This is our first post.

Since perfectionism is the enemy of progress, here I am, creating a first post that is about nothing (very Seinfeldian of me, I know). Actually, it’s here that I want to explain a little bit about the name I’ve come up with for the blog — Graphing Wonderland. In my day-job (and also recreationally) I’m attracted to complex systems, the more dynamics the better. Part of my attraction is understanding how the systems work, another part is being able to distill those concepts into models that can be used to solve problems. Those models often serve as frameworks or maps that are used to navigate the systems/issues/environments later (yes, I still use maps over GPS).

Maps and graphs are representations of data (often visual, often involving lots of math) into a format meant to assist navigation/analysis, or to communicate to an audience/viewer. I spend a great deal of time both consuming and creating different types of communication tools and information.

But just because a message is backed by a ton of data, analysis, and math doesn’t mean it’s going to be true or make a lot of sense. Hence my fascination with Wonderland, which takes formal logic out past its rational limits and into absurdity. This provides a helpful (for me) reminder as far as maintaining that sweet balance between beginner’s mind (open to innovation) and a skeptic’s inner devil’s advocate (if it’s too good to be true… + just because it sounds novel/cool/everyone else thinks so doesn’t mean that makes it a good idea)

If you have read this far (wow) then keep in mind we’ll be creating our map as we wander. It’s an approach to learning that lends itself to tangents (insert math joke here), but a random walk is a perfectly valid ways to map systems, or find a way from a –>b (wait, was that another math reference already?).

It’s not xkcd-level exposition but it keeps me amused. 🙂