Puncturing the Hype with Graphs
There are two things you should understand with graphs (sometimes called networks).
Only if you are clear on both of these points can you avoid the hype that surrounds graph technology currently. You need to understand the basics of graphs because graphs are NOT simple (look at the cover image). What does it mean to represent anything, any data as a graph? This understanding is not beyond you but please respect the complexity. Nobody expects statistics to be simple. Nobody expects applied mathematics and the mathematics of machine learning to be simple. So why do we expect graph theory to be simple?
Second, why do you want to represent your data and/or a business problem as a graph. There is a lot of talk recently about knowledge graphs. But you have to ask yourself how does representing your organization's data as a knowledge graph help you? What are the problems you are trying to solve both in terms of the business and technically.
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Maybe you want to know how to get from one node, one entity to another - that is how close are two items in your network. Maybe you want to know how to find all the other nodes. Maybe you are interested in the most central nodes the ones with relatively high connectivity. Maybe you are interested in clusters of nodes. And how do you represent these graph theoretic ideas in terms of your business problems?
The thing is if you do not know what your problem is then this technology, this paradigm is of no use to you. And that's the dilemma with all the hype. What is the use of spending large sums on graph database systems, toolsets and consultancy fees if you do not know either what a graph is nor how you want to use it as a concept.
Now I do know what I am talking about. I am a principal data scientist trained as a graph theorist actually using graph theory in my day to day activities. I am schooling a bunch of data scientists in the magic of graph. I am not saying don't use graphs when trying to understand your data. Just be careful you know what graphs are and how they can be useful.
Thank you
Well... I think I follow you but coukd be wrong as my knowledge is layman like compared to yours and you mention: 1. GRAPHS 2. GRAPGHS ARE NETWORKS 3. GRAPGH THEORY 4. BUSINESS GRAPHS 5. A couple of other references I can't rember now. I took, just to check, what you said to say, "Graphs are useful if used well, to do that you need to understand graph theory before going nuts buying fancy tools" Is that right? I did a basic visualization course with Jon Foote that ended up being above my level but not the rest of the class and learned it's all about context and simple communication... or close to that. Hope my layman "user perspective" is aligned to your message? The ensuing discussion may clarify for others too.