Victometrics.com!

Hi readers! David has helped me migrate over to a new virtual home. Check it out at www.victometrics.com. See you there!

InMaps from LinkedInLabs - Data Scientists in action

"It ain't what you know, it's who you know."  Agree?  Disagree?  

However nuanced your response, I believe we all know that relationships matter.  We are creatures that love to communicate.  We need others.  We don't generally achieve greatness in isolation.  

Systems are dynamic, purposeful orchestrations of people, processes, and platforms.  Systems are usually  multi-dimensional beasties that don't like having their picture taken.  We illustrate systems using "views" that emphasize its different aspects.  Like the blind men and the elephant, we can tend to characterize the system according to the view that we most directly use.  A set of views enable us to build up a wholistic understanding of the system by looking at it from different perspectives.  

The organizational chart is a hugely important view of your system.  Your organizational chart focuses on the People view of the system and highlights authority and influence structures.  As a time-tested and well-loved view, the organizational chart works very well in an established hierarchical context.  

But, what if your relational network doesn't fit nicely into the abstract boxes and lines of an organizational chart?  What if you have relationships that cross professional, corporate, and physical boundaries?  How do you find a view of your system of relationships?  How do you find people with influence?  How do you keep important relationships from dropping off the map?

My answer (right now) is InMaps.

InMaps is provided by the LinkedIn Analytics team. You can check out the official video, brought to you by DJ Patil, LinkedIn's chief scientist (one of the creators of the data scientist role) and published on the LinkedIn Analytics blog.   InMaps provides a powerful illustration of the People view.  

InMaps visualizes all of the people that you know, connecting them to all of the people that you mutually know.  This creates your relational map.  As LinkedIn calls it, this is your professional universe.  

I use this view of my relationships to:

1. Monitor change in my professional network

2. Understand the "people" environment

3. Focus networking and team-building

4. Identify and navigate opportunities

5. Keep in touch with old friends

Here is a recent screenshot of my map:

I can click on anyone in this map, and view the network of people connections that we share.  In this example, I have clicked on my brother, David.  

David is a hugely talented graphic artist and web designer.  Check out his work and get to know him at SMRVL.  

As you can see, David and I have a lot of overlap within the blue network.  We share a few family members in my purple network.  Other than that, David doesn't know too many folks in my other networks.  

David was kind enough to share his map with me.  (One major -- though necessary -- limitation is that you can only see your own map.)  Here is his full map.  

Here's what David says about his map.  "I like it because it's a brilliant at-a-glance snapshot of my web of relationships. I can, at a glance, see where I have relational density ... the two big masses on my map are both social networks."

This looks great.  But in order to get anywhere, we need to know how to read this map.  Here are some questions that I ask my map in order to find meaningful stories.

1. How many "lobes" do I have?  InMaps will automatically color-code clusters that it thinks are distinct networks.  The more good-sized lobes that I have on my map, the more valuable I think my network is.  For me, this highlights a relational victometric -- Number of Significant Bridged Networks.  I want to bridge 3 or more significant professional networks in order to minimize risk as an independent contractor.  Connections to multiple networks represent opportunities to make things happen.

2. Who are the "foci"?  Who are the people who are well-connected within communities?  They are the people who know people.  When I'm seeking to get better connected with a group, I'll try to start with these gregarious types.  

3. Who are the "edges"?  Who are the people who seem to be minimally connected?  Here, I might read more closely.  If the person is someone whom I know to be outgoing, they may connect me with new networks to explore.  Many people simply don't use LinkedIn that much.  The loosely connected person may be someone who would be open to learning more about what their tools can do for them.

How do you get your own map?  Building your map is easy.  If you have a LinkedIn account, go to http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/ and they'll walk you through the steps from there.  You'll need to decide how you want to share access to your data.  I chose to share for a month, and have just continued to allow access.

A couple of extra factoids:

• Originally, InMaps needed you to have at least 50 connections in order to build your map.  I'm not sure if that's still true.  If it is and you have less than 50 people in your relational network, get busy!
• InMaps are updated every Sunday.  If you add to your network, don't expect them to show up until sometime on Monday.  I usually capture a screenshot every week.  I dump these into PowerPoint.  As I play through the slides chronologically, I can more easily highlight changes and realignments in my network.
• On the splash screen, hit "Next Map" in the lower-right corner to see different shapes of networks.
• InMaps uses Hadoop/Pig , Ruby , Voldemort, Java and Processing for the heavy backend maps calculation and image processing.
• For more, check out the very informative InMaps FAQ.

Am I a data scientist?

