Source: Online Schools (2011)
Reference
Online Schools (2011), Obsessed with Facebook, available at: http://www.onlineschools.org/blog/facebook-obsession/ (accessed 13 January 2010).
Archive for the ‘Data visualization’ Category
Facebook Metrics 2011 – Infographic
Thursday, January 13th, 2011Demographic trends: Earth’s population and its impact
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011By 2045, the world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion people and 7 billion by the end of 2011 (Kunzig, 2011).
Facts in 2011:
- 13% population with no clean drinking water
- 5% population consumes 23% world’s energy
- 38% population lack adequate sanitation
Data visualization regarding Earth’s population, its evolution in time and its impact is facilitated by the video below.
Source: National Geographic (2011)
The video compiled by National Geographic assesses the world through some metrics and their evolution in time:
- # Population: reaching 7 billion people in 2011, from 1 billion in 1800
- # Average life span: 69 years in 2010, compared to 53 in 1960
- % Population living in city to rural areas: >1 in 2008
- # Languages: 7000 in 2011
- # Countries: 194 in 2011
- # New born per second: 5 in 2011
- # Mega-cities (population >10 million): 21 in 2010, compared to 3 in 1975 (National Geographic, 2011)
With the worldwide population expected to exceed seven billion in 2011, National Geographic magazine presented in the January cover story 7 Billion, a broad overview of demographic trends and their impact on the Earth’s population.
References
Kunzig, R. (2011), 7 Billion, available at: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/seven-billion/kunzig-text/1 (accessed 8 January 2011)
National Geographic (2011), 7 Billion, available at: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/specials/sitewide-redesign/ngm-7billion.html (accessed 8 January 2011)
Intelligent Data Visualization – FIFA 2010 Balon d’Or
Monday, January 10th, 2011Data visualization solutions have increased in complexity in the recent years. Tremendous advancements in information technology and the wide adoption of the Internet had a positive effect on communication, data interchange and visualization across networks, businesses and social communities. Driven by the business need of analyzing large volumes of data and presenting them in a concentrated, transparent and easy to read form, data visualization instruments such as dashboard solutions register nowadays an increased level of adoption in several activity fields.
One of the fields that have started to be revolutionized by data intelligent visualization tools bringing more complex and up dated information closer to reader and fans in an easily understandable format is sport.
As a matter of fact what we are witnessing today in the data visualization field is sort of an “echolocation effect”: ideas bounce back from business to sports and business again. Such complex data visualization applications, can be used now back as sources of inspirations for a more creative business data visualization solutions.” (Enhancing business performance with intelligent data visualization – Ideas from sport)
Such an interesting and powerful visualization application that can be used in the future by businesses as a source of inspiration for data visualization purposes is presented below. It was built by the specialists of the Marca sport magazine, in order to celebrate FIFA 2010 Ballon d’Or event.
The application presents comprehensive information of this year’s winners as well as interesting details and statistics across the entire history of this prestigious individual football award, enabling closer and easier connections with fans. To closely view and explore the application click on the image listed below.
Source: Marca, 2010
The application is also interesting if viewed from a performance management perspective. The KPIs used portrait a rich and complex image of the 2010 best football players performance, Lionel Messi, the winner of Ballon d’Or but also of Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez players who came second and third.
- % Votes received
- # International games played
- # Football games played
- # Games played in the first team
- # Goles scored
- # Assists
- # Recovered balls
- # Wrong passes
- # Winners of Balon d’Or by country or club
For more information on Key Performance Indicators for football or other listed sports visit the smartKPIs.com KPI examples Industry section – Sport – Football.
References
Marca.com (2010), Ballon d’Or 2010 interactive application, available at http://www.marca.com/2011/01/07/multimedia/graficos/1294419079.html, (accessed 10 January 2010)
State of the media 2010 – U.S. Audiences and Devices (Nielsen)
Thursday, January 6th, 2011The Nielsen Company has just released a fact sheet outlining several key metrics for the U.S. media. Under the title State of the media 2010 – U.S. Audiences and Devices, the factsheet is in the format of an infographic, that collates data from several other Nielsen reports, such as:
- Nielsen’s National People Meter (NPM);
- Nielsen Mobile Media View Internet;
- Nielsen Consumer Value Metrics panel;
- Nielsen’s Global Online Survey.
Source: Nielsen, 2010
The PDF version of the factsheet (Nielsen’s State of the Media – U.S. Audiences and Devices) also presents statistics such as:
- U.S. mobile internet time by category;
- U.S. mobile market & smartphone market;
- Intent to purchase a 3DTV in the next 12 months;
- Emerging media devices;
- Average number of apps that smartphone app downloaders have on their phones (27).
