Data visualization is a branch of data science, which is the extraction of knowledge from data. In fact, we have been doing data visualization since we were little without even knowing it. The graphical representation of mathematical functions that we did at school was already data visualization, because it consisted in associating a graphical representation to a set of data to make them more readable. Data visualization is therefore the science of representing a large amount of data in graphic form to make it more intelligible. Extrapolating the reasoning, the brain can be considered as the first expert in data visualization, because it associates a set of physical data, in this case light waves, in a graphic representation of shapes, colors, gradations, to constitute the vision.
Below, a diagram extracted from Wikipedia, which situates data visualization among the data sciences:

Graphs

Concretely, there is a set of graphs that allow to channel data, to extract the most important information. The most crucial aspect of data visualization is to find the graph that is best suited to the type of data observed. Some graphs allow to represent static data, others dynamic data. Finally, some are intended for temporal data. Let's take a look at a few graphs.

The histogram, a classic for statisticians

Each column corresponds to a class, and allows to arrange the values of a variable. Simple, visual, efficient, indestructible.
Below, the number of penalties taken by soccer players:

The sankey diagram, ideal for flows

The Sankey diagram is a flow diagram where the width of the arrows is proportional to the flow itself. It was originally used to show the use and loss of energy in systems. The graph below shows for example the energy sources in the UK, and their uses:

In a more original way, the Frenchman Charles Minard initially used this graph to represent the number of Napoleonic troops, during the Russian campaigns:

The arc diagram, to identify relationships between elements

The arc diagram is an original way to represent relationships between elements. Here is an example, which allows you to see the relationships between the Stark family and the Lannister family in the Game of Throne series:

Or also, with the arcs on both sides:

The proportional map or treemap

A diagram that presents square surfaces, in order to identify proportions. This diagram is very useful to have a representation of orders of magnitude. It is particularly used to represent the occupation of the memory on a computer.
Below is a representation of the proportions of the groups of musical instruments, according to the type of orchestra:

Hexagonal bining of data

The data are grouped in hexagons. The colors allow to quantify the importance of each hexagon. A drawing is better than long speeches, below, the shots of the basketball player Kobe Bryant represented according to the position in relation to the basket:

The Gant diagram

The essential diagram for all project managers, to represent the evolution of activities over time. As an example, here is the Gant chart of the Italian presidents and prime ministers over time:

Heatmap or heat map

A representation by "heat zone" of the most frequented regions. This can be used to represent the frequency of use of letters according to language:

Sunburst Chart

A more advanced version of the pie chart that allows to represent hierarchies and proportions. Below, we can see the frequency of aromas in the wine:

Tools

There are many tools to build data visualization graphs like Excel, Power BI, Google Charts, D3js, Tableau, etc. And these tools are increasingly used to process the billions of data in our time. If you want to know more in the next articles about data visualization, subscribe to the newsletter!

On September 18, 2021, The Economist, the British business newspaper, placed an illustration of Alice in Wonderland on its front page to talk about decentralized finance. What is decentralized finance? And why does this Economist cover herald a new era?

Decentralized Finance, or Alice in Wonderland

Decentralized finance, or DeFi, is a new kind of finance, which draws its strength from the use of blockchain technology. Indeed, most financial technologies today are centralized. All transactions must be verified by central actors. The best known of these actors are banks, but there are many others, such as central depositories, stock exchanges, insurers, etc. These central actors usually get paid in the following way: every time there is a transaction, they take a commission.
With blockchain and decentralized finance, these central actors, as we know them, are no longer involved!
Blockchain is a technology that was born with Bitcoin, and it is still evolving. The blockchain is a register distributed among several computers in the world, and on which transactions are recorded. There is the Bitcoin blockchain, but there are many others, including the Ethereum blockchain. The latter has allowed a boom in possible use cases, because on the Ethereum blockchain, it is possible to develop applications, known as decentralized applications, which run on computers distributed throughout the world.

The new kings of the world

In 2018, the decentralized application Uniswap was created. Uniswap is the first major decentralized finance app. This decentralized app is revolutionizing finance, plain and simple. In centralized finance, all transactions go through central players. In decentralized finance, all transactions go through the blockchain, and what is revolutionary is that all the participants in the blockchain can play the role of central players, and therefore recover commissions on transactions. On Uniswap, it becomes possible to deposit bitcoins and to be remunerated in return. The bitcoins will serve as a liquidity reserve, and will be automatically managed by the blockchain. This is one of the applications of decentralized finance, but many others have been created since. Sushiswap, AAVE, Venus, Compound... are all decentralized applications that are revolutionizing their field.

