I spotted an interesting book in my local library recently:  The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada [1].  I thought to myself, our government spent considerable resources on this commission.  I should at least browse through the final report.  I flipped through the first few pages.  I found a note saying that the contents are public domain.  In this blog, I reproduce some of the contents of the report to create a setting for my discussion on operational data. …

I recall somebody mentioning that the former definition for insanity is doing an action repeatedly while expecting different results.  Among the interests that I have in organizations is how at times many organizations make the same mistakes; or how sometimes the same mistake might be made by a particular organization repetitively.  So it is fascinating indeed when an airline facing an ice storm encounters much the same complaints from customers after a similar storm the previous year.  I…

Probably like most people, I tend to recognize data as a stream of values. Notice that I use the term values rather than numbers although in practice I guess that values are usually numerical. A data-logger gathering one type of data would result in data all of a particular type. Perhaps the concept of “big data” surrounds this preconception of data of type except that there are much larger amounts. Consider an element of value in symbolic terms, which I present below: there is an index such…

A theme in my blogs is how the "structure" of data - rather than just the "content" - affects what that data can say and is capable of doing. In particular, I suggest that certain structures tend to reinforce certain contents; this means that a structural imposition can have an effect similar to a contextual imposition. Structure is an interesting conversation…

In recent blogs, I have been distinguishing between quantitative data and narrative data. I believe that I separated the two forms relatively well. Although I originally focused on the differences in data in order to give narrative "its own space," actually there can be a symbiotic relationship between the two types of data. In my last blog, I said that quantitative data can be incorporated into narrative data. In my submission today, I will be discussing how the narrative can be used to…

"Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech."  (Genesis 11-6,7)  On the distance between expression, meaning, and action resulting from growth of populations and…

I recently noticed a proliferation of websites from organizations in my area openly offering to investigate ghosts. I thought it would be interesting to share my peculiar data-oriented slant on the subject. It is possible to approach the issue of ghosts from different perspectives. I have been taught to accept the…

In this blog, I will be discussing some distinct types of data involved in feedback. The types that I will be covering are as follows: 1) structural; 2) event; 3) quantitative; 4) contextual; and 5) systemic. In 2014, I recall reading a number of blogs about three types of data: prescriptive, descriptive, and predictive. There was a data scientist apparently on tour lecturing extensively about these three types. I don't recall the individual's name. Well, prescription, description, and…

The first computer program that I encountered mimicking or emulating human interaction through language was called "Eliza." The version that I knew ran on the Commodore PET. It communicated in English. Eliza made comments that made some sense but which indicated lack of understanding of the conversation. If a person mentions "mother," Eliza might…

When I returned to university to do a graduate degree, I was interested to discover how certain terms are subject to "intellectual interpretation." A word that I was asked to explain during one of my earliest classes was "ontology." Since this term was absent from my dictionary, I originally confused it with "oncology." I faintly recall that oncology involves the study of tumors. After consulting a few sources, I said that ontology is the study of how things come to exist or into being. I…

I created this blog to further discuss the issue of mass data assignments, a methodology that allows qualitative data events to be incorporated into metrics such as performance indicators. These assignments are routine for me now after having developed a prototype. However, I am unaware of the prevalence of this or similar techniques in the broader community. So I periodically work the topic into my blogs to help stimulate discussion. When quantitative data exists, it means that we had…

The idea of environmental determinism once made a lot of sense. Hostile climates and habitats prevented the expansion of human populations. The conceptual opposite of determinism is called possibilism. These days, human populations can found living in many inhospitable habitats. This isn't because humans have physically evolved. But rather, we normally occupy built-environments. We exist through our technologies and advanced forms of social interaction: a person might not be able to build a…

In this blog, I will explain how an approach to handle small amounts data can be reconstructed to handle much larger amounts. This reconstruction is the product of an anomalous perspective or mutation relating to the attribution of performance.

Fig. 1 - 6-fingered handprint spotted near my truck

Many businesses share certain common features.…

I was often the lone wolf among my peers in university because I supported a prominent place in society for corporations and an important social role for capital. I questioned whether the directors and executives of companies entered into boardrooms really intending to “oppress” people such as minorities and people with disabilities. Did they deliberately make bathrooms inaccessible to people in wheelchairs perhaps to advance their preconceptions of who gets to go to the bathroom, I pondered…

I tend to examine the different roles played by data. For instance, when I work on computer code, I often ask myself what the presence of data is meant to accomplish. Sometimes the analysis is not at all straightforward or simple. In society and organizations, people exist and persist in the records as data. The data survives even as employees come and go. I therefore consider it important to regard the data and its environment as a system in itself, something that has a life all of its own.…