References
Nielsen 2010, Factsheet: The U.S. Media Universe, available at http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/factsheet-the-u-s-media-universe/, accessed 6 Jan 2011.
A periodic table of data visualization methods
Wednesday, December 29th, 2010One of the most complex and often-cited taxonomies of data vizualization is the periodic table of data visualization methods developed by Ralph Lengler and Martin J. Eppler from the Institute of Corporate Communication at the University of Lugano, Switzerland. Like the periodic table of the chemical elements, the periodic table of data visualization methods organizes and displays the visualization techniques using a taxonomy based on the nature of visualization. There are several categories (such as data visualization, metaphor visualization, strategy visualization etc.) and additional metadata is provided (whether it is a process or structure visualization or whether it is an overview, a detail or a combined overview-detail visualization).
Source: Lengler & Eppler (2007)
For example, for the metaphor visualization (i.e. an approach that not only displays information, but also provides insight through key characteristics of the metaphor employed), visualization methods such as tree, funnel, story template or iceberg are included. Moreover, if we refer to the case of the tree method for metaphor visualization, we can see that it deals with a process overview visualization of a convergent thinking nature.
Reference
Lengler, R. & Eppler, L., J. (2007), A periodic table of data visualization methods, available at: http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html (accessed 29 December 2010).
Further reading
Lengler, R. & Eppler, L., J. (2007), Towards A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods for Management, available at: http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.pdf (accessed 29 December 2010).
The power of data visualization – lifespan and income in history
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes – The Joy of Stats – BBC Four
More about this programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wgq0l
BBC presentation: Hans Rosling’s famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport’s commentator’s style to reveal the story of the world’s past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before – using augmented reality animation. In this spectacular section of ‘The Joy of Stats’ he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers – in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine.
Interested in public service KPIs?
smartKPIs.com contains over 1000 KPI examples specific to the public sector, grouped in two categories: State/Federal Government and Local Government.
Measuring China’s economic performance
Thursday, December 2nd, 2010Growing China
A simple search on Google about China’s Economy will return you with a staggering number of articles compiling a great amount of information about China’s economical performance. Indeed, with its economy growing at a rate of 9% a year and a valuation of its economy at $1.33 trillion in the second quarter of 2010, it is not hard to fathom why businesses are frantically seeking opportunities to expand and tap into this enormous market that is still growing at a ridiculous rate (Phang & Thomas, 2010). Due to its incredible economical performance from the last decade, China has now become the world’s second-largest economy after United States. To many businesses this means their ticket to success!
Measuring a country’s economical performance
Talking and assessing a country economical performance only by looking at its GDP and growth rate, doesn’t always provide you with the best picture of a countries economical performance. From a performance management perspective, there are a few aspects that need to be looked into prior to deciding whether a country, in our case, China, indeed offers the best opportunities for investment and sales efforts. These include the choice of performance indicators used and the comparison targets chosen. Without these two, it will be hard to gauge how well a country is growing and how much better (or perhaps worse) that country is doing compared to other countries.
Capturing economical performance through Key Performance Indicators
A recent report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit division of The Economist (2010) provides us with an intersecting and detailed insight about China’s performance. In their analysis, the massive market of China was broken down into smaller markets based on regions and cities to facilitate a more specific and focused understanding. Several growth-related performance indicators were used to make comparison with other peer cities around the globe (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2010).
% Disposable Income
The fastest growing cities in terms of percentage growth in disposable income are Pinggingshan followed by Chongqing and Hefei, triumphing their peers in Europe and US.
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit (2010)
% Population Growth
Amongst the compared cities, the cities with highest growth rate in terms of population are Hefei, followed by Maanshan and Pingdingshan, all within China.
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit (2010)
% Real GDP
China cities again recorded highest growth rate in terms of Real GDP compared to peers, with Anshan toping the rankings, followed by Shenyang and Hefei.
Source: Economist Intelligence Unit (2010)
Looking at the results of the growth-related performance indicators comparing cities in China and its peers in Europe and US, we can only arrive at one simple conclusion – From an economical perspectives cities in China are indeed growing at an incredible fast pace!
Reference
Phang and Thomas (2010), China Overtakes Japan as World’s Second Biggest Economy, available at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-16/china-economy-passes-japan-s-in-second-quarter-capping-three-decade-rise.html (accessed 2 December 2010).
Economist Intelligence Unit (2010), CHAMPS: China’s fastest growing cities, available at https://www.eiu.com/public/signup.aspx?campaignid=champs&utm_source=gcd&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=champs&zid=champsgcd (accessed 2 December 2010).