Wonderland

Alas, like everything that glitters, decentralized finance has a dark side. Behind the wonderland, some people take advantage of the excitement to fleece others, with mechanisms often inspired by the Ponzi pyramid. But despite the unfortunate scams, the technological revolution is real. And The Economist recognizes that decentralized finance could be the beginning of a revolution, as the internet was in its time. In 2015, The Economist was able to identify the blockchain technology revolution behind bitcoin, in a famous piece:

At a time when bitcoin was considered the currency of the Dark Web, The Economist wisely identified the revolutionary technology of blockchain.

6 years later, this technology is producing decentralized finance, which could shake up multi-century old banks. And that's why this Economist cover story ushers in a new era of complex competition between centralized and decentralized finance.

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Sources

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/09/18/adventures-in-defi-land

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/09/18/the-beguiling-promise-of-decentralised-finance

You may have heard of no-code, or you may already be practicing it. But what is no-code? And if it is no-code, why do some people proclaim themselves as "no-coders", and thus able to code no-code?

Code then low-code / no-code

Before no-code, other tools allowing to develop applications easily existed.
In fact, the different programming languages are already a simplification of the computer language. Indeed, computers use, for the most part, a binary language to communicate, made of 0 and 1, because it is the simplest way to define the "on" or "off" state of the communication signals of a computer. It is almost impossible for a human to write binary code directly, understandable by the computer. To create applications, developers write lines of code in human-understandable programming languages, which are quite different from the computer's binary code. So how can this language be understood by the computer? The programming language written by the developers is translated into a language understandable to the computer, the machine language. This translation is done by a computer program; generally this program is called the compiler.
To illustrate, we have two worlds, the human world and the machine world. Human developers write code in a programming language they can understand, and then this computer code is translated into the language of the machine so that it can execute the instructions of the machine.
There are a multitude of programming languages that developers can use: Java, C++, Python, Swift... But mastering these programming languages requires years of study.
This is why no code or low code tools have appeared and are gaining ground.
A tool like Excel for example, can be considered as a precursor of no-code, because it allows to perform complex operations, or even to launch applications with macros.
But no-code tools go further. It is a set of software, which allows to deploy applications, without writing a line of code in programming language. No-code tools use intuitive and pleasant interfaces to make the development of an application accessible to everyone. Most no-code tools are built on the following principle: "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG). What is seen on the screen is the final rendering of the application.
It is now possible to do almost anything with no-code. Be it a website, an android or ios application, a webapp, a marketplace. The only limit is imagination.
From a cost point of view, no-code applications usually work on a Saas (Software as a service) model, i.e., an online use by subscription.
Here are some examples of no-code tools: Bubble, Zappier, Adalo, Glide, Airtable... We will see them in more detail later.
No-coders are therefore computer programmers of a new generation, who are able to use several no-code tools, to create applications quickly. No-coders can also develop prototype applications in no-code, which will then be developed in "real" code.

Examples of no-code projects

Recently, startups have been able to launch only with no-code tools, without any computer programmer.

Let's mention for example :

Comet.co
This is a marketplace to connect freelancers with potential clients
This platform was developed using Bubble.io. In 2018 Comet.co raised 14 million euros.

New York City
In 2020, New York City used a no-code tool, Unqork, to develop a platform to collect information about Covid. Again, no code allows for solutions to be deployed in a short time to meet urgent needs.

Conclusion

No-code is a new technological tool, whose history is just beginning to be written. If you want to know the rest of the story, or find out about Distributed Innovation's trainings, subscribe to the newsletter.

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Recently, DeFi, or decentralized finance, has made a breakthrough. As seen in a previous article, the scope of Bitcoin can be compared to monetary aggregates. However, in this comparison, we have not mentioned DeFi.
What about DeFi?

Brief definition

DeFi is a set of financial services, which use blockchain technology to achieve its goals. Most of the DeFi projects are based on the Ethereum blockchain, which explains the strong rise of the token. Since a few months, the Binance Smart Chain blockchain, which is a blockchain powered by the Binance crypto-currency exchange platform, also proposes many DeFi projects.

Thus, the DeFi makes it possible, among other things, to lend or borrow, either directly to other people or indirectly.
In the DeFi, it is notably possible to lend both Bitcoins and Dollars, or both Bitcoins and Euros, in exchange for a reward in the form of an interest rate. This loan allows the marketplace to have sufficient liquidity to operate; when a person lends his Bitcoins and Euros, he "stakes" his Bitcoins in exchange for a reward, which comes from the commissions that are taken from each exchange in the marketplace.

