A Theme but No Plot

Keywords:  conspiracy theory

About 900 words or three pages

A Theme but No Plot

                There may be no plot, but there may be a theme.   Some sports have plots—a game like baseball or soccer or basketball, which develop a story line in a direction with players and strategies, but other more simple sports like swimming and running don’t have much plot, you just do it.  That’s the theme.   Despite what some may think, the Government doesn't really have a plot, but it does well when it remembers our founding president’s theme.   

Show me a conspiracy theorist, and I’ll show you someone who’s never worked for the government.    There’s no plot, but there can be a theme.  Let me give you an example.

                Once, when I was in officer training in the US Air Force, a memo went out that there was to be no more trash in the trash cans in the barracks.  No explanation for the new regulation.  So, all the nervous trainees began running amok stuffing assorted trash under mattresses and above the ceiling panels, and flushing all sorts of foreign objects down the toilets.  No telling how much money was wasted having plumbers unclog the pipes, nor how many fruit cores and banana peels might still be rotting above the ceiling tiles. 

                “It’s got to be part of a big plan to teach us something; man, these guys are thorough in thinking about our training.  Perhaps it’s to teach us how to hide things if we’re ever captured and become POWs.” I heard my classmates wondering about the meaning of the no trash directive. 

                “Are you kidding?”  I said.  “Some captain walked through the barracks and saw a pizza box sticking out of a trash can and told some sergeant who told the colonel that trash is overtaking the base.   The colonel told his secretary to have someone fix it, and thus a sudden regulation was promulgated.”  Of course, no rule was just posted or told to everyone, instead the rules were promulgated.  A good promulgation at least sounds like it has a theme to it.

                Before I left Uncle Sam’s great full-time employ and went to the Reserves, my last job assignment was to translate government-speak into English (they had a job for that?).  The theme was to simplify, but the plot thickened one day.  I was called to an “urgent non-essential personnel incident” at the base commissary.  The grocery baggers were having a protest because they weren't getting enough tips.  These grocery baggers were casual day workers (mostly teenage kids of personnel stationed on base) who helped bag groceries in return for tips.  Things were getting out of hand, and a weary MP was trying to calm down the protest.  I arrived on the scene-- young officer on emergency wordsmith duty-- and began to explore the situation. 

                Apparently, the whole informal bagging program had just started the week before.  It was a program of good intent:  give teenagers a chance to perform a needed service and get a little money, with no real government red tape involved.  The kids had asked the commissary manager to put up a sign, so that everyone would know about the new bagger program and know to tip the kids.  Thus, the commissary put up a big sign in bold government font whose proclamation sticks in my mind.  I swear I’m not making this up, it said:

                CARRY OUT PACKAGING PERSONNEL ARE NOT FEDERAL EMPLOYEES.  THEIR ONLY REMUNERATION ARRIVES IN THE FORM OF GRATUITIES FROM THE PATRONS. 

                “Sergeant,” I looked at the MP and promulgated, “rip that sign  down and get one put up there that says, ‘Baggers work for tips only’.”

                I’m not saying governments always mess up the plot.  I have worked and been in countries where the government seems to do some things with rational design or at least without a lot of meandering.  I've noticed most of these countries have sideways crosses in their flags (Northern Europe)—not that I’m making a theological statement, but I do wonder why the US Government isn't even in the top 20 countries in the international government non-corrupt efficiency index.

                Like most things, governments grow by accretion.  And by definition this means only a piecemeal, short term design, if any design at all.  The good news here is that small-- seemingly inconsequential-- acts really do have big long term results.  For those of us who take pride in our profession and in the small designs and details we do every day, this is great encouragement.   I’m sure in many cases government workers have this same pride and can have a positive result. 

                Perhaps a big problem with the US Government is that we were really founded on an anti-government theme.  Our approximate tagline was “Don’t tread on me” long before “E pluribus unum” came along.  The original design of our government was meant to, well, be fairly minimal—a government with many limits.   George Washington made history when he took this to heart and walked away from said government to be a private citizen on a farm—to live off of his investments, as it were.   Of course, he was neither learned, nor a career politician, and originally got his “break” because he was accomplished at something:  he rode better than other surveyors (Lord Fairfax needed a very competent horseman who could survey his vast real estate).  Washington didn't even have a plot, just a theme:  do a few things well, dress and behave the part, and don’t screw things up you don’t understand.  And, many of the good things we have today resulted from this theme without a plot.        

              

©Copyright 2015 by John P. Harrison.  All rights reserved. 