I love LinkedIn.  LinkedIn gives me the power to explore the "long tail" of professional disciplines.  It's amazing how many different job titles and descriptions you can find on LinkedIn.  Here is an example of the titular diversity that I find when browsing my professional network:

• Captain, Ayanox LLC
• Motorcycle Mechanic
• Chief Innovation Officer
• Chief Scientist
• Arborist Representative
• Director of Product Management
• Forensic Consultant
• Display Coordinator - Anthropologie
• Software Craftsman
• Home Manager
• Driver Service Provider - UPS
• Super Hero

Data Scientist is a job title has created some buzz recently.  Buzz usually indicates that there is a need that is not being met, currently.  The Wall Street Journal's Marketwatch reported a month ago that only 1 out of 3 companies are making effective use of the data they have -- worldwide.  Consider how much data is being created automatically by the "internet of things", and you have an epidemic of ignorance.  Data science seeks to transform this ignorance into insight.

This post by Chris Taylor (3 hours old at time of authoring) suggests that the Data Scientist is the Career of the Future. Since this is the Systems-Illustrated blog, I must plug the solid EMC infographic that makes up the majority of the Chris' post. Kudos!

DJ Patil, the guy who coined the term "data scientist" while he was working at LinkedIn, has written a great (free!) little eBook on Building Data Science Teams that explains who a data scientist is and what a data scientist does for a business.  Great read!  

In a nutshell, a data scientist may:

• Instrument the tools that collect and cleanse data
• Investigate the data to find patterns and stories
• Illustrate the stories so that they can be shared

According to Mr. Patil, a data scientist is characterized by:

• Technical expertise: the best data scientists typically have deep expertise in some scientific discipline.
• Curiosity: a desire to go beneath the surface and discover and distill a problem down into a very clear set of hypotheses that can be tested.
• Storytelling: the ability to use data to tell a story and to be able to communicate it effectively.
• Cleverness: the ability to look at a problem in different, creative ways.

My strengths are certainly weighted toward curiosity, storytelling, and cleverness.  I would consider my expertise in the systems engineering discipline to be deep, but not necessarily scientific.  That said, my entire professional career has been built upon real-world problem solving using a disciplined variation of the scientific method.  So, maybe I'm closer than I think.

Most people distinguish between a Business Intelligence analyst and a Data Scientist.  What am I?  How does one quantitatively assess this question and make a data-driven decision about whether to pursue the career of the future?

• Education: 31% of data scientists have a Master's degree.  I have a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University.  Only 12% of Business Intelligence (BI) professionals have a post-baccalaureate degree.  Edge: Data Scientist. 
• Major: 10% of data scientists studied Business as a major, compared with 37% of Business Intelligence (BI) professionals.  I have studied Business Administration (AA), Management Science & Statistics (BS), and Systems Engineering (MS).  Slight Edge: Data Scientist.
• Comfort with Incomplete Data: Big Data-oriented Data Scientists feel comfortable working with incomplete datasets, and enjoy the challenge of cleansing and exploring data.  This totally resonates.  Recently, I have been very happily snorkeling through years of usage data for my client's data warehouse in order to understand the impact of a recent upgrade and how we can drive user adoption.  I am pushing the envelope for my team and have had to work through several defects in the data in order to get to the point where I believe the stories it is telling me.  Strong Edge: Data Scientist.
• Involvement across the Decision & Data Lifecycle: 30-40% of data scientists have significant involvement in the entire process of acquiring data, parsing data, filtering data, mining data, applying algorithms to data, visualizing data, storytelling with data, dynamically interacting with data, and making business decisions based on data.  Again, my recent experience with user adoption data includes all of these.  I am very excited that we are driving forward in some truly mission-oriented directions with greater clarity and confidence bolstered by my analysis.  Edge: Data Scientist.

I think I could evolve a bit and successfully perform the job of a data scientist.  It would certainly be an exciting challenge.  That said, I'm not sure the name "data scientist" truly captures the essence of decision science.  Data science emphasizes the rigorous discipline and analytic techniques.  These are necessary.  

However, I feel that what I do is closer to medicine than science.  Medicine is the science and art of healing (Wikipedia, Medicine).  Medicine directly applies life science to real-world wellness challenges.  

I find myself most excited and fulfilled when I am able to observe an organizational risk or opportunity, diagnose the problem using insights from data that might have been ignored or overlooked, tell the story, and watch the organization change into something that is stronger and more healthy.  

