I was on a Zoom call today, working with some colleagues on a slide presentation. The presentation will, among other things, describe a forthcoming user trial of new techniques we are developing for physical therapy.
To give our audience a sense of that user trial, one of my colleagues, a computer scientist, suggested we put up some example data. Of course no example data yet exists, since we have not yet done the trial.
So my computer scientist colleague suggested that we use meaningful looking fake data. That got a laugh from our colleague who specializes in physical therapy.
She said, kiddingly, “I really like that phrase — ‘meaningful looking fake data’. Maybe we should use that as a new term of art.”
At that point I had a revelation. “You know,” I said, “a good technique for generating meaningful looking fake data is actually what I am best known for in my field.”
The computer scientists on the Zoom call all laughed. “That’s true,” they nodded, “that is exactly what Ken is best known for.”