Category: software

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Why Learning to “Question The Question” Matters

Photo by Diego PH on Unsplash

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As a young researcher working at the Port of Long Beach, I answered requests generated from the port staff. (As my time in Long Beach occurred before the Internet became the “knowledge search tool”, I had to understand what people needed and why they needed the information!) After plenty of, “This is not what I need”, “I wanted it like the report you did a year ago”, “how much do you spend on data purchases”, I realized that it was not only understanding their “question”, but knowing what intelligence they needed. So, I asked questions about their request (sometimes the light bulb takes a while to come on…). Surprising, once I took the time to question the requester, the better the research (more timely, focused, etc.) became. (There was a great discussion on the importance of questions by Hal Gregersen on “The One You Feed” Podcast.)

Disclaimer: The following assumes these are internally generated questions. While the same approach could be used for evaluating service consulting requests, there exist other program elements one would add beyond these questions.

The questions fall into four broad categories: Institutional, Skills, Costs, and Review. The Institutional category links the inquiry to the organization’s goals and values. One could argue these are the most important to know, for they outline what is expected, but I would argue they are not the only thing to assess. The Skills category is a self-determination about your ability to provide the answer, while Costs outline what (if any) additional resources may be needed. Finally, the last category is Review, i.e., what can I do better/different in my current work activities based on this request. (Rearranging the 4 categories results in RISC, an appropriate reminder of the possible consequences of bad/misinformed research.)

Institutional: The objective is to provide timely intelligence to support the organization’s mission. In many ways, knowing the right answer but for the wrong question does not help anyone, and researchers must guard against our own biases concerning what we think someone needs. I had to learn to ask the following questions:

  • Who needs this,
  • Who asked the question,
  • When do they expect an answer,
  • What are their expected outcomes (and by when),
  • Can you repeat their inquiry back to them in a clear, concise manner,
  • Will this require an internal review, and if so, who would do that work,
  • Will this intelligence be used internally or externally,
  • Who will review this work,
  • How important is this request when compared to other requests,
  • Into what format do you want the report (chart, text, etc.)
  • Is this question related to some legal request, requiring documentation, or following specific guidance goal,
  • While this require a presentation/training on my part when completed,
  • What level of confidence are they willing to accept, which can range from a rough guess to a high degree of confidence?

Skills: In many ways, this is the hardest category to consider, for one must be honest. Without this assessment, the researcher may needlessly expose themselves to having their work deemed less than acceptable over time. Some questions may include:

  • Do I have the time,
  • Do I have access to the data to complete the task,
  • Do I have the software/skills to complete the task,
  • Do I want to do this research,
  • What happens if I don’t do this,
  • Is this like previous questions I (or others) have answered in the past,
  • Can you repeat their inquiry back to them in a clear, concise manner,
  • Can someone else answer this question better than me,
  • Do I have the domain knowledge to understand the topic,
  • Do I need a collaborator,
  • Do I need some training to answer this question?

Costs: Sometimes there are costs associated with doing business researcher. Not all data is accessible in the format one needs, nor, as people believe is all information “free” on the internet. The researcher must understand the resource costs, but these may matter little to the person who generated the inquiry!

  • Do I need to purchase data/information services,
  • Do I need to get a license or right to access the data,
  • Do I need to purchase software or hardware,
  • Do I need to hire a consultant because I do not have the skills time or energy to complete this project is anticipated format,
  • Can I legally share this data, or does it have to be summarized, etc.?
  • Do I need to pay for training to respond to this request?

Review: After the work is delivered, sometimes it is helpful to review with the inquirer to understand how your research met their needs. And for any professional researcher, this is an ongoing query regarding “do I have the right knowledge to do my appointed tasks”. These questions may include discussions such as:

  • Will I be asked similar questions in the future,
  • Do you want to yourself/others to access this information directly without asking me,
  • Do you need training to access the data themselves,
  • Do you or I need more domain knowledge,
  • Did the information satisfy our organization’s needs?

So, what did I do once I better understood internal needs?

After a while, I started to see where most questions centered around “who was doing what where” and “were they successful”. Knowing most questions focused on certain topics, it was easy incorporate those queries into my ongoing data/market research activities. Ultimately, this lead to the development of the Port’s first maritime data mart by integrating PIERS into Oracle with many long-forgotten programs (such as Paradox and Brio). The datamart, using various scripts, generated quarterly market reports for Senior Staff. The information also provided specialized research studies for current or potential clients of the port concerning market patterns.

But people do not “understand the value of information”, something every researcher laments. When I was at the Port of Long Beach, Don Wylie, my boss, instructed me to include on every report “the data was developed by the Trade and Maritime Services using PIERS data”. The following year, there was no debate concerning renewing the PIERS data purchase, nor the value that the Trade Office provided.

In sum, asking the right questions, through a structured approach, can illuminate everyone’s expectations. This should result in more successful projects, while demonstrating the value of a robust internal research mission.