Data Physician, Change Agent, or (my favorite) Opportunity Navigator seems to come a little closer to describing the role that I find myself playing.  As more organizations become aware of the role that their data plays in their health, I believe that we will see an increasing need for caring, creative, analytical professionals who can transform lifetimes of experience into moments of truth for our clients.  Bring on the data scientists!

A new personal victometric - Return on Luck (ROL)

Good To Great (Jim Collins) has profoundly influenced my life.  The Hedgehog Concept has focused the way I view my role as a husband and father, the way that I measure my success or failure in life, and the way that I approach each day with its new uncertainty.  In many ways, it has become a controlling model for me.  I have described this in detail previously (The Meaning of Life - Illustrated).  

I'm also a huge Uncertainty junkie.  One of my favorite and most illuminating reads from 2011 was The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb).  When pursuing my Master of Science in Systems Engineering, I was intrigued by the fact that almost every class had a significant segment of time devoted to Risk Management.  Reading The Failure of Risk Management and How to Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard fueled my growing passion data-driven decision-making and the role of quantitative analytics in everyday decisions.

Imagine my unbounded delight when Amazon.com informed me that the latest book from Jim Collins was on the subject of Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck!!!  I voraciously read Great by Choice from cover-to-cover today.  I was not disappointed.  In typical fashion, Collins reduces an almost obscene amount of raw data (read the book to see how much) to a few pithy concepts.  

One of these is the concept of Return on Luck (ROL).  Return on Luck (ROL) is simply the return (gain or loss) that you are able to create in a luck situation (good or bad luck).  Put another way, it is the value that you create from a Black Swan ... an Unknown Unknown.

In my ongoing quest for ways to ensure that I don't waste my life, I'm always looking for things that I can use as personal victometrics.  Last time, I defined victometrics as measurable elements that objectively define victory or defeat in a competitive scenario. You could also call them "victory points".  Return on Luck (ROL) is a good one to add to my personal scoreboard. 

Why?  Well, a quick review of this past year reveals that when I make decisions designed to increase my Return on Luck (ROL), I find that I choose wisely before the storm, increase the chance of survival during the storm, and gain proper perspective after the storm.  

Storms have come in this past year.  My job changed overnight in Spring 2011.  My personal relationships changed almost overnight in Summer 2011.  A work deliverable had a very visible an unexpected visit from Murphy in Fall 2011, despite due precautions.  In all of these situations, I have emerged more optimistic and excited about what is coming next.  

I know that storms will come.  I just don't know all of the unimportant stuff like what storm will come when or where and how.  Seeking to increase my Return on Luck helps create sea-worthy life-systems that are designed to weather the inevitable storms.  

I believe that there is something in this understanding of uncertainty that is fundamental to that thing I call the American Dream.  I believe that it is possible to build something truly great (although my goal differs from most people's definition of greatness).  I am seeking to hear "Well Done" from the only One whose opinion really matters to me.  I am seeking to excellently steward the time, talent, trust, and treasure that has been entrusted to me. 

I believe that America has been the land of the Free and the home of the Brave and a land of Opportunity because it has been built by people who didn't depend on luck, but made the most of what luck they were given by Providence.  I believe America's future greatness will depend upon her citizens investing their own empirical creativity, productive paranoia, and fanatic discipline to achieve their most selfless ambitions.

I don't think I can say it better than Jim Collins and Morten Hansen do in their Epilogue (quoted):

"We sense a dangerous disease infecting our modern culture and eroding hope: an increasingly prevalent view that greatness owes more to circumstance, even luck, than to action and discipline - that what happens to us matters more than what we do ... taken as an entire philosophy, applied more broadly to human endeavor, it's a deeply debilitating life perspective, one that we can't imagine wanting to teach young people.

Do we really believe that our actions count for little, that those who create something great are merely lucky, that our circumstances imprison us?  Do we want to build a society and culture that encourage us to believe that we aren't responsible for our choices and accountable for our performance?"

No and no. 

Victometrics ... The measurement of victory!

Victometrics are measurable elements that objectively define victory or defeat in a competitive scenario. You could also call them "victory points".

• In football, the number of points on a scoreboard is a victometric.
• In poker, the number of chips a player controls is a victometric.
• In a race, the runner's course completion time is a victometric.
• In Capture the Flag, successful capture of the flag is a victometric.
• In Starcraft, the number of remaining opposing units is a victometric.
• In King of the Hill, the time spent as King of the Hill might be a victometric.
• In chess, the number of places that a threatened king can move is a victometric. When a threatened king has nowhere to move, it is checkmate.

