Love this – it explains a lot in two minutes. There’s so much value sitting locked away in data; finding the core of it and displaying that key message graphically makes it instantly accessible to people.
The Value of Data Visualization from Column Five on Vimeo.
Remember that movie? A vietnam soldier dies after a vicious combat, but he refuses to let go and after a moment of flatlining his vitals resume. Upon returning home he is increasingly freaked out by what appear to be horrible demons chasing him. Finally a friend and mentor tells him that by refusing to die, he cheated Death. As long as he clings to his old life Death will appear to him as demons, tearing him from those he loves. But if he can accept that it’s his time, those demons become angels, leading him toward a loving light of the next life.
Well, the content publishers are living that right now. Books, movies, music, newspapers, magazines – they’re clinging to old models, which were highly profitable and carried great respect. But death, in the form of new media, self-publishing and streaming access, are tearing that old life apart, destroying it viciously. The longer they hold out and the more they try to fight it off, the uglier and more difficult their business is. Continue reading
The hype rocket has blasted it into the clouds, the early adopters are scrambling to grok it and master it, the critics are picking it apart, and most of the world is too busy on Facebook to pay it any attention. Can Google+ make it to a sustainable orbit? Will the early adopters’ attention span move on before enough mainstream folks have a chance to even try it?
It’s way too soon to predict, but it feels like G+ has a fighting chance. Clearly Google has learned some hard lessons from Buzz and Wave, and done things differently with G+. It’s not thrust on us like Buzz, nor hiding in GeekTopia like Wave. There are clear hooks for an ordinary (social) consumer, but also many tricks for the power user. They’ve thrown a lot of functions into it – a Facebook-like ‘stream’, a group video chat (like skype but much less clunky), group text messaging, location check-ins, photo sharing… They’ve tried hard to make all that simple and intuitive to use (with mixed success). It’s got a ton of potential users all lined up (cough*gmail*cough).
Often times, I’ll learn some institutional process, like the proper way to fill out a blank form, or how to route the blank…only to scratch my head over it 6 months later when it comes up again. “Now what goes in this box again??”
Or perhaps I want to keep track of 6 important account codes, or document instructions for something that I know well, but my coworkers are fuzzy on. I need to be able to write it up, store it safely, and forget about it. When it comes up again, I’d need to find it quickly and easily. Not only that, but maybe I learn the basics, and a coworker gets more details later, or realizes my documentation needs editing.
“What is this magic!” you demand in amazement. Well, step right up folks, because it’s called the wiki.
“Oh no,” you grimace, “blech.” Well, ok, when wikipedia made them famous they were ugly as sin, required coding to use, and had a User Interface only an engineer could love. I’m happy to report they’ve come a long way, baby.
I’ve been lucky enough in my work to meet a lot of people around the country, doing great work in mission-driven fields. These tend to be public sector and non-profit organizations, and they’re very smart people with a ton of experience in their field.
I also have a fascination (obsession) with emerging tech trends – especially tools that help me do my job. Better ways to communicate, gather, analyze and display data, collaborate long-distance and get work done from anywhere. There’s this world where the future is happening now, and people are moving mountains with a handful of free tools.
But these two sectors…might as well be two different planets. There are thousands of tools and resources, incredible innovation in getting things done, rapid evolution on spreading your message (marketing)…yet very few people seem to have heard of them outside the tech sector.
I find myself with a foot in both worlds, continually shuttling information and ideas from the tech planet to the ‘organization’ planet. In countless committees and meetings I’ve raised my hand and suggested, “I think there’s an easier way to do this…” Colleagues pull me aside at conferences, “Can you tell me more about that thing you mentioned..?” Or asked me to mentor them in learning about and adopting emerging tools. I’ve volunteered to help some of my favorite organizations through this stuff, but as life gets busier and money becomes scarcer (did I mention I have children? 
, it occurs to me that I should probably start putting my passion to work…
So I’ve set up this little hut on the internet, and am stringing rope through my sign so I can hang it out front. If you’re interested in learning more about tools, services, and best practices that can really elevate your good work, then drop me a line. You’ll find numerous ways to contact me on the sidebar. If you enjoy the posts here, please leave a comment or two! I look forward to the conversation.
John