A word of caution is in order, however, because among these DeFi projects, many promise everything, with ROI that sometimes allow the stake to be multiplied by 10. As often, when new territories of innovation are discovered, it is "Far West", and the scams are numerous. This was the case in the early days of the web, for example. But these numerous scams must not hide the potential of the innovation in question, and the DeFi, once rid of its youthful crooks, will profoundly change investment and finance.

DeFi and aggregates

As mentioned above, "staking" is one of the possibilities that allow to lend crypto-currencies, being remunerated, and it is thus an investment in the universe of decentralized finance, as savings accounts would be in traditional finance.

If we go back to the monetary aggregates mentioned in the previous article, the DeFi therefore occupies the place of the M2 aggregate, which corresponds to investments such as ssavings accounts, etc.

DeFi exploits the possibilities of smart contracts for financial services; these smart contracts were introduced thanks to the development of the Ethereum blockchain, and they allow, simply put, to register a contract in the blockchain, and to make sure that it is executed automatically. For example, the insurance company AXA had developed an airplane delay insurance, which was connected to the arrival times of the various flights, and which could automatically compensate an insured person, without the latter having to take any steps. Intelligent contracts also exist for setting up loans, and they are contributing to the growth of DeFi.

Blockchain and financial services

Little by little, blockchain technology is therefore gaining ground and offering increasingly sophisticated financial services. These financial services can be mapped in the same way as monetary aggregates. Like the information technologies that appeared before it, blockchain technology, slowly but surely, is transforming interactions, and in particular, financial interactions. The financial sector, a pioneer of the blockchain, has understood this for several years, but despite this lucid anticipation, the tempo could very quickly accelerate...

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Many people criticize Bitcoin for its electricity consumption, which is often compared to that of entire countries. It is true that the blockchain technology based on proof of work, which is used by Bitcoin consumes a lot of energy. But there is a preliminary step, which few people talk about, and which Bitcoin's critics tend to avoid or simplify.
This preliminary step is to ask the question: if Bitcoin were to be adopted on a large scale, what place would it take, and what services would become obsolete as a result of this adoption?

Bitcoin, that electronic cash

Let's go back to sources. In the abstract of the white paper at the origin of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto defines it as follows:

A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.

Then in conclusion:

We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.

Or, as stated more explicitly in the introduction :

What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.

Created in the 2000s, Bitcoin is therefore proposed as a solution for Internet payments, which were growing rapidly at that time. Let's insist a little on its characteristics:

• it is a means of electronic payment
• payments are made from person to person, without going through a financial institution (trust in these institutions is replaced by cryptographic proof)
• Another interesting property that results from this is that anyone can create a Bitcoin wallet, which plays the same role as a current account in the real world.

So, if tomorrow Bitcoin were to become widespread - let's say it is capable of doing so, and the number of transactions is not a limit - it would be used for all payments on the Internet, and by extension, for all electronic payments in everyday life, i.e. credit card payments and transfers. It would thus play the role that money plays in electronic payments, with the possibility of creating an electronic bank account, via the bitcoin wallet. But how to clearly delimit this perimeter?

Money masses

In order to delimit this perimeter, it is necessary to compare what is comparable. The currencies present in the different countries of the world give us a good element of comparison.
The quantity of money in a country or an economic zone constitutes the money supply, and economists divide this money supply into aggregates, aggregates that delimit the different attributions of this money.
To be more concrete, in the case of the euro zone, the money supply is as follows:

The purpose here is not to provide a detailed explanation of the currency, but simply to provide a comparison.

The most common form of money is M1; it includes bills and coins in circulation - cash - and current accounts - sight deposits.

The monetary base, on the other hand, refers to money that was created directly by the central bank. The management of money is central bank main mission.

Next comes the money supply M2; this is the addition of term deposits or notice deposits, which we know more simply as savings accounts.

Finally M3 adds instruments that are negotiable on the money markets, but which will not interest us in this article.

What does this have to do with Bitcoin, you may ask?

Well, as we have seen in the previous paragraph, Bitcoin is a digital currency that allows payments to be made from person to person. Bitcoins are generated by the Bitcoin algorithm for the miners, which are the computers that make up its network, and which must be paid for their work.

The Bitcoin network thus allows 3 functions:

• the creation of money,
• person-to-person payment,
• and setting up portfolios (or wallets) that are the equivalent of bank accounts.

