Featured journey · 3 reads
One projector. Three connected stories.
Follow Lantern from a purchase to a community event and a maintenance decision. Shared identities keep the twenty core entities connected.
The illustrated field guide
Small concepts.
Big differences.
Follow the money. Find the people. Get the denominator right. Visual guides to the ideas that make data mean something.
21 connected reads · Maps, worked examples, and a little healthy scepticism
Choose a reading path
Start with a question.
Each path connects a few ideas. Read in order, or follow the part that catches your curiosity.
Browse all 21 articlesReading path 2 · 4 reads
From “please supply” to “still owed”.
Follow one commercial journey through requests, bills, balances, and the units that make money meaningful.
Reading path 3 · 2 reads
Which “today” did you mean?
See why a local clock, an event schedule, and a recorded instant answer different questions.
Reading path 4 · 4 reads
One person. Several roles.
Separate the buyer, the human, the organization, and the mailbox before matching records.
Reading path 5 · 3 reads
The other Paris is a place, too.
Follow geographic identity into city names, locations, and resources that move.
Reading path 6 · 5 reads
Give the denominator a vote.
Follow an invoice-based sales total into a geographic comparison, with a dated population and an explicit scale.
The complete collection
All illustrated guides
Maintenance demonstrationsAsset maintenance example: connect tasks, observations and evidence
Follow a fictional projector maintenance job to distinguish asset identity, project work, observed lamp hours and document revision evidence.
Event demonstrationsEvent, reservation and time zone: model a Repair Day clearly
Model a fictional Repair Day with distinct event, reservation, venue, address, team and time-zone records, plus practical schedule checks.
AboutEventReservationPlaceAddressTime zoneTeamOrganizational unitContact point
Identity storiesOne person, two customers, and an awkward invoice
Buying is a relationship. Treating it as an identity makes everyday transactions unexpectedly confusing.
AboutCustomer
Commerce demonstrationsPurchase order, invoice and payment: follow one projector
Follow a fictional projector purchase through an order, invoice, payment and outstanding obligation, keeping every record explainable.
AboutProductServicePaymentPayment obligationFinancial accountContractShipment
Identity storiesThe company changed its name. Did the customer change?
Names, brands, branches, and representatives tell different stories about organizational identity.
AboutOrganization
Commerce storiesThe invoice that arrived before the money
An invoice can explain a charge without proving payment. Follow one through customers, currencies, dates and a misleading green badge.
AboutInvoice
Money storiesThe missing letters beside 1,200
Two identical numbers, two currencies, and a dashboard that accidentally invents a total. Follow the units before following the money.
AboutCurrencyMoney amount
Commerce storiesThe order that became two invoices
A fictional furniture order follows a branching route through supply, billing and payment—and exposes the danger of one giant status.
AboutOrder
Place storiesThe parcel that went to the other Paris
A city name looks like a destination until two places answer to it.
AboutCity
Ownership storiesThe projector in the wrong column
One fictional projector links an owner, a borrower, a city and a dated value. None of those connections can stand in for the others.
Money storiesThe promise behind the unpaid balance
An invoice, two allocated payments and an outstanding EUR500: follow the obligation without confusing documents with commitments.
Identity storiesThe shared inbox that accidentally became a person
An address tells you where a message might go. It does not always tell you who is there.
Time storiesThe workshop that happened twice, then never
Schedules, occurrences, cancellations, and retries describe different things even when they share a time field.
Field notes / 06What are music sales per capita in Chinook?
Chinook music sales are the sample store's revenue. Music sales per capita divides that total by population, in US dollars per million people.
Commerce / 04What is a billing country?
Billing country is the country an invoice is billed to. Shipping country is where goods are sent. They answer different questions.
Identity / 03What is a country (ISO 3166 country codes)?
A country here is a place with an ISO 3166-1 code: one value, with a name, aliases, and alpha-2, alpha-3, and numeric codes.
AboutCountry
Comparisons / 02What is per capita?
Per capita means for each person: divide a total by the population of the same place, then scale it per person, per 1,000, or per 100,000.
AboutPer capita
Geography / 01What is population?
Population is how many people live in a country at a stated time. The year and the source belong with the count.
AboutPopulation
Measures / 05What is revenue?
Revenue here sums sales invoice totals for a period, before costs. Billed sales and money collected are different facts.
AboutRevenue
Time storiesWhen “due today” has two clocks
A Dublin clock repeats 01:30, while a date-only deadline waits for a business rule. Follow the missing context behind “due today.”
Identity storiesWhen Alex appears three times in the same company
A human can occupy several roles without becoming several people—or collapsing into one ambiguous record.
AboutPerson