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Crossing over the U.S-Mexican Border

Recently, Teen Vogue highlighted how crossing the U.S. border remains a daily reality for most people. The author focused on four stories: travel for work, school, shopping and family, although there are other reasons, such as medical or tourism. The article sited a Bureau of Transportation Statistics website which complied numbers, mode and locations crossings into the United States. And BTS does not report illegal crossings…that is Customs and Border Protection’s information.

So in 2018, the largest U.S. crossings with Mexico are shown on the following map

So, there are a few crossings in Southern California, El Paso, and the lower Rio Grande Valley with the largest passenger crossings, mostly by automobile or walking. The largest bus crossings are in Laredo, but the largest Pedestrian and automobile crossings occurred in San Ysidro and El Paso.

No one simply travels across the border just to say, “well I was in “so-and-so””, (well, unless you are interested in joining the Traveler’s Century Club.) Sometimes, we forget that for each data point, there is a reason why someone wanted to enter the United States. But for local and national groups, it is just as important to know the total number and location of how people entered the United States to assist in planning infrastructure and operational needs or to quantify the border’s economic contribution activity.

Notes:

How the graph was created: Downloaded a custom table from BTS Border Crossing Database, converted the file into Excel to fix the geography, and than imported in Tableau.

Related databases:
The BTS information does not include passenger flights, which are reported here

There is some information on commercial freight traffic, such as trains and trucks,which is presented below for 2018. For a fuller comparison of commercial freight transportation across the borders, go TransBorder Freight Data.

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International Trade Data, Organizing Data and Client Support

On December 19, I agreed to talk at the New Orleans Data Group. The previous speakers presented work that was largely for internal audiences, so I wanted to focus on something more applied. With my interest in trade, this seemed a good fit.

Globalization refers to interconnected economies, and in a connected world, this largely is tied to investment (such as Foreign Direct Investment), Services, and Goods. (Here is a good place to start if one wants information on U.S. global activity) So, the rest of the talk focused on trade in goods.

There are many reasons why post World War II trade growth blossomed, but the economy benefited from transportation and telecommunication innovations and regulatory changes. (A good discussion of some of this was referred to in Wired magazine’s article “The 20-Ton Packet”)

But trade represents the sum of many things. For example, here are two different industries, such as toys (left) and cut flowers (left). So, there are seasonal patterns to importing merchandise, as there is just as strong seasonal exports of grains and other products. As such, trade represents the sum of decisions between many companies, (a significant amount of trade is intracompany flows).

But we don’t see “TRADE”, we see transportation. Have you ever wondered what was in the truck? The picture on the right was trucks stopped in Louisiana because of a flood in 2016, but most trucks in the Southeast are moving cargo that is intrastate or internal to the Southeast. Trade, as a share of total trade, is actually only 17% of the total traffic activity. However, in Louisiana, as a very strong maritime trade, maritime trade represents a significant industry when compared to other states. (ITTS Working Paper 1 – “International Maritime Trade Benefits the Nation’s Economy“)

There are different pieces of information tied to an international shipment, such as the cargo’s origin and destination, its port of entry, and destination, duties, etc. What is not represented in the chart below is information about the shipper and receiver, the value of the cargo, who is paying for what activity (and is bearing the transportation risks) and other details. The data regarding international trade could thus represent a transaction (generated in respond to an event) or metadata, such as regarding the cargo itself, that is independent of its location and movement. (When conducting trade research, one has to remember U.S. Government disclosure rules do influence how much information can be released.)

Cargo is more likely to move via truck or air for time-sensitive shipments; on the other hand, water tends to handle large, less time-sensitive shipments with lower per unit costs. People make this trade-off. The more expensive the product, the more likely it is that air or trucking will be the
mode selected. Depending on the shipment size, people are more likely to use water, rail or pipeline for similar cargoes. As a result, people’s mode selection is based upon the value, timing, and size of the cargo.

So, there are many things related to trade. The researcher would need to know the details about season patterns, mode, etc., when organizing the data and/or query.

What was delivered…

As part of an ongoing research work, I put several databases into Tableau for the Institute for Trade and Transportation Studies member states. The effort was to develop workbooks with international trade data and other sources of information that may be of use to local planners and economists.
The video about how to engage the dashboards is here.

Working Paper 21 – “Executive Briefing Book”  (June 2018)

The following table represents the metadata regarding the data released for the states. (There are other sources of trade data not included in this study.)

The above graphic shows some metadata about the data sets I integrated into Tableau for the ITTS member states.

In reviewing the project, I talked about the need for the client to understands how to access the data and the data elements are included, so they can duplicate/review the work. I also discussed how to organize the data into Tableau, including challenges I faced regarding one to many joins and matching geography.

If you are interested in more discussions on trade data, I did a presentation at the University of Southern Mississippi regarding trade brochures developed for the ITTS member states (there are some other trade reports posted at http://www.ittsresearch.org/state-reports.html).

The real takeaway from all this…trade data is complicated, especially if one forgets the metadata, for surely the devil is in the details.