These are all primary victometrics.  They are the final determining factor of victory or defeat.  There may be dozens or hundreds of secondary victometrics that contribute to changes in a primary victometric.  Time and space do not allow an extensive list of examples.  To find assisting victometrics, think about things like strength, endurace, number of available options, secrecy, intelligence, stocks of available resources, speed, agility, etc.

In games, the rules are clear and the definition of success and victory is understood.

In the real world, victory or defeat can be far more subjective.  Often, one of the primary responsibilities of a leader is to define the objectives.  What does it mean to win or lose?  How will we keep score?  Without consensus on these seemingly obvious questions, teamwork becomes extremely challenging.  In business circles, there are some tools that exist to address these questions.

The systems engineering world has sought to effectively define system characteristics and to write requirements that establish the rules of a system and define what success or failure means.  This is a rich body of knowledge and experience.  But, the name that people have used is "key performance parameter" (KPP) or "key performance indicator" (KPI).  Not very gripping.

KPP and KPI are excellent concepts.  As a master Systems Engineer, I use them regularly.  But, I think these terms miss something important.  Almost anything can be counted or measured if you build a fancy-enough instrument.  What is the score?  Are we winning or losing?  This is the key question that a victometric answers.

One of the major challenges in Operation Iraqi Freedom and any other battle was to define Victory.  It was easy to measure explosions or body bags.  But, were those good indicators of whether we were winning or losing?  Metrics are easy.  Victometrics are harder to define, especially in a real-time stratego-tactical competitive situation.

John Boyd, illustrator of the OODA loop, transformed the aerospace world through his advocacy of Energy Maneuverability theory.  EMT is a model of aircraft performance. It is useful in describing an aircraft's performance as the total of kinetic and potential energies or aircraft specific energy. It relates the thrust, weight, drag, wing area, and other flight characteristics of an aircraft into a quantitative model. This allows combat capabilities of various aircraft or prospective design trade-offs to be predicted and compared. (Wikipedia, Energy-Maneuverability theory).  Suddenly, there was a way to keep score when comparing fighter aircraft.  Energy-Maneuverability Theory provided aerospace engineers with victometrics.

Think about your current projects.

• If they were games, could you easily tell who was winning or losing?
• Does everyone on your team know the score and how they add to it?
• If it is a competitive project, are your competitors playing the same game by the same rules?
• What is defeat?
• What is victory?
• How can you measure your score over time?

Agreement about victometrics will bring tremendous clarity to your thinking and help your team work together more effectively.  I would like to help you answer these questions as I continue to explore and develop my own understanding of victometrics and victometry.

A word of warning: knowledge of victometrics is a powerful thing.

It may be in your best interests to hold some of your victometrics and your current score close to the chest.  In Settlers of Catan, for example, part of the score is known and part of the score is secret.  Remember that if you can keep score, so can your adversaries.  At other times, you may gain great advantage by advertising your strength.

The right answer will depend upon the game you are playing.  It is wise to consult with experts in your game before revealing your victometrics and score.

"Victometric", "Victometrics", and "Victometry" are copyrighted terms.
Please use them freely.  Attribution is appreciated.
(C) Copyright 2011 Michael Somerville.  All rights reserved worldwide.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelssomerville

Opportunity Navigation

The Problem:

A king wanted to test his wise men. He brought them to the easternmost coast of his kingdom and commanded them to build a bridge across the ocean from this point to a point on the other side of the ocean, exactly due east of where they were standing.

How do you build a bridge across an ocean? One wise man decided that he would build a platform and move it across the ocean from one point to another.

Navigation – the art, science, and discipline – has bridged physical oceans for centuries by fusing people, processes, and platforms into reliable, useful systems that overcome problems.  As we enter the Information Age, it is time to reexamine the discipline of navigation from a new perspective.

Today, many of our most pressing problems are not defined by physical oceans, but by digital oceans of data that threaten to overwhelm any who venture out of the Known.  But, as Andre Gide said, "One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."  How do you do this without becoming utterly lost at sea?

The Discipline:

I submit that we need to recognize those in our midst who have the tools and discipline to become the navigators of the digital oceans.  For lack of a better term, I call this Opportunity Navigation (ON).  Rather than navigate the uncertainty of wind and waves, we must navigate the uncertainty of the unknown unknown.  Yet, for those who succeed, we transform obstacles into opportunities.

To the best of my knowledge, no one else has used this term in this way.  Therefore, a brief description is in order.  Opportunity Navigation (ON) is a systemic discipline that:

• Increases competitive advantage
• Reduces the effect of uncertainty
• Enhances effective communication
• Integrates lore from other disciplines
• Develops data-driven decision making

Increases competitive advantage:

Navigators see more effectively, understand more deeply, choose more wisely, and act more quickly. They are proactive where others are reactive. They have a sense of internal balance, perspective, and orientation that sees opportunity where others see adversity. They have a firm trust and well-tested confidence that is not easily shaken.

