Day 14 of #100daysofnetworks

Saying thank you to my daughter!

Today, I’m writing a different kind of post for #100daysofnetworks. I want to recognize someone who has been inspiring me in my learning for several years, now: my daughter.

If you have read my book, you might have noticed this in the ‘Acknowledgements’ section.

First, I would like to thank my family for constantly supporting me throughout my life and career. With regard to this book, I would especially like to thank my daughter, who helped with the editing process.

That sentence doesn’t do her justice, so I want to talk about how she has helped me with #100daysofnetworks, with writing my book, and even with a Data Engineering presentation I gave in 2016. Today’s blog post is dedicated to her, and to all the people who help inspire us to learn, and to all support us in our learning and other adventures.

I’m not going to name her, as she is still a minor. The fact that she has already contributed to data science and network science at such a young age is a huge accomplishment, I think.

About the Book

When I was writing my book, I was also building a company. It was my first time doing both, so I was absolutely overwhelmed. I gave up nearly every weekend for over a year to write my book. I was constantly tired and burnt out, but I pushed forward a little bit every week. Baby steps get the job done. Life is a marathon, not a sprint.

As I was so overloaded, I asked my daughter if she’d like to help edit chapters before sending them to the publisher’s editors. The goal was to catch and remove as many of the annoying little things as possible before sending to the editors, so that the editors could worry more about catching factual mistakes and bigger problems.

She said yes, and it became a bit of a side job for her. She edited every single chapter in my book, and I paid her to do it. This had some nice side effects:

• She got some spending money, which she could use to pursue her own interests.

• I got to show her some cool data science and software engineering stuff, which she now knows better than probably many people reading this blog.

It was win win win. A better book was written, she got spending money, and I got to teach her some things that can help her in the future.

Let me be clear: I might never have finished my book if it were not for my daughter’s help. She saved a lot of time, and I was using the very little spare time I had to write the book. She has absolutely made a solid contribution to data science and network science. I want to recognize her for that.

About #100daysofnetworks

However, that book deal didn’t come out of nowhere. I got the book deal because I wrote so much about networks and network science throughout the original #100daysofnetworks series that I did on LinkedIn. That adventure got me a book deal and a company.

And she helped with #100daysofnetworks, so she gets credit there, as well.

When I was doing #100daysofnetworks, one of the most entertaining ideas was to do a network analysis of the Twitter K-pop ecosystem. At the time, and still now, my daughters really enjoy K-pop. I know a few artists by name because of my girls, and I actually enjoy some of the music. It’s not my favorite genre, but it’s really quite impressive.

Fine, I’ll say it. I like BLACKPINK. And Rosé is very, very talented.

Just for fun, here’s two songs I like:

I have to admit it. K-pop is just magical. It’s a cool genre, and very high quality pop. My girls both love it, and I enjoy it.

So, during #100daysofnetworks, we had the idea to analyze K-pop networks, and that was a really fun thing to do. We did this in 2020, and it was fun to talk about on LinkedIn. I also mention it in my book.

COOL STUFF!

To supplement this post, I did a few things:

• I created a K-pop network edgelist of Wikipedia pages for you to use in analysis.

• I created a K-pop analysis notebook, which you can use to start an analysis.

I’ll probably use this during #100daysofnetworks, as it’s a fun network to explore. For instance, as a teaser, here’s the Ego Network for BLACKPINK with a radius of 2.

There is a lot more to explore.

Thank you, to my daughter, for inspiring this idea. We will use this, and expand on what was done in 2020. We can use this to find new information, music, and media.

About Before All That

My daughter has been writing code since she was six years old, just like me. I have the mindset that if you can learn to read and write, you can learn to write commands that get computers to do what you want them to do. That is all that programming is, and there’s no reason kids can’t play with computers. It is enjoyable if they enjoy it.

By the time she was ten years ago, I could give her pseudocode written on paper, and she could convert it to working code.

So, at age ten, I was giving a big data talk and needed to show how VoltDB and Kafka could be used together. I jokingly asked her if she’d write the Kafka producer, and she agreed to do it. I plugged in the Kafka parts, but she wrote the overall logic. Because she did this, she was invited to present with me, in 2016, at age ten.

All that to say, everything I learn, she hears about and sometimes learns. She’s familiar with everything I do. She knows the three different kinds of machine learning. She understands everything I’ve written about in my book.

This is a Daughter Appreciation Post

So, today, I wanted to thank my daughter. She helped make this book, this adventure, and even this blog series possible. She has already agreed to help edit the second edition of my book, and we’ll keep that going forever, if she’d like. She is a very good writer and has a capable mind.

She has already made quite a solid and impressive contribution to Data Science and Network Science, even before graduating High School. I am so excited to see what she makes with her life.

Right now, she is very interested in the performance arts (singing) than coding. She practices for hours every day, more than I practice Network Science. If coding helps her later in life, great. If not, and she wants to sing, also great! Follow your dreams!

But at least she has these skills, if she ever needs them. For instance, as I have been showing, these techniques are useful for knowledge exploration and discovery. That’s useful to everyone, not just programmers and scientists.

Thank you so much for always inspiring me and helping me to learn and show what I have learned!

Some Royalties Go to Her!

As she has helped with all of this, I do give her a percentage of every one of my royalty checks. So, if you’d like to support her, please buy OUR book!