Comments on: A Poem for Analytics

By: Dai Griffiths

Dai Griffiths — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 11:05:23 +0000

Thanks for this, very much to the point.
I’m currently WFH, about a mile from Graves’ house as the seagull flies, and delighted to be able to make the connection!

Graves can be satisfied with charting the confusion, but we have to wrestle with the consequences. Confusion resulting from applying over simplistic ideas to a complex system may lead to enthusiastic searching for people to blame when the system fails to perform as expected, while “a new understanding of my confusion” brings with it the danger of paralysis.
Which brings to mind me the over-quoted but still resonant lines from Yeats
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

If we are concerned about these issues, we need some way to show that the broken image is a better guide than a detailed but misconceived map. The messenger will not be popular in some quarters!

By: dkernohan

dkernohan — Fri, 18 May 2012 14:28:52 +0000

Perfect. More “broken images” please – they’re much more interesting…

By: Lorna M. Campbell

Lorna M. Campbell — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:35:55 +0000

As always, Graves gets to the heart of the matter. Analytics may give us the power of “myth busting” but are we also beginning to seeing a mythos forming around analytics? Let us be slow and sharp indeed.

By: Sheila MacNeill

Sheila MacNeill — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:26:56 +0000

Hi Adam

How apt!

As a Friday aside, I was reading Graves biography a couple of years ago on a plane, and when the gentleman sitting next to me spotted it, he told me about a weekend in 1972, in Barcelona when he pretended to be Graves . . .