Hitchhiker’s Guide to Analytics — The Whole Truth
Clear the courtroom
Where was I? Oh, yes. Truth. Justice. The-
Wait. That’s not it. We were talking about Prak. I ran out of room last time, so I promised that I’d tell you soon. Right, then…
First, we’ll have a bit of background.
The Single Source of Truth
In our last discussion, we made it far enough to discuss the idea of a Single Source of Truth or SSOT. The SSOT is considered to contain the ‘correct’ information and acts as the standard by which all reports and other analytic results are measured.
We also discussed the flaws of actually implementing the SSOT paradigm in business, like the fact that its selection is often completely arbitrary.
Well, at some point in the past (or the future- it’s hard to tell sometimes), there was an actual single source of truth. Not just for your project, for all of it: Life, the Universe, and Everything.
His name was Prak.
Truth
At the end of Life, the Universe, and Everything, the third book in the HHG trilogy, the crew follows a distress signal and encounters a journalist who appeared to be thoroughly mad, even though he claimed to be only half-mad.
This journalist described a trial he’d been covering on Argabuthon that involved a witness named Prak. Prak was a “strange and difficult man”, so the judge ordered that truth serum be administered.
That’s when it happened.
“They gave him too much,” he said in a tiny whimper.
“And when the trial continued,” he said in a weeping whisper, “they asked Prak a most unfortunate thing. They asked him,” he paused and shivered, “to tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth. Only, don’t you see?”
He suddenly hoisted himself up on to his elbows again and shouted at them.
“They’d given him much too much of the drug!”
The drug worked. Prak began to tell the whole truth, from beginning to end. Every truth about everything. And he didn’t stop. He couldn’t.
“Terrible things, incomprehensible things,” he shouted, “things that would drive a man mad!”
He stared wildly at them.
“Or in my case,” he said, “half-mad. I’m a journalist.”
“You mean,” said Arthur quietly, “that you are used to confronting the truth?”
“No,” said the man with a puzzled frown. “I mean that I made an excuse and left early.”
The Whole Truth
When it became clear that Prak could not be stopped, the court was cleared of the few people that hadn’t already run screaming. Not only was it cleared, the chamber was sealed with Prak still inside. Just to be safe, they added electric fences, barbed wire, crocodile swamps, and three major armies.
Of course, that did not stop our heroes from making their way inside.
In Relativity, Matter tells Space how to curve, and Space tells Matter how to move. The Heart of Gold told space to get knotted, and parked itself neatly within the inner steel perimeter of the Argabuthon Chamber of Law.
They made their way to the courtroom, best summarized in one sentence:
If a sunbeam had ever managed to slink this far into the Justice complex of Argabuthon it would have turned around and slunk straight back out again.
In the darkness of the courtroom, they found a single sign of life.
Prak was sitting quietly, shoulders hunched forward, smoking a cigarette. They had expected him to be talking, but he had finished. When asked, he said there’s not nearly as much truth as people typically imagine.
He also couldn’t remember much, except that some of it was pretty funny. Especially some of the bits about frogs.
Just before Prak died, he and Arthur had a brief conversation that left Arthur thoroughly unsatisfied. He couldn’t tell them the Ultimate Question.
Instead, would they like to know God’s final message to His creation?
Of course they said yes. So he replied:
“I bet you would. If you’re that interested, I suggest you go and look for it. It is written in thirty-foot-high letters of fire on top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn, third out from the sun Zarss in Galactic Sector QQ7 Active J Gamma. It is guarded by the Lajestic Vantrashell of Lob.”
There was a long silence following this announcement, finally broken by Arthur.
“Sorry, it’s where?” he said.
“It is written,” repeated Prak, “in thirty-foot-high letters of fire on top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet Preliumtarn, third out from the…”
“Sorry,” said Arthur again, “which mountains?”
“The Quentulus Quazgar Mountains in the land of Sevorbeupstry on the planet…”
“Which land was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”
“Sevorbeupstry, on the planet…”
“Sevorbe-what?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Prak and died testily.
Of course, they promptly forgot about it and went on about their business.
I actually do know the Message, but I’m not sharing. If you can’t get to the top of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains to see it in person, then read a book.
Anything But the Truth
Think about it.
This man was telling the Whole Truth about everything, and the people fled. That says a lot, as does the fact that none of you were surprised to learn it.
While I hope the audience doesn’t run screaming from your next Powerpoint slideshow or solution demo, you probably have some experience with the idea that some people do not want to hear the truth, especially not all of it.
There are lessons here, and one of them is pretty depressing.
- Keep on message, and keep it brief. No one wants to be overwhelmed by unnecessary and/or ancillary details. Say only what you need to say. Show only what needs to be seen. Even in e-mail, add a TL;DR version of your message at the top. Then delete the original text. Then send it.
- Most people simply do not wish to hear the truth unless it aligns with what they already believe or what they want it to be. You will take heat at some point in your career for showing unfavorable results, especially when they are accurate. Remember that the data does not take sides.
- Isolate the person who administers truth serum along with the recipient. Have procedures in place to avoid situations like what happened to Prak.
I’m not going into confirmation bias or cognitive dissonance or some folks’ unfortunate habit of tailoring their messages (and results) rather than simply showing the most accurate results possible.
Too many people will take the approach of Megadodo Publications, the publishers of the actual Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, when dealing with unpleasant truths that do not fit their predetermined conclusion.
We always hear about margins of error, acceptable variances, perspective view, and multiple versions of truth and other things that roughly translate to our numbers are not correct but we’re done here. Close enough.
You have to choose at this point. I mean, not at this point in the article, but when you hit a situation like this in your work.
Be brief. That’s always good. Beyond that, sometimes you have to choose between being right (and professional) or winning points with the higher-ups.
My advice? Be Prak. Tell the truth. The whole truth.
I won’t advocate smoking in dark rooms, but that’s ultimately on you.
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