Underrated Competency for I4.0

I was asked, “What is the ONE underrated competency that everyone should be equipped with in Industry 4.0?”

My answer so far is, “Being able to look at visualization, be it a single graph, scoreboard or infographics and glean insights QUICKLY!”

In short, gleaning insights from visuals quickly.

One might think that “Hei, we know how to read bar charts, pie charts and line charts…so we should be equipped with it.”

That is NOT TRUE.

Being able to read those three BASIC charts is not enough anymore.

Data  Visual Literacy, converting data to visuals, that are insightful is an  evolving science right now, especially when we are collecting more  dimensions of data. Trying to see how these dimensions interact with  each other will need more sophisticated visuals and we did come out with  such visuals like heat map, area-filled charts, line-bump charts,  lollipop charts, chord diagrams, etc.

Being able to read these  sophisticated charts will be a much needed competency going forward, and  how quickly are we able to glean insights from these visuals will  definitely be an area to develop a competitive advantage on.

So how can we glean insights faster from the myriad of types of charts out there? Two points I can think of:

1) Exposure - Expose to different types of sophisticated visuals
2) Experience - Read the individual types of visuals as many times as possible

TLDR: Being able to glean insights from different types of visuals will be an important competency going forward!

Your thoughts?