When in a competitive environment, navigators move into a position where they control the tempo of the interaction and cause others to react to them, increasing their chance of success in the interaction.

Reduces the effect of uncertainty:

Navigators study uncertainty and confront their own limitations. They must know what is of first importance. They must steward what has been given. They must accept the limits of knowledge. They embrace uncertainty as the medium of creativity. They acknowledge the impermanence of knowledge and the value of knowledge that others have entrusted to them.

Understanding uncertainty is like knowing how to navigate the ocean. It does not guarantee avoidance of harm, but it does transform a terrible element into one of tremendous freedom and opportunity.

Enhances effective communication:

Navigators understand their environment and the tools that they can use. They are able to select the right model of communication, even in the midst of the storm. They know what to say and how to say it. Navigators understand that their job is to bridge uncertainty, find the way, and translate that knowledge into a model that others can use effectively to move together in the right direction.

Integrates lore from other disciplines:

Navigators must be able to understand and harness useful insights from many different disciplines. Navigation is hard work and requires careful calculation. Fortunes and lives may depend upon the results of the navigator’s analysis. The navigator must be able to integrate data from many different sources in order to correct for different types of inherent error. The navigator must be able to objectively test his work and know that it is correct. Multiple perspectives help to eliminate error.

Develops data-driven decision making:

Navigators do not simply set a course at random. That would be sheer folly. Instead, they have learned different proven methods for accurately arriving at a correct decision under certain conditions. They work to collect the data necessary to create the correct conditions for sound decision-making. The discipline of navigation results in an organization that is not tossed about by every wind and wave.

Acknowledgments and Thanks: As I have been struggling to come to my own understanding of these ideas, I have been heavily influenced by several excellent resources, including John Boyd's work on the OODA loop, as described in The Mind of War by Grant Hammond.  A series of ongoing discussions with good friends (including Demetrios Mustakas, Mark Fedeli, Corby Megorden, Dr. Steve Techtmann, Dr. Chris Kinsinger, John Loftness, and Scott Somerville) have helped me to shape very rough ideas into something that makes sense.  My undeserved wife, Jessica, has graciously and lovingly encouraged me all along the way.  She makes my life a joy.  Finally, my life has been transformed by Truth, expressed absolutely in Jesus Christ.  Without apology, he is the blazing center of my universe.  Soli Deo Gloria.

Solomon's Choice

What should a young leader seek? Imagine that you are suddenly elevated to a leadership role. Perhaps you have been painstakingly prepared for leadership by others for years. Perhaps this was something you pursued and achieved against all odds. Perhaps this was something that was thrust upon you suddenly by unexpected or rapid events. However it happened -- you are now in charge. Congratulations. Now what?

A young man once found himself leading a large nation that had recently weathered a long civil war, was surrounded by other nations with an uneasy peace, and faced internal strife over the his own succession to the throne -- achieved only by thwarting a coup from his own half-brother.

This young man was very aware of both his own inexperience and the impossibility of success, even for the most experienced individual. His task was to fill the shoes of a national hero, and he was very aware of his own feet of clay. He had one thing in his favor.

He had just learned that he had “one wish” that might possibly grant him whatever he asked. What should he ask for? The certainty of long life? The protection of personal riches? The death of his enemies? This was Solomon’s Choice. I believe young leaders face it still today.

If you have forgotten what Solomon chose, read here. Would you choose this?

In retrospect, Solomon’s request for understanding to choose between good and evil so that he could accomplish the mission that he had been given was a fantastic request.

My dad (one of my personal heroes) tells about a game that he used to play with his brothers. The game went like this. The players would ask each other, “What would you wish for if you had three wishes?” Once someone person actually suggested a wish, the other players would look for all the different ways that the wish could go wrong. The game finally ended (for my dad, at least) when he stumbled upon the wish, “To be happy.”

This game taught the truth that life is uncertain and unpredictable. Rather than asking for one outcome or another, we are much wiser if we seek an understanding of how to live each moment and face each new challenge. A sailor does not seek to control the waves or wind, but seeks to sail the most seaworthy craft available with the all the skill he has, regardless of the weather. As a result, he gains the freedom to go almost anywhere in the world. In life, I believe we must seek to live “seaworthy” and pursue understanding to choose between good and evil so that we can accomplish the mission that we have been given as leaders.