Connecting the Dots

With the arrival of pointillism in the late 19th century came a scientific revolution in the art world. Part of the broader Neo-Impressionist movement, it rejected the subjective approach of the prevailing artistic expression of the time. This new technique, developed by artist Georges Seurat, used small dots of pure color placed strategically to create patterns that when viewed as a whole formed beautiful images. Rather than seeing thousands of individual dots of color, our minds naturally blend them to form an image. In 1886, Seurat completed his most famous painting using the pointillism technique, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.



I can’t help but think that this is the perfect analogy for the way that Glowlit presents large amounts of information in aggregate form. Thousands of data points coalesce to form an image of what is happening in the market. But the responsibility laid on a price reporting agency is far heavier than that of an artist. The information being shared on Glowlit doesn’t merely form a pretty or thought-provoking picture, it influences major transactions that shape global feed trade.



We take that responsibility seriously. That is why the Glowlit methodology requires showing the user exactly how many data points each price presented is based on, going above and beyond the measures taken by most other PRAs. The Glowlit model of automating data collection allows us to collect a far greater number of data points than traditional manual price reporting, and this means that we can maintain user anonymity even while providing highly location specific data. To bring it back to the pointillism analogy - we’re painting with a whole lot of dots.



In the coming weeks, we’ll be releasing our written methodology for your review. As with everything at Glowlit, we not only welcome your input on our methodology, but hope to build it together as a community.