples of simple visualizations
of data from 30,000 years ago scratched
on bones lunar calendars things like
that where humans were making sense of
the data of their current world and very
much through that kind of way that’s
kind of how
became human and I think it’s really
important that we don’t give up the idea
that this data no matter how big it gets
is our data and it’s for us it should be
you know it’s about us it should be for
us and we need to actually insist that
we can understand it that it’s humanly
providing like the open data movement
providing access is not just a matter of
dumping CSV files some corner of the web
that are only understandable for people
who have been you know studying
databases for a while we need to be able
to understand it to be able to know what
is there and what is being collected
about us so I think there is this whole
open data movement and that’s super
important and I also think that we need
to think that lots of data starts as
small I mean even if you think about
uber is just a little tiny bit of data
you just will say I’m here and I want a
taxi now it’s not that’s not big data so
we have it in our own lives and we need
to kind of regain control of that so
that we can learn from it reflect on it
it doesn’t escape to me that you know
you know complicated reward like this
this kind of thinking would be so useful
I know for me personally to try and
examine what are the pieces of data that
I’m giving out that I’m part of that I’m
essentially selling for whatever service
I’m getting and it definitely made me
think a little bit differently you know
I visited your lab and I’ve spoken to
you a number of times and so on what are
the key pieces of work that you are part
of now that have you particularly
excited and that you would like to share
at this point ok there’s kind of two
things one goes really along with what
we’ve just been talking about because so
you know I say okay fine like the data
is for you well that how does it become
for you and how I mean all very well to
say we should change our education
system so that people grow up learning
how to think with data but what about
all of us who are
some professionals and like what about
us we don’t want to be left out so how
how can we do that and I know that in
the research community we and definitely
including me had this assumption that
what you needed to do is pair data
experts and visualization experts
because visualization is an interpretive
technology oh yeah
and that get them together and take a
leaf out of extreme or agile programming
and that two people working together
could like work this out and a friend of
mine ran Melanie Tory ran a formal study
just to kind of shed more light on
exactly how this process should work and
discovered that didn’t actually work all
that well it was difficult people
weren’t really enjoying it and they were
having a hard time so then initially in
my lab I kind of almost as a joke
started thinking okay so we need to
figure out what kindergarten
visualization is right and lo and behold
an exchange student who knew all about
the history of kindergarten explained to
me how Froebel who invented kindergarten
said that if we give children the right
toys they will learn abstract concepts
by themselves so we thought well what
about giving adults the right choice we
like to play still can adults with the
right toys figure out how to do
visualizations themselves and we ran a
study with just people from the general
population we actually ran it in Paris
and so these were people who happen to
be walking past the Pompidou Center who
would give up an hour in exchange for a
coupon for a cafe so they’re just people
and they all could do it they not only
could do it they enjoyed doing it and
some of them invented some pretty
interesting and unusual visualizations
that worked really well and what we’ve
discovered since and with other
collaborators we’ve extended this into a
workshop and we’ve run this workshop in
different places where we’ve
combined this notion of giving people
the right toys which we just used
brightly colored tiles we have done it
subsequently with Lego Lego works fine
and combine it with you know
experiential learning and peer learning
and discovered that people in fact one
of the first places they ran one is at
part of a big fair in Paris so there
were all kinds of other things you could
do like go on ferris wheel rides and
things like that that you might think
might be more appealing but the people
who came into the room stayed for the
full three hours and by the end they
were actually talking about
visualization and data they had actually
done this transformation essentially so
that they were becoming one of the
informed and they were all super excited
hmm
so it took to me it’s like it’s possible
you know it’s it’s it’s it’s possible
and it’s not I mean it’s not like
they’re going to change professions and
become a visualization person but it is
like they’re going to be able to read
and understand and interpret
visualizations that they see and that
that whole world will be open to them
the sort of the the callback to go back
to kindergarten made me chuckle a little
bit it seems like in the most highest
tech of fields the lowest tech of
solution solutions seems to be the
answer that sometimes it’s time to
switch over your brain to think from
sort of analog to data but using analog
means and that that is absolutely
fascinating can tell why I asked dr.
Crower Patel to come and spend some time
with us and I know that she’ll be coming
back with TEDx Calgary and a later time
to deliver a talk with a little bit more
time in preparation but in these in
these times you’ve given us given me a
solution I know so thank you after today thank you very much