Translator: Judit Szabo Reviewer: Denise RQ
We are living in an information tsunami,
and what we let in or filter out can define our most fundamental choices.
Let me show you an example.
I recall clearly when I was in a pub with my friend, Lali,
and first we were just talking, then arguing about
whether QR codes stuck to pub walls have any effect.
I said they didn't, because they're ugly,
and most likely, in that situation, no one will scan them.
Lali on the other hand said, "Just imagine you place 100-200 stickers for pennies,
and if only a few people scan them, it was already worth it."
This is a classic conflict of facts, you can only solve it
by introducing data into the argument.
I like experiments,
so I went and had 240 of these stickers printed,
and distributed them around pubs,
and they directed traffic to a website,
so I could measure how many people scanned them.
The experiment lasted 30 days,
and as it usually happens in experiments,
at first I took in all the raw data, who scanned the QR code,
when they scanned them, what device they used,
how long they stayed on my site, where they went afterwards,
in other words, everything.
To make the experiment more interesting,
I didn't just put up one type of sticker.
What could be the difference between them?
One was in men's toilets, and the other in women's toilets.
So I could measure which ones men and women scanned.
I also suspected that one doesn't repeat such an experiment often,
so I decided then, to split the experiment even further,
and print four different stickers both for boys and girls
with topics that might interest the regulars of a pub.
Like money, or the less ambiguous sex and party.
So I put up eight stickers, four for boys and four for girls,
one empty, sex, money, party.
30 days later I looked at the data, and I queried everything I possibly could.
This is pretty much what I got, this huge amount of data,
this is roughly how we feel every day,
when we are bombarded by information
and we can't decide what's important, and what only seems important.
This is a lot of data, but we don't really know what it says.
At this point we need to ask the question,
"What do we want to know?
What kind of story do we want to learn?"
I put three filters on my own experiment, three dimensions, which were:
which sticker people scanned, when did they scan it,
and how many times they scanned it.
From these three dimensions, we can tell a lot of interesting stories.
The last one, how many times people scanned it,
already answers the initial question, the value for money ratio.
The 240 stickers cost 5000HUF.
What's more important, it took 4 hours to distribute them
and in 30 days, I only got 171 scans from 240 stickers.
This means
it cost 29.2HUF/scans,
and 85 seconds per scan.
In other words, it was as if I had gone up to each person,
and told them individually,
here's 30HUF, give me a minute and a half to convince you to visit this website,
where I don't know what they'll do.
They might just close it immediately.
I collected some more complex but equally unambiguous data, too.
I looked at the scans by girls and boys:
boys scanned 126 times, girls 45 times in a month.
I like to think in graphs,
because visualizing makes decisions easier,
and I wanted to go deeper here;
I wanted to look at how well these stickers lasted over 30 days.
I looked at the data on a time graph,
and you can see how the number is going down.
This is where the enemies of my experiment appeared,
the cleaning ladies, who removed my stickers,
and the rival sticker distributors,
who covered up my stickers,
but this isn't the most interesting thing,
it's these spikes that can be seen in the chart.
So I thought it would be good to put a filter on this whole thing,
to see how many times people scanned them on the days of the week,
and I immediately got the "When do people go out?" story.
On Friday and Saturday.
I know that you all want to know
which stickers the girls and the guys scanned.
There was little surprise with the guys,
perhaps only that in second place, after sex, they are most interested in nothing.
(Applause)
(Laughter)
Sex wins comfortably with the girls too,
but they are a little smarter and money comes in second place.
(Applause)
I'm sure you're also thinking that it would be great to look at
on a trend chart how many times sex was scanned parallel with time.
So I already did that,
girls are pink and boys are blue, and this chart is a bit demagogue,
because it doesn't mean
that girls are less sexually active so they scanned less,
as we have already seen that they don't like scanning QR codes
but it shows nicely that there was something in the air
at the beginning and the middle of the month
that only the guys felt,
and here I would like to refer back to the days of the week chart,
that there is a pulse here too,
and this gave me the idea
to examine separately when the girls and the boys scanned "sex".
Guys are interested in sex on Friday-Saturday,
the girls on Monday-Thursday.
I think this could answer many contemporary questions.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Even Lali was surprised,
and I'm not trying to tell you
that you have to go to pubs and put stickers on the walls,
but there are things in life that cannot be solved
by sitting down and thinking about it,
we need to measure, test and analyze.
We are surrounded by data,
and what we read from that, and how we analyze it,
can be a big help in making decisions.
A classic example: I don't have time to work out,
I work 12 hours a day.
But when are you more efficient?
When you work 12 hours, or just 11 and go running once a day.
I don't know the answer,
but if I wanted to argue for one or the other,
and 12 hours might win,
then I would write down the days I'm working out
and write down when I feel efficient, or less efficient at work,
and I would compare the two.
I'm sure there would be some correlation.
Or, how much can we eat?
This is very subjective, everyone's diet is different.
My brother-in-law recently started
writing down what he ate every day,
how much he weighed,
and he found out in two weeks
what diet he should do what he can and cannot eat.
The interesting part came later,
because he thought that he'd start working out,
then he could eat a little more,
and after two more weeks it turned out that working out doesn't help,
he needs to diet to lose weight.
Tough luck.
(Laughter)
The third is sleep, one of my favourite topics.
Do we really need 8 hours of sleep?
Does it affect our mood?
I started doing this, I always write down how much I slept,
then five times a day my phone beeps,
and I write down what mood I'm in,
and I'm sure that in 2 months time
I will know what is my optimal amount of sleep.
I'm not saying that we have to measure absolutely everything,
but we have all the data around us, which we can filter,
and if we filter them well, and efficiently,
then we'll make good decisions more easily,
and if we make good decisions,
then we can be sure that life isn't just happening to us,
but we write its story ourselves.
(Applause)