Creepy and fascinating

Check out this post from Wired on new military tracking technology that integrates data feeds from myriad sources: "ground moving target indicators, infrared video, multispectral imagery, human tipsters, audio intercepts, even text chats and social media, among others." For a database nerd, it's as thought-provoking as it is freaky.

I'm not sure I'm ready for this brave new world (facial recognition ads are already here!). However, I am fascinated by how to best combine and prioritize among multiple data streams. My team at work has been working diligently to make more and more information available to our colleagues. We're not nearly done yet, but information overload is already setting in. ("Why do you send me so many reports each month? I don't have time to read them all.")

Though I don't anticipate implementing a DARPA-style system, I am certainly thinking about how to make sure key pieces of information are appropriately connected and made prominent.

Edward Tufte and the Big Picture

I saw Edward Tufte speak yesterday. He led the day off showing a data visualization similar to the one I linked to above. The rest of this post has nothing to do with this, but it was really amazing, and I wanted to share! As an aside, this may be the way I might finally be able to embrace classical music. I am such a visual person that this way of "showing" the music really made a huge difference in how I interacted with it.

Tufte covered a lot of ground during his talk, including his legendary loathing of PowerPoint. But the most striking take-away for me was the concept of finding one data-rich graphic that can be used to communicate many many points of data. He gave the example of a fire chief who has to report to the city council on the fire department's performance.

What if the fire chief were to take an aerial map of the city, and places a red dot on each building where there was a fire ("I'll even allow a flame icon for really big fires"), a yellow dot for each false alarm, a green dot for each passed inspection, a purple dot for each failed inspection, etc.? Then the chief would present that on a big piece of paper, 11" x 17". (Tufte says this is still the best way to present high-resolution data, but in a few years, when we all have iPad-like tablets, that will change.)

Each city council member would engage differently with the fire map. Some would zoom immediately to their own districts, others might look at the discrepancy between where the fires happened and where the inspections took place. This one data visualization meets the needs of multiple recipients. In this hypothetical example, the chief would present this piece of paper, then give everyone time to read/interact with it. Then the chief would point out some interesting highlights, followed by questions from the council.

This is brilliant. And I've been considering what that one big data graphic would be for fundraising. Would it show a complex view of the giving pyramid, with prospects being fed in by prospect research and the annual fund? Would it be multiple years of giving data? I've been chewing this over and am really intrigued by the possibilities.

New HIV Map Shows Power of Data Visualization

John Snow pioneered data mapping to detect trends in health when he created his famous cholera map during London's 1854 cholera outbreak. His map helped end the outbreak by illustrating that cholera was waterborne and originating from a particular pump in London.

Now a nonprofit effort called AIDSVu has created the first data map of HIV infection. This striking map provides a powerful understanding of HIV's spread that would be nearly impossible to grasp without it.

I'll be presenting a workshop, Picture It: Visualizing Your Data's Story, at the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement's conference in Austin on July 30. It will draw from elements of the virtual seminar I recorded last year, with some new twists. I'll definitely be using this map as a powerful example of data mapping.

The mystery of the multiple mailings

My partner keeps getting expensive glossy mailings from a national nonprofit. He made one modest gift, $20 or $30, to this organization several years ago. Now they are sending him all kinds of mailings, including a heavy rotation of planned giving mailings. We probably get something monthly or even more frequently. After the 10th or so piece, I started trying to figure out why. One-time donor, small amount, no other involvement with this organization, several years ago...why?

I finally figured it out. Here's a hint: my sweetie's name is Robert Thompson.

He has the kind of name that is the bane of prospect researchers. Discerning among the thousands of Robert Thompsons in the U.S. can be a challenging task. (On the flip side, it is a challenge for Robert Thompsons to distinguish themselves, especially online. Luckily for my honey, his parents gave him two middle names, making him the distinctively-named Robert JL Thompson.)

Back to the mystery of the multiple mailings... My guess is this organization did a wealth screening, loaded the results into their database, and started segmenting their mailings accordingly. Not a bad strategy, but one that impacts the Jane Smiths, Mary Johnsons, and Thomas Joneses of the world. Because these names are so common, a lot of false positives show up. For example, maybe it looks like my guy owns a really nice home and is an insider at a public company. This is a far cry from the unemployed graduate student that he is. But there is some Robert Thompson somewhere who does own this nice house and oodles of stock. And maybe the well-off Robert even lives close to us, creating a match on first name, last name and geographic area, which would be perfectly acceptable as a matching criteria for someone named Angus McUniquename.

Readers, what do you think? Was it the false positive of a wealth screening that got my partner on this list? Or does this organization just mail indiscriminately to its entire database? Or...?