In recent weeks I have been sharing more informal thoughts and in the upcoming weeks, there will be a period of greater radio silence.
After three decades as a professional, I am taking the entire summer off. This will be a chance to intentionally not sit at a desk, stare at a screen, look at my phone, read emails, read articles, and all those other work and personal related activities one does.
A very succinct description of the responsibilities of leadership by Jawad Nagda (infographic below) shows a number of key features of management that are also needed in data storytelling such as empathy, integrity, and listening. I wish annual 1:1 performance reviews gave employees an opportunity to rate their manager in such detail? It would be an interesting infographic to compare your managers for the past 3-5 jobs visually?
The Data Management Value Realization Journey by Bill Schmarzo really shows the depth and breadth of what an organization needs to be prepared for. The infographic (shown below) provides a lot of detail and each time you look at it from a different perspective you can see a wealth of key terms and thoughts to value. This starts with your data, the velocity, variety, and volume of data, which is described as fast, diverse and deep. The value journey to operationalizing this information clearly outweighs the risks of not being prepared. As much of Sydney is now underwater, and with the frequency of “rain bombs” in Australia, how could your company prepare for an influx of data (a once-in 500-year event)? Could you filter valuable data from invaluable data and draw insights quickly, or would you need to create an infrastructure to do so and train resources? The timeliness of your investment may be too late. The Data Management Value Creation Journey Map should be at the forefront of your business for planning how information drives your business success.
When your computer is idle, is it really idle? Peter Zaitsev shared this article What does an idle CPU do? which is a great read. Reminds me of my very old Unix (yes before Linux) kernel core dump analysis, where I had the Unix source code in question. A computer does not just do nothing unless it’s powered off or sleeping.
AI is used in many different fields. DALL-E 2 is a service that will create art and images based on a description. While this sounds interesting, I consider ML/AI as tools to help improve our society, and our decision-making and remove and replace redundant workloads. I feel creative expression is a talent and gift of an individual and the value of the work is in the eyes of the beholder. DALL-E 2 had to learn by imitating other famous works of art, some artists would learn this way, but some are just naturally talented. Will there be an AI to critique works of art, and how would it describe DALL-2 E’s works?
Speaking of art. I have always been fascinated with water structures and large outdoor works of art. The Bellagio fountain is one example of that. And for those naysays of water usage do your research, this project is actually very water efficient. This video of ultra-slow motion fluid dynamics (2 minutes) is just incredible. (some screenshots below)
Some images of the week.
