Statistics in the Triad, Part VI: The Story as Unit of Observation

If you had asked me a year ago to identify the primary unit of observation in a SenseMaker project, I would have said, without much hesitation, it’s the story, of course. When I started writing Part IV in this series on Confidence Regions, however, I had to revisit that question. I knew what was typicallyContinue reading “Statistics in the Triad, Part VI: The Story as Unit of Observation”

The Man Who Mistook His Graph for a Hat

  Equilateral triangles have been used as a graphical tool for presenting compositional data for at least 150 years, most prominently in geology, metallurgy, and related areas of physical chemistry; archeology and anthropology; and population studies, including genetics. According to Howarth (1996)[paywall], they were also used as early as the 18th century to show mixingContinue reading “The Man Who Mistook His Graph for a Hat”

‘The Eggshell Thing’

This post originally appeared on the Cognitive Edge blog on December 15, 2010. My first project as an accredited practitioner was with a large international publisher that was trying to get a better sense of customer satisfaction with its products. I can still remember having some “disconnects” along the lines of, whoa, how does thatContinue reading “‘The Eggshell Thing’”