Comic Book Lessons in Analytics — Green Lantern John Stewart

An architect in a world with no time for rebuilding

In DC Comics, there have been seven Green Lanterns from the Planet Earth. Each is unique. Alan Scott, the first, controls a ring based on magic. The other six are members of the universe-wide Green Lantern Corps, an organization that attempts to maintain order in the universe through sheer willpower (focused and multiplied many times over through the rings they wear).

Hal Jordan is the first Earth lantern and usually the most popular. Today, I want to talk about the third Earth lantern, John Stewart.

John was a marine. After his service ended, he became an architect. He is one of the strongest and most respected Green Lanterns in the universe. He has destroyed worlds. He has saved even more. He has left the Corps for moral reasons. Today, he leads the Corps for almost the same reasons.

He is known as possibly the best example of what a Green Lantern should be. Through all of it, at heart, he is still an architect.

You seem to be going somewhere with this…

I’m writing about John because I’ve been in a thinking lately about my own work as an analyst. While I don’t have John’s resume (still waiting for my ring), I seem to have followed a different career path than many of my colleagues. I work with career analysts and statisticians and people who have studied Business Intelligence and Data Visualization.

I’ve been a Medical Billing Manager. That led to a position in reporting because my employers wanted every team in the company to have access to the kind of reports I was running for my own use.

From there, I moved into system and database administration. Then business requirements analysis and software design for an independent vendor. Since then, I’ve worked in national and global transaction standards, database architecture, and data modeling in both practical and theoretical domains.

Today, I work in Business Intelligence. But I have never, and probably will never, fully adjust to role of being solely an analyst and visual designer.

I’m an architect.

To me, these pieces fit together perfectly and even improve what I have to offer. Others don’t always seem to see it that way.

Back to Green Lantern…

One of the primary abilities of a Green Lantern is the creation of constructs. They shape the energy flowing throw their rings into whatever they need. It can be as simple as a light source, a concussive beam, or an umbrella.

The 2004 story Green Lantern: Rebirth featured the return of Hal Jordan to his role as a Green Lantern, after a brief stint as a villain who wanted to rewrite reality and a briefer stint merged with the Spectre.

The author, Geoff Johns, took the opportunity to expand on many aspects of Green Lantern behavior and abilities, including the use of constructs.

A construct needs to be no more complex than a basic three dimensional shape made of light that accomplishes its task. A fist. A wall. An solid suit of armor.

John Stewart takes it further.

Even though the other Lanterns make what they need to make, John instinctively builds his constructs just like he builds physical constructs with moving parts when he’s not using his ring. Every piece is in place. Every piece is connected. As Jordan says in the narration, nothing John creates is hollow.

With or without the ring.

Back to Analytics

Many of the projects I see in Business Intelligence are fairly straightforward. The BI analyst takes the available data and uses it to generate meaningful visualizations that help the audience to understand and interpret key points in a meaningful and useful way. That is, in most instances, the main goal of BI.

I take it further. Rather than accepting metrics and dimensions as they are presented, I see the data.

I break down the domain and the requirements into the pieces of data that create the former and can fulfill the latter. I combine the data and its context to build my solutions. I insist on understanding both the data as written and the business domain behind it.

Even in the simplest assignment, I construct that framework before I can really begin to take the necessary steps to complete it.

Applicability

I’m not saying any of this to cast shade on the higher-level approach taken by many individuals in Business Intelligence and Data Visualization. We are often dealing with multiple assignments from unrelated directions, and it takes time we don’t have to learn each aspect of the business model in depth.

My approach is, however, what I teach to the people I mentor. Looking at longer term performance of the analyst and project results, I think the end results are stronger, more adaptable, and capable of providing better results over time, even as projects and priorities change.

John Stewart has never let go of his past and experience in his time as a Green Lantern. He uses his experience to improve himself and his strategies.

Marine, Green Lantern, Indigo Lantern (briefly), Corp Leader

Maybe there’s something in here about paying attention to every detail of your work. Maybe it’s about using the past as a guide to improve your approach to the present and your plans for the future. Maybe it’s just about my own self-reflection as things change in my own career and responsibilities.

I definitely believe the whole BI world could use a little more structure in its approach, and the Data Science domain should stop seeing architects as being useful only when data models are being created, modified, and implemented. In other words, we should incorporate their techniques instead of considering their job to be done long before we get involved.

However you take it, just know that there is more to Business Intelligence than Data Visualization and presentation. There’s more to analytics than taking the requirements you’re handed and creating a solution to satisfy them.

John will always be an architect, even as a Green Lantern. He looks at the details of a problem or an enemy. He sees strengths and weaknesses in structural terms. Nothing he builds is hollow, inside or out.

I started in BI as an analyst, and I’m a pretty good one. But I also see the gaps left between requirements and development, usually for the sake of expedience. I see the path needed to bridge those gaps and will never let it go.

I work in Business Intelligence. And I’m an architect.