The Data Are In

The Data Are In


Keywords:  data, statistics

About 900 words or 2 pages 

The Data Are In?

You remember the old joke:  a kid from the sticks goes off to college and comes back home to visit.  His proud father puts him in front of a crowd and says, “son, tell us something you learned at school.”   The kid ponders for a moment and says, “Pi R Square.”   The poor father winces,  “oh, son, everybody knows pie are round.  Cornbread are square.”   Thus, we begin our contemplation of data.  Are data plural or is data singular, and—except for the handful of philologists left on the planet (one of whom I am not) who fight over such things—can that rather silly argument actually help us understand what data is all about?

First, a quick attempt to get to the “right” answer on singular vs plural on data.  The answer is yes.  Sometimes data should be a singular noun referring to collected points of information in the abstract, a so-called non-count noun (like “hair”), or it can be used in its plural (like the count noun “hairs”) to refer to a certain bunch of information points, “those particular data do not mean a thing.”  An individual data point could be called a datum according to the great authority, the OED (Oxford English Dictionary); however, you rarely hear such effete speech.    Data is a word in Latin (a past participle, I’m told) actually meaning “given.”

                Back to why this matters:  it shows us something.  Data can be viewed as something we collect in the field or something we generate in an experiment—both for the purpose of gaining knowledge.  Sometimes, we examine the data, not to find out something new, but to prove our hunches or points of view.  Thus, our motive is important:  are we trying to learn something looking at the data, or are we trying to prove something?  

This brings us to statistics, which is (or is it which are?) a system of analyzing data with the hope of making some determination.  Statistics depends in large part on convention; like accounting, it makes lots of assumptions about norms and makes up its own rules.  For example, let’s imagine an elderly couple.  The wife is in superb health.  The husband is dead.  From those data and our good use of statistics, we can say that on average as a couple, they’re in mediocre health.    If you didn’t know the full story on the couple, the data can slip right by unquestioned. 

                Always question the data.   Here are but a few quick checks, and a couple of examples.   First, check the “face validity,” otherwise known as the “smell test.”   Secondly, look for the overarching trend and if this is applicable to other situations (external validity).  Thirdly, check up on a few of the raw data points, just to see if the math really works (internal validity).   And, here’s a qualitative approach:  ask the presenter to poke a hole in his or her own data, “from where you stand, what is the weakest aspect of your data?”   There’s always a weakness, and the presenter, if honest, knows he’s almost hiding something.   Find out what that is.

                Once, I was in a meeting where the association’s director of marketing was bragging on and on about how her self-serving session at a conference scored so well in the conference’s follow up survey.  I noticed that too, and I also noticed how another session--the poster session-- at the conference had done equally as well according to the survey.  I pointed that out the success of the poster session in the meeting.

“Well, yes, what’s your point?” she said. 

“There actually weren’t any poster sessions,” I commented.  The face validity of the much-touted survey then went down the tubes.  Most casual follow-up surveys (i.e., those where the survey is distributed to everyone, and some respond back, but most do not) have no real statistical validity.  This is because only the folks who really have a strong opinion are the ones who respond.  Those of us who don’t have time or have no strong opinion—presumably a substantial portion—don’t respond to such surveys.  All of our data are missed.  To be statistically valid, a survey has to be taken from a sufficient random sample drawn from the population.   It’s not a huge undertaking, just an extra step or two—but well worth it to provide good data.

                I’ve learned that presenting survey results—even statistically valid ones—to a committee can be a tricky business.  I used to present the whole survey results, the numerical data and the comments, to groups at all once, but noticed something odd going on.  The members of the committee would go right to the comments section like rubberneckers at a car wreck, overlooking the valid numbers, and honing in on some quirky comment.  I’ve seen this happen even with groups of scientists and numbers people.  I once managed an association that had an annual meeting of over 8,000.  Our follow-up survey was thorough, and the numbers indicated that no one was interested in whether we offered a particular special amenity at the conference; however, one responder asked for it in the comments section.  The board honed in on that one comment, and we ended up spending thousands of dollars for a couple of years providing the unused service until we finally discontinued it.   Nowadays, I always provide the numerical data from a survey first without the comments attached.  Later I provide the comments well after we’ve digested the numbers, and then only in compiled form (how many said this, and how many said that).  The one-off comments then lose their undue attraction. 

                Good data is a good thing.  Understanding what the data say, if anything, is even better.         

©Copyright.  John P. Harrison, 2015.  All rights reserved