Slagsmålsklubben – Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Thanks to Brain Pickings for  bringing this to our attention.

Data is boring, information is interesting! I’ve always used this statement whenever the issue of data is being discussed. No one is really interested in looking at a large number of data rows, or even a small one. As humans, we tend to better understand a particular issue when it is presented to us in a visual way, and in this roundup you will find 20 sites using data visualization that deliver information to the user in an effective and inspiring way.

– Singlefunction.com

From SingleFunction.com comes 20 Inspiring Uses of Data Visualization.

Well, in my own geeky kind of way, I think data, in iteself, is not necessarily boring, but I get the point. In fact, I live the point. Presenting complex data in a way that gives us information—actionable information—is, of course, the point.

The goal is to gain advantages in business by being able to more effectively process more and more data into intelligence that can be acted upon in intelligent way. And with great methods of visualizing complex datasets, we learn to live simply with complexity.

At TED 2007, he stepped back up to show how his work had progressed. Who’s imagine that statistical analysis could be so entertaining? But if you’re reading this blog, I think we’ve already established that for you, like me, this our kind of geeky fun.

He said that the goal was to “use information so that patterns pop and we can see trends that would otherwise be invisible.”

The video is about 6 minutes, and well worth the watch. Things are about to change dramatically in the way we look through content-related data.

Tufte is known for a series of book on graphic design, particularly when it comes to the visualization of data. I went to a full day seminar of his in 1996, and became baptized in the Church of Tufte. I left with a armful of gorgeous hard cover books, smitten for data viz. I still pull The Visual Display of Quantitative Information down off the shelf regularly to consult and inspire.

His task for the administration is to track the many individual projects of the 2009 stimulus package, and determine how to best represent their progress on Recovery.gov.

Forbes.com recently ran an interview of him. Take a look.

Forbes.com – Obama’s Data Visionary

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TIP Strategies has posted a great visualization of the job gains and losses since 2004. This is a great use of times series data visualization, dramatically showing the changes over time, and in different regions of the country.

As far as entertainment goes, it’s no MadMen episode. But it is just cool enough, with a dramatic finish, that I watched it all the way through 3 or 4 times.

Click to see the visualization run: The Geography of Jobs from TIP Strategies

Metrics are the marketer’s microscope. They show him what his customers are actually doing, as opposed to what they say they are doing or intend to do. With proper metrics he can make decisions faster and more accurately.

You can decide to measure anything, but what metrics matter and what ones are just for show? Here are some rules I hope will guide you toward creating meaningful metrics that help, rather than hinder, the decision-making process.

Be Actionable

Be Understandable and Trustworthy

Measure Results

Understand the Downside

Understand the Upside

Don’t Be Ambiguous

Segment by Purpose

Appropriate Granularity

See the article at 8 Tips for Crafting Metrics That Matter

This from the Latitude Group’s Latitude Blog:

Perfect for SME’s

Let’s face it in the UK and US, amongst other countries, Google dominates the search landscape, so for SME’s and companies that don’t have any on-going web development or SEO support they may not be able to implement 301 redirects or any of the other methods to eliminate duplicate content. However, the Parameter Handling function in GWT provides a free and easy method of reducing duplicate content within Google – and currently in most instances Google is the only search engine that SME’s need to worry about.

More details at Latitude Blog: Duplicate Content? Tell Google which URL Parameters to Ignore.

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The title is Web Analytics 2.0: the Art of Accountability and the Science of Customer Centricity.

I read his blog regularly, and I look forward to the book.

He was recently interviewed on Mitch Joel’s excellent podcast Six Pixels of Separation. I recommend that readers visit the Six Pixels of Separation blog to listen to the entire interview (and other podcasts).

There are a couple short passages that I want to call out from the beginning of the interview. He says about his upcoming book:

“You’ll see me frequently use the words analyst and marketers….to me, really there isn’t an analyst that isn’t a marketer behind the scenes, and there isn’t a marketer that isn’t an analytst behind the scenes.

We live is such a data-driven world where the web experience and the customer experience is changing with every passing day. Every marketer needs to know that data, analytics, qualitative quality is going to give him or her the edge. And every analyst needs to know that unless he deeply understands marketing, he or she can never do analysis that creates great customer experiences.”

This is precisely the concept that led to the term “creatalytics.” It is the confluence of creative and analytics, of marketing and data. These can no longer be separate disciplines.

Links:

Six Pixels of Separation podcast interview of Avinash Kaushik
Avinash Kaushik’s blog Occam’s Razor