Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013 - (Page 24)

EARTH INSTITUTE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY FIGURE 4: Collage of Five Pages of Charts From the World Happiness Report voluminous data digestible, the report's authors utilized a wealth of charts. Figure 3 shows one page of the report, which depicts how people in Europe and in Latin America & the Caribbean rated their level of happiness on a scale of 0 to 10. The researchers divide the world into nine regions, so these charts run on for five pages, starting with the world average followed by nine separate analyses. In Figure 4, I juxtaposed those pages. What do you learn about the data from these graphs? If you are struggling to find meaning in these charts, you are not alone. There is a story in the data, which can be revealed if the data is visualized differently-which is what I've attempted to do in Figure 5. Each thick black line represents the "happiness profile" of a region of the world, while the vertical line shows the average happiness rating in the respective region. The first panel suggests that North Americans are a happy bunch, with the majority rating 8 or higher and less than five percent of the population rating below 4. Referencing the dotted line which is the world average profile, the reader immediately sees that Americans and Europeans are much happier than average, while people in Sub-Saharan Africa are significantly less happy. The revised chart communicates the story behind the numbers. There are usually many ways to analyze and present data, so when you're making a chart, think about what the real point of your data is. Is it enough to translate the numbers into a chart, or does your data want to say something more? 24 imagine Of course, it is your responsibility to make sure the story you tell is accurate. You now know that graphics are powerful, so use that power responsibly. Invitation to Geekdom For proof that numbers rule your world (the title of my 2010 book), you need look no further than the phenomenon of Facebook "Likes." Clicking on the Like button requires almost no conviction, and thus signifies next to nothing. Yet businesses spend a lot of real money participating in this invented micro-economy; and scientists publish papers analyzing Facebook data, treating the data with the same seriousness as that carefully collected for, say, clinical trials. In this data-rich world, the field of statistics has suddenly become really cool-and increasingly important. Having spent much of my career in business statistics, I can tell you it's one of the most exciting and rewarding jobs for scientific minds. You can start preparing yourself for this career by gaining a solid foundation in mathematics and statistics. In addition, you need to develop what I call numbersense-that internal alarm that sounds Nov/Dec 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013

In My Own Words
Interested in Econ
The World in Numbers
Reckoning with Randomness
Elliptic Curves
A League of Our Own
More Than Math
Developing Your Numbersense
Where Math Meets Imagination
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Dancing in the Footsteps of My Ancestors
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Game

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013