Using Visualization - Mindseye Solutions

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FOCUSED DISCOVERY

Using Visualization

to Transform Data into Stories By Bob Krantz, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Mindseye

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t’s not enough to walk into a courtroom and simply present the facts of the case. The reality is that you need to transform the facts into a compelling story for the judge or the jury. You also need to be able to develop and tell that story throughout the entire discovery process. But in this era of Big Data, being able to discern and develop that story from the ever-increasing mass of data has become an overwhelming task. And old-world processing solutions aren’t built in a way that helps you tell that story, as most simply process and present you with raw data and review solutions only provide a piece of the story, often broken across several reviewers. But emerging visualization technologies are making it possible to do more than simply include and exclude documents from the production set — they deliver insights about responsive documents that will help you build the story of the case.

Telling your Story The goal of discovery is to construct the story you will tell at trial from the vast amount of data collected for the case. The better your understanding of the corpus of data, and therefore the story of the data, the more successful you’ll be when presenting the facts of the case and allocating resources appropriately. But how to get that “big picture” view of the data you need in order to understand the story you’ll present at trial? The first step is to unearth the trends and patterns, particularly those connections that aren’t apparent before examining the data. How do you identify trends in a sea of data? In order to frame the story

of the case, it’s necessary to “see the unseen” — to look for interrelationships in the data without knowing the details of those connections in advance. If you’re using a solution that merely processes the information without providing any context, it’s very easy to miss the story. The usual methods for analyzing the data, such as keyword searches and excluding documents, are not sufficient for this portion of the process as they only have the potential to show you things that are already known.

Unprepared for Big Data Trying to determine the big picture — by identifying the trends, understanding the participants involved and their roles, and monitoring activity during a specific timeframe — all of these tasks are exponentially more challenging when dealing with the enormous scale that Big Data presents. The Gartner Group defines “Big Data” in terms of the “three v’s” — highvolume, high-velocity and high-variety information assets. Big Data began as an issue primarily for companies in datarich industries such as science, retail and banking. But as organizations across all industries began to collect and manage more data for business intelligence and other internal operations, Big Data now affects far more companies. This means that there is significantly more data to review and process for all cases, which makes the task of discovery even more difficult. To make matters worse, existing solutions are not structured to process, organize, and present the data in such a way that allows the story to rise to the surface.

Typically, the data is presented in a static report format, such as a grid with the various files listed within the report, requiring investigators to dive in and find the storylines within the data. But static data in this format is a challenge to access. Traditionally, delving into this data meant identifying some parameters for your search and then running a series of static reports. While reports are valuable tools within the discovery process, they are limited to a snapshot of the data at that moment in time, and often may not include all the relevant information or provide the necessary reporting features to evaluate multiple views of the data. In addition, some processing solutions require IT professionals to create and run the reports, rather than the end users. Many organizations have limited IT resources and this situation often creates a bottleneck to accessing data in a timely manner. Another option is to use stand-alone reporting capabilities and visual dashboards to create the story. Although reporting is a valuable supplemental tool, it is not the first line of defense for looking at your data from a big picture point of view. Reporting is primarily a means for transferring knowledge to others during the discovery process and preserving details of that process. Dashboards provide a view of the data that is an improvement over static reports. While dashboards present the data in a more pleasing format, they still do not advance your interpretation of the data. These dashboards may provide some limited insights, but they do not present

Using Visualization to Transform Data into Stories

the whole story. At best, dashboards capture only a chapter of the entire story.

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therefore helps you develop a plan for the data during review and analysis.

Mindseye ALLOWS YOU TO COMMUNICATE A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR DATA

The Power of Visualization Creating Stories through Visualization is one important way to Visuals address this data deluge. Rather than presenting the data in static charts and graphs, or jam-packed dashboards, visualization uses interactive graphics that can be explored to understand the story of the data. It is the best way to look at data when you are trying to “see the unseen” and allows you to explore case data at a high level without wading through the minute details.

Edward Tufte, noted data visualization expert and author of “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,” said, “The world is complex, dynamic, multidimensional; the paper is static, flat. How are we to represent the rich visual world of experience and measurement on mere flatland?” Why is data visualization necessary? Traditional representations of data do not provide an opportunity to uncover patterns in the data. It is impossible to include large amounts of data in standard line charts and other “traditional” visuals. In “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,” Tufte gives an example of a map of the United States, containing more than 21,000 data points that fit on a single screen. This wide-ranging view of the data that visualization provides helps you to better understand what you’re looking for and

Visuals are powerful tools that can reveal the story of the data when they are used effectively. Storyboarding is another visualization technique that delivers a high-level understanding of the entire data set and enables customers to budget for document review.

Mindseye is a powerful and comprehensive eDiscovery solution that helps you uncover the story of your data by:

Legal teams need to quickly assess a case to understand what data is available, the resources that will be required for a case, how long the review process is likely to take and where to begin piecing together the story. Storyboarding provides multiple points of view for the project and the ability to drill down into the details of the emails, files, and other data associated with the case. Start by reviewing the project as a whole to find out how much data is related to the case and how much of that data is duplicative. Then, assess the status of all eFiles to understand where they are in the process and to determine whether or not the case may be burdensome from a cost perspective. Finally, drill down into emails and attachments and identify the top senders and recipients who play a role in the story or review email over a specific timeframe to see any anomalies. By looking at the data with a 360 degree view, you’ll be able to identify the story that the data tells and be prepared to tell that story at trial.

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Providing storyboards to help you visually identify the trends and patterns in your case data;

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Using iterative processing to reevaluate the data as the story changes;

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Supplementing storyboarding with traditional reporting to transfer that story through the eDiscovery process.

For more information about Mindseye or to request a demo, please visit www.mindseyesolutions.com.

Conclusion Ultimately, the story of your data allows you to communicate a shared understanding, creating a clear scope for the review process and saving time and money that would have been spent on investigating data not relevant to the case. Data visualization is a key component to eDiscovery and with the right tools, visualization can provide a clear path for the review and analysis of data.

Bob Krantz brings over ten years of experience in electronic evidence and discovery solutions to Mindseye, with hands-on knowledge of the entire discovery lifecycle and a specialty in delivering simplified, defensible solutions around complex business problems through consulting and delivery of next generation technologies. Bob is responsible for the overall management of Mindseye with a focus on Sales and Marketing. Contact Bob at [email protected] or (888) 770-3876.

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