In the functioning of the money that we use every day, these 3 functions are ensured by the central bank for the creation of money, by the commercial banks for the creation of current accounts, and finally by the banking network for payments between people.
In order to make the comparison between the official system and the Bitcoin ecosystem comparable, we remove bills and coins from the perimeter, because the Bitcoin network does not allow the edition of bills or coins on a large scale, even if there are initiatives here and there.

We therefore arrive at the following diagram, which allows us to compare the current perimeters of the money supply with that of Bitcoin

If Bitcoin were to be used on a large scale, and assuming that it is technically possible, it could replace the role played by the central bank in the creation of money, the commercial banks in maintaining current accounts, and the banking network in person-to-person payments. This is still a colossal prospect!

The Bitcoin network is therefore comparable to the monetary aggregate M1 + the monetary base - coins and banknotes.

Of course, this comparison remains crude, and the roles of the different actors are not so simple to define. But this comparison then provides a basis for work, especially when it comes to calculating Bitcoin's energy consumption, for example. For we can then refer to the equivalent that performs the same function for the official currency.

Keep this comparison in mind, it will be useful in future articles on the energy consumption of bitcoin.

In the years 2000, this social network valued at over half a billion dollars

In 2005, a famous social network, with more than 25 million users, was bought out for more than 580 million dollars. The platform was famous, and the number of users was growing continuously. You think it's Facebook? Well, it's not. Several social networks existed before Facebook, including one with a bright future. It had started with a niche user base by targeting its customers, and then word of mouth did its job, so its reputation was growing.
However, this social network, which was among the first to make a breakthrough, was about to lose its lead by trying to go too fast.

Being first, really?

Is it enough to be first to succeed? Perhaps you've already launched an innovative or daring project, thinking that you had to go fast and be the first. Or maybe you want to launch a project, but you tell yourself that the market is already taken, that competitors are already there, so there's no point in getting started. In fact, it is not enough to be the first, and there is no fatality for the second.

The 2 rules to respect

This social network, bought for more than half a billion dollars in 2005, is MySpace. Everything had started well for MySpace. Drawing inspiration from emerging social networks, it offered a more complete experience, and was based on the community of musicians, who, at the time could not get started without creating their MySpace account. But with success, MySpace made several choices, which proved decisive for its future. And here are the lessons we can learn from them:

1) Put the customer at the center of everything

MySpace had a great innovation in its hands, "the social network". But instead of developing this innovation, the site wanted to earn cash very quickly - too quickly. A 3-year advertising partnership was signed with Google, pushing MySpace to multiply ads on the site. Meanwhile, Facebook was pushing the logic of social networking, offering an enhanced experience with a notification wall, allowing users to know in real time their friends' activity, all without ads, at least at first...

Let's go back to March 2007 (screenshots from the very good site Wayback Machine :

The MySpace homepage was the following:

The Facebook homepage was the following:

The contrast between the two sites is striking:

• Facebook is clear and simple compared to MySpace
• On the Facebook site, the promise is clear: "connect with people " and "share information", while MySpace only says "a place for friends".

Pushing the logic of the social network, the great strength of Facebook compared to MySpace was also to propose to users and developers to co-construct the site. Any user could now create a specific group to share his or her interests, whether these interests were sports, music, literature, etc... On MySpace, the user had to join a category predefined by the site in order to find passionate people. The experience was therefore much less interesting, and above all much less personalized. Finally, Facebook developed a platform, to allow developers to offer applications. While MySpace made all the applications itself. It goes without saying that with this strategy, MySpace did not benefit at all from the leverage that the social network could bring.

This is what your profile on MySpace looked like in 2007 (image from Reddit)

And on Facebook (image from Shareaholic)

• Facebook offers a wall with recent activities of friends
• Facebook has no ads while MySpace offers un-targeted advertising.

2) Once the customer is served, help yourself to

As we said, Facebook didn't have any ads at the beginning, it was only later that the site made very targeted ads, and therefore much more interesting both for advertisers, and for users who were offered useful ads. Thanks to these targeted ads, advertisers were now sure to reach their customers. You wanted to target people who love shoes, and who live in Paris? Facebook allowed you - and still allows you - to send advertising to such people. And the craziest part is that most users were happy to receive such an ad, because it was in line with their tastes.

Don't be the first, be the best

If MySpace was the first large-scale social network, Facebook was the first social network in people's minds. On Facebook, you could create communities with groups, you could create applications, you could share photos easily. The very good book "The 22 Laws of Marketing" by Al Ries and Jack Trout says it in its third law, you have to win the first place in the minds. Once the minds are conquered, people will think that you were the first to innovate. This is the case with Facebook; most people think it was the first social network. Don't be the first, be the best.

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