CULMINATING with the carnival celebrations over the past week, we were treated to glorious displays of artistic talent. The quality of songs, composition, costumes and coordination all seemed to have improved substantially, much to the appreciation of the fans and likely to the chagrin of the judges.
The ability to discern the slightest of differences with which to judge performances is no mean feat and we must pay tribute to the focus and keen senses of the various judges who served us so well while being thrilled by the variety of performances.
Like a super judge, computers possess the remarkable ability to distinguish and disambiguate between highly similar items, especially text. Any computer programmer worth his or her salt will likely have stories to tell of instances where a single blank space, or other non-printing character, may have caused unexpected bugs to appear.
The term signal-to-noise ratio provides a useful method of detecting how easy it is to discern a signal (or pattern) from what might otherwise be discarded as uninteresting background noise. It can be a real challenge to manage large volumes of data and yet spot some useful features in that mass of data.
Thankfully, with the power of ICT at our disposal, we may easily apply rules to group related items together, or apply some noticeable format, such as a different colour, to help spot unusual or unexpected items.
Today, a person skilled in the use of a common spreadsheet application could easily impress and dazzle a data scientist from yesteryear. Unfortunately, not all the interesting problems to be solved can be so easily reduced to crunchable columns of numbers in a spreadsheet. For example, if you’ve interviewed people for a job, you would be fortunate to find an outstanding candidate head and shoulders above the others. Otherwise, you may have a close race and need to rely on the metrics and scores for the various skills needed, history, etc.
In what other ways do we need to be mindful of the signal to noise ratio in our communication and interaction? Here are a few:
*) Good people management should feature issuing more praise than blame;
*) Pithy newspaper articles should be concise, insightful, and even helpful;
*) Social media postings should be mindful of causing harm or distress;
*) Generally empowering others to encourage resourcefulness and independence.
If we continue to raise standards, whether in our carnival, calypso, or use of ICT to tackle problems, then we would all be the better for it. Let’s all add in our efforts to shape a stronger signal and not just add to the background noise level.
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About the Author
Dr.Lyndell St. Ville is an ICT Consultant based in Saint Lucia. His expertise includes systems analysis, design, and security strengthening.