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Jun 26, 2014 · 20m · mad

Robbie Allen, Automated insights // Data Driven #28 // June 2014 (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)

Robbie Allen · 16m spoken Matt Turck · 21s spoken Dennis Clark · 14s spoken Eleanor Haas · 7s spoken
0:00 / 0:00
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions

At Data Driven NYC, Robbie Allen, CEO of Automated Insights, discusses the inherent flaws of traditional data visualizations and demonstrates how automated natural language generation can convert complex big data into clear, actionable written stories at scale.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Matt holds 2.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →

Matt as informed peer 0.0 Guest teaching 1.7 Guest disagreement 1.3 Matt pushing back 0.0
05100:0010:0020:003:07–5:08 · Matt as informed peer 0/10 Video Presentation: Data Communication in Daily Life This segment is a video presentation play during a keynote talk where the host does not participate. The guest uses a comedic video to illustrate how absurd using raw charts to communicate personal data would be.5:08–10:48 · Matt as informed peer 0/10 The Limitations of Data Visualizations The guest delivers a solo presentation arguing why traditional data visualizations fail at scale, citing mental gymnastics and the baseline effect. As a monologue presentation, the host does not speak or engage.10:48–18:33 · Matt as informed peer 0/10 Wordsmith Platform Overview and Client Use Cases The guest details the architectural workflow and enterprise use cases of the Wordsmith platform. The host remains off-stage until stepping in briefly at the end to transition to audience Q&A.3:07–5:08 · Guest teaching 1/10 Video Presentation: Data Communication in Daily Life This segment is a video presentation play during a keynote talk where the host does not participate. The guest uses a comedic video to illustrate how absurd using raw charts to communicate personal data would be.5:08–10:48 · Guest teaching 2/10 The Limitations of Data Visualizations The guest delivers a solo presentation arguing why traditional data visualizations fail at scale, citing mental gymnastics and the baseline effect. As a monologue presentation, the host does not speak or engage.10:48–18:33 · Guest teaching 2/10 Wordsmith Platform Overview and Client Use Cases The guest details the architectural workflow and enterprise use cases of the Wordsmith platform. The host remains off-stage until stepping in briefly at the end to transition to audience Q&A.3:07–5:08 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Video Presentation: Data Communication in Daily Life This segment is a video presentation play during a keynote talk where the host does not participate. The guest uses a comedic video to illustrate how absurd using raw charts to communicate personal data would be.5:08–10:48 · Guest disagreement 2/10 The Limitations of Data Visualizations The guest delivers a solo presentation arguing why traditional data visualizations fail at scale, citing mental gymnastics and the baseline effect. As a monologue presentation, the host does not speak or engage.10:48–18:33 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Wordsmith Platform Overview and Client Use Cases The guest details the architectural workflow and enterprise use cases of the Wordsmith platform. The host remains off-stage until stepping in briefly at the end to transition to audience Q&A.3:07–5:08 · Matt pushing back 0/10 Video Presentation: Data Communication in Daily Life This segment is a video presentation play during a keynote talk where the host does not participate. The guest uses a comedic video to illustrate how absurd using raw charts to communicate personal data would be.5:08–10:48 · Matt pushing back 0/10 The Limitations of Data Visualizations The guest delivers a solo presentation arguing why traditional data visualizations fail at scale, citing mental gymnastics and the baseline effect. As a monologue presentation, the host does not speak or engage.10:48–18:33 · Matt pushing back 0/10 Wordsmith Platform Overview and Client Use Cases The guest details the architectural workflow and enterprise use cases of the Wordsmith platform. The host remains off-stage until stepping in briefly at the end to transition to audience Q&A.

speaking balance: gold is Matt, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Matt 8.6% · guest 91.4%0:00 · Matt 8.6% · guest 91.4%3:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%3:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%6:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%6:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%9:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%9:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%12:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%12:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%15:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%15:00 · Matt 0% · guest 100%18:00 · Matt 13% · guest 87%18:00 · Matt 13% · guest 87%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 5:15 Why data visualizations suck

Robbie Allen provocatively challenges industry consensus by stating that data visualizations are poor mechanisms for communicating insights at scale.

 Hardest push from Matt ▶ 18:33 Strict Q&A time limits

Matt Turck steps in to wrap up the keynote presentation and strictly limit the Q&A session to a single question due to schedule constraints.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 6:40 Explaining the baseline effect

Robbie Allen explains how users become desensitized to static dashboards over time, framing imperceptible data changes as the boiling frog syndrome.

 Matt holds his own ▶ 0:00 Opening event framing

Matt Turck sets the stage by succinctly framing Automated Insights' core technology on how machines learn to write content for human readers.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicMatt as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementMatt pushing backWhy
Video Presentation: Data Communication in Daily Life 0110 This segment is a video presentation play during a keynote talk where the host does not participate. The guest uses a comedic video to illustrate how absurd using raw charts to communicate personal data would be.
The Limitations of Data Visualizations 0220 The guest delivers a solo presentation arguing why traditional data visualizations fail at scale, citing mental gymnastics and the baseline effect. As a monologue presentation, the host does not speak or engage.
Wordsmith Platform Overview and Client Use Cases 0210 The guest details the architectural workflow and enterprise use cases of the Wordsmith platform. The host remains off-stage until stepping in briefly at the end to transition to audience Q&A.

Statements from this episode (5)

Insight
Robbie Allen: Most people do not care about data visualizations
“Most people don't really care about visualizations. They just want to know what the heck the data's telling them. As easy as they possibly can get it.”
Robbie Allen Jun 26, 2014 ▶ 6:34
Insight
Robbie Allen: Most dashboards eventually become useless as users establish baselines
“Eventually most dashboards become useless Because people are already used to seeing it, it's giving them the same information that mostly that they saw last month or last week, and so they stopped looking at it.”
Robbie Allen Jun 26, 2014 ▶ 7:25
Opinion
Robbie Allen: Data visualizations do not actually tell stories
“Despite companies like Tableau and others that like to talk about how visualizations tell a story, they actually don't tell stories.”
Robbie Allen Jun 26, 2014 ▶ 7:37
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Automated Insights generated more content than all media combined in 2013
“We generated more content than all the media companies combined last year. Again, three hundred million.”
Robbie Allen Jun 26, 2014 ▶ 12:59
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Robbie Allen predicts data scientist roles will largely disappear by 2024
“In five to 10 years, the role, at least the role of data scientist or data engineer will largely go away, or mostly change, and it'll turn into programming systems like ours.”
Robbie Allen Jun 26, 2014 ▶ 15:06
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