Building interactive relationships with data and colleagues

Talking Data South West, University of Exeter, 20 June 2013

Markus Gesmann
Maintainer of the googleVis and ChainLadder R packages

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Abstract

Data is often used to initiate change.

Indeed, the statistical analysis of data can help to test ideas and hypothesis and provide support for change.

Yet, it is the interaction with people which matters the most.

Communicating the results of a data analysis and helping others to see the stories in the numbers is challenging.

I will talk about my experience and the tools I developed to build engaging relationships with my colleagues.

This talk will change your life

Trust me

Truth is what connects us.

Karl Jaspers

You can only be proven wrong

Karl Popper. Source: LSE Image library

Black Swan. Source: JJ Harrision, CC-BY-SA

Or, you make money until you don't

Lehamn Brothers

Hans Rosling: The World has changed

It's easy to replicate Hans' charts

Change requires a challenge to the accepted truth

The 'truth' varies by background

Underwriting
Actuarial
Claims
Exposure management
Accounting
Communication / Marketing
Legal
IT
Regulators
Rating agencies

Find the best comparison

Time well spend?

Geeks vs nongeeks
Author: Bruno Oliveira

Performance against plan and peer group

Performance vs peer group and plan

Use interactive charts for what if analysis

Example with R and googleVis on shiny (Reload this page if no line chart appears)

Be playful and have fun

Example by Chirstopher Gandrud

Summary

In communication lies the origin of truth.

Karl Jaspers

Questions?

Thanks to

Steve Brooks for inviting me to Exeter
Ramnath Vaidyanathan for slidify
Hans Rosling for showing us that data is not boring
RStudio for shiny and hosting my scenario analysis app
Google for making the interactive chart tools available
R Core for their hard work and support

Contact

How I created these slides in R

library(slidify)
author("InteractiveRelationships")
## Edit the file index.Rmd file and then
slidify("index.Rmd")

Session Info

sessionInfo()

## R version 3.0.1 (2013-05-16)
## Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin10.8.0 (64-bit)
## 
## locale:
## [1] en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8/C/en_GB.UTF-8/en_GB.UTF-8
## 
## attached base packages:
## [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     
## 
## other attached packages:
## [1] googleVis_0.4.3 slidify_0.3.3  
## 
## loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
##  [1] digest_0.6.3   evaluate_0.4.3 formatR_0.7    knitr_1.2     
##  [5] markdown_0.5.4 RJSONIO_1.0-3  stringr_0.6.2  tools_3.0.1   
##  [9] whisker_0.3-2  yaml_2.1.7