The power of infographics
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010More than ever, we are invaded by large amounts of information coming from an enormous volume of sources. Receiving them in a format that is comfortable for our senses and brain helps us not only to focus on those things that really matter, but also to gain a better understanding of the knowledge or information presented.
It is argued that between 80% to 90% of all data absorbed by the human brain is visual (Jensen, 2005, cited by Taylor). With the purpose of better illustrating and facilitating the mental assimilation of information, traditional data visualization tools, such as graphs, pie charts or bar charts, are probably in every professional’s work repository. However, modern and more complex approaches to design and visualization are emerging and constantly refining.
Infographics refers to visual representations of information (or data content). The purpose is that of presenting the information in a visual manner and strengthen the content shared with images, graphs, shapes and other design patterns.
Infographics are a valuable resource in today’s professional environment from several points of view. From a marketing perspective, they can help overcome the disadvantages of traditional „same old same” communication, enhancing creativity and a clear identity within the market. Internally, infographics can support communication, make it more „sensitive” and intelligible for employees.
At a more complex level, infograhics became a resource that even the US administration decided to resort to in 2010, appointing Edward Tufte in a team that would advise the officials of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board on how to better explain the complexities of their activity to the public (The White House Office of the Press Secretary, 2010).
Below is an example of a popular social media infographic:
Source: Dyer (2010)
References
Dyer, P. (2010), 35 Great Social Media Infographics, available at: http://www.pamorama.net/2010/03/03/35-great-social-media-infographics/(accessed 1 December 2010).
Jensen, E. (2005), Brain-Based Learning (Revised), cited by Taylor, A, R., PhD., in Senses and the Brain, available at: http://www.arlenetaylor.org (accessed 1 December 2010).
The White House Office of the Press Secretary (2010), President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts press release, available at: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0003e0&topic_id=1 (accessed 1 December 2010).
Additional resources on infographics
Cool Infographics blog (Randy Klum): http://www.coolinfographics.com/.
The Infographics Showcase: http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/.
Electronic medical records (EMR) data visualization
Monday, November 22nd, 2010Just half of century ago, patient records in the medical practice were kept in the form of traditional written / typed documents. One of the most important developments in the medical practice that was possible with the technological enhancement of computers and, later on, the internet, is considered to be the electronic medical record (EMR). Not only did it permit a better and easier management of patient information within the healthcare unit, but is also made possible the integration of patient intelligence at local or even national level, this integration being vital in the perspective of treating or moving the same patient to other hospitals.
The patient record arose in the 19th century as a highly personalized ‘lab notebook‘ that clinicians would use to record their observations and plans so that they could be reminded of pertinent details when they would next see that same patient (Shortliffe, 1999).
In 1994, Edward Tufte, one of the most respected authorities in the field of data visualization, predicted that ‘medical records will soon be computerized‘, which will overcome the disadvantages of handwritten of printed documents. He best described the traditional, written medical record with the acronym WORN (write once read never), by contrast with the acronyms WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and WORM (write once read many) (Powsner and Tufte, 1994).
The authors further on suggest a graphical summary of patient status that illustrates the course of an illness and the treatment outcomes for a patient under examination. Both previous patient data and most recent results are included and complex clinical relations can be shown in order to test hypothesis. The graphics are supported by commercially available software and hardware and were created by extracting information from the traditional patient record and introducing it into the software used. As the authors finally put it, instead of a 5 cm thick record, a single page reveals the patient status graphically.
Source: Powsner and Tufte (1994)
In 1999, Edward Shortliffe argued that, at that point, ‘no clinical computing topic is gaining more attention than electronic medical records‘. He then described electronic patient record as the ‘medical record in a new incarnation: electronic, accessible, confidential, secure, acceptable to clinicians and patients, and integrated with other, non-patient-specific information‘ (Shortliffe, 1999).
He took the discussion further and described the concept of integrated clinical workstation, representing a single entry point into a medical facility in which computational tools not only assist with clinical matters (results reporting, order entry etc.), but also with administrative work (Admission-Discharge-Transfer process, materials management, payroll), research (quality assurance, clinical trials) and scholarly information (digital libraries, drug information databases etc.).
While the electronic medical record would be at the heart of this integrated clinical workstation, the author argues that it would represent not an object in itself, but rather a set of processes that involve automation, such as processes for data collection and integration from various sources, as well as tools for displaying the data, analysis and sharing (Shortliffe, 1999).
Along with the complexity of systems and processes EMRs require, another issue associated with the electronic patient records is the security and confidentiality of patient information. However, considering the results of s study conducted in U.S. in 2009, it seems that it is not a matter of patients’ security concerns (as in electronic banking and ecommerce, if benefits are high and security guarantees the same, people will finally resort to it), but rather a matter of hospital and doctor choice or possibility. The study revealed that less than 2 percent of U.S. hospitals have adopted fully functional electronic medical records, most citing the required costs as being the biggest barrier (Steenhuysen, 2009).
