Carragee Consulting

Bring your own expertise and a realistic hypothesis
In response to some of the outlandish media frenzied stories regarding the whereabouts of flight MH370, Chris Goodfellow, published his “educated guess”* on what occurred and where the plane may be now. Rather than suggesting a hijacking, the Bermuda triangle, or an elaborate hoax, Goodfellow suspects that there was a fire which prompted the pilot to change course for the nearest airport with a runway long enough to land safely, Pulau Langkawi. He further suggests that the flight crew was likely overcome by smoke and that the plane continued flying on auto pilot until it ran out of fuel.
Although I have as much morbid curiosity about the missing flight as the next person, what is most interesting to me about Goodfellow’s account, is the way in which he developed his hypothesis and then was able to triangulate between data sources to flesh it out and suggest a targeted area in which to continue the search.

Firstly, he takes into account the weather conditions and the transcript from the flight based on news reports. Next, he is tries to think through what his response would have been in a similar situation, which prompts him to check out Google Earth for the nearest safe airport. Goodfellow has “20 years experience as a Canadian Class-1 instrumented-rated pilot for multi-engine planes” meaning he knows a lot about standard flight protocols and more importantly, unlike any lay person in the news media, he has been extensively trained in how to manage emergencies in the air. When Chris Goodfellow looks at google earth and when I look at it, we can look at the same images and see different things. We’ve been trained in completely different fields, so that’s unsurprising.

When the news media looks at the facts of the story regarding the missing plane they immediately focus in on things they are most familiar with, which are generally nefarious stories with tyrants which prompt sensational headlines. They are trained to look for news and present it in a way that is good for their industry. Similar to the media, radiologists have highly specialized skills which have been shown to cause them to focus myopically given a standard task. Among other things radiologists are trained to view scans, like the one below and identify tumors, not graphics hidden in plain sight by Harvard researchers.

With all of the new technology emerging enabling data visualization it important to remember that we aren’t all experts and even experts need to start by asking the right questions. Even given easy access to Google Earth, the news media and I don’t know enough about flying to have searched for 13,000ft runways to locate MH370, we’re not experts so we couldn’t think of the most obvious hypothesis to start our analysis. Conversely, the radiologist overlook the gorilla because their job is to reject the null hypothesis that there is no cancerous tissue present in their scan image, not the broader null hypothesis that there is nothing “weird” of any sort in the image.

Vendavo is among a whole host of companies providing software which enables users to interact with their data and dynamical generate images which they can use to make sense of it. In the case of pricing software, perhaps the most valuable visualization tool, is the pricing waterfall, which is used to highlight the relative magnitude of margin leakages from price setting, to negotiations, to service costs, through COGS and beyond if you like. I like using a comparison waterfall to benchmark datasets in different time periods, business slices, or customer sets. The chart is extremely flexible and it’s easy enough to teach someone how to change the inputs in Filter 1 and Filter 2. What’s harder, but essential to teach is the thought process behind the business comparison that generates the right starting hypothesis which leads to relevant analysis.

*https://plus.google.com/106271056358366282907/posts/GoeVjHJaGBz#106271056358366282907/posts/GoeVjHJaGBz
**http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/11/171409656/why-even-radiologists-can-miss-a-gorilla-hiding-in-plain-sight