Story telling...

A lot has been written and preached about the art of story telling. A simple reason why it is important: Humans get fascinated by stories. It is part of Homo Sapiens nomenclature. It intrigues us, captures our attention and registers a strong impact in our Gray matter.

With Analytics; 'Story telling' is being thrust into the foreground in the decision making process. It brings a 'human touch' in to the world of Big Data and Analytics where 'models' and 'stats' form the bulk of Machine Learning paradigm. 

Yes, you acquire data faster than ever before (Velocity). Yes, you store data than ever before (Volume). Yes, you get data from different channels in different timings (Variety). 

Story telling becomes a need rather than a wish. It serves not only to entertain but to elucidate.

But the main ingredient that will make people trust and appreciate your story is the consistency.

I had my hot water tank break down Monday morning while getting ready to work (I know eh!). A technician came in the morning only to conclude that he has to order some parts and only then can it be fixed.

From the next moment, it was just a waiting game. I was calling them intermittently to check on the status. Amusingly and frustratingly, I was getting different versions of the story every time I called (even if I called again after hanging up). 

"The parts will be couriered to your place" said Caller 1. "The parts will be delivered to the Technician" confirmed Caller 2. "The parts will be mailed to the Material Department and then they will call the Technician" refuted Caller 3.

On the screens, they all see my call history and the notes by the technicians. 

Every caller was quiet confident and made me assured their version of the story is correct. A coherency in the process workflow aka story was clearly lacking.The same data should provide the same story. Always.

At this moment, I am waiting for a technician to come Tuesday morning to rescue me from my misery.