References:
Powsner, S., M. and Tufte, E. (1999), Graphical summary of patient status, The Lancet, Vol. 344, pp. 386-389.
Shortliffe, E., H. (1999), The Evolution of Electronic Medical Records, Academic Medicine, Vol. 74 No. 4 , pp. 414-419.
Steenhuysen, J. (2009), Few U.S. hospitals have electronic medical records, available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE52O6WO20090325 (accessed 22 November 2010).
Ranking hospitals performance by web presence
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010A previous blog post, USA top hospitals ranking based on performance improvement, presented the Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals: National Benchmarks, an annual, quantitative study dedicated to measuring performance across the industry, that identifies the best hospitals in USA, overall, as measured on the 100 Top Hospitals Balanced Scorecard.
Continuing the incursion into the most popular and used hospitals ranking, this post presents the “Ranking Web of World Hospitals”, an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain.
Although the original aim of the Ranking was to promote web publication, supporting open access initiatives, electronic access to scientific publications, nowadays it also facilitates the ranking of institutions based on web indicators. This type of ranking can better reflect the whole picture, because it covers not only only formal (e-journals, repositories), but also informal scholarly communication media. The ranking is not only focused on research results but also in other indicators which may reflect better the global quality of the scholar and research institutions worldwide (Cybermetrics Lab, 2010).
Design and Weighting of Indicators
The Web indicators measure electronic contents, especially those used for scholarly communication, but also basic information about the hospital, its organization, services and personnel. The rank takes into account both the volume of information published and the impact or visibility of such contents measured by the number of external links the web pages received from others.
Four key performance indicators were obtained from the quantitative results provided by the main search engines:
- Size (S): # Pages recovered from four engines: Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Exalead.
- Visibility (V): # Unique external links received (inlinks) by a site can be only confidently obtained from Yahoo Search, Live Search and Exalead.
- Rich Files (R). After evaluation of their relevance to academic and publication activities and considering the volume of the different file formats, the following were selected: Adobe Acrobat (.pdf), Microsoft Excel (.xls), Microsoft Word (.doc) and Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppt). These data were extracted using Google.
- Scholar (Sc): #Papers and citations for each academic domain (Google Scholar). These results from the Scholar database represent papers, reports and other academic items.
The Ranking Web of World Hospitals offers more than ranking, by sharing ten best practices, regarding URL naming, website content, popularity and statistics etc. An interesting aspect with regards to this ranking is that the 1000 hospitals ranked are also split by continents, illustrating also top hospitals on each geographical area.
Source: Cybermetrics Lab (2010)
The Ranking Web of World Hospitals was introduced as a tool for showing the commitment of health organizations to the electronic publication and dissemination of academic information related to medicine. The Top Hospitals should be prone to share their information not only with other colleagues (physicians, researchers, scholars) but also with the rest of society, patients, community leaders, managers and citizens in general. The ranking intends to motivate both institutions and scholars to have a web presence that reflect accurately their activities (Cybermetrics Lab, 2010).
References:
Cybermetrics Lab 2010, Ranking Web of World Hospitals, available at: http://hospitals.webometrics.info/index.html (accessed 16 October 2010)
smartKPIs.com 2010, USA top hospitals ranking based on performance improvement, available at: http://www.smartkpis.com/blog/2010/10/21/usa-top-hospitals-ranking-based-on-performance-improvement/ (accessed 1 November 2010)
Enhancing business performance with intelligent data visualization – Ideas from sport
Monday, June 28th, 2010Data presentation and visualization solutions have increased in popularity in the recent years. Tremendous advancements in information technology and the wide adoption of the internet had a positive effect on communication, data interchange and visualization across networks, business and social communities.
Driven by the business need of analyzing large volumes of data and presenting them in a concentrated, transparent and easy to read form, data visualization instruments such as dashboard solutions register nowadays an increased level of adoption in several activity fields.
Sport is one of them, and particularly those competitions with a large following all over the world, such as football, basketball, tennis, cricket, baseball or golf. These sports are benefiting from a wide variety of data presentations and visualization applications which enable a closer and easier connections with fans.
Only in the last month, once with the start off the World Cup South Africa 2010 a variety of presentation and visualization solutions were launched, slicing and dicing all competition details and data. An excellent visualization solution is presented by Marca.com:
Source: Marca.com, 2010
What is interesting though, is that what we are witnessing today in the data visualization field is sort of an “echolocation effect”: ideas bounce back from business to sports and business again. Such complex data visualization applications, as the one presented in the image above, which were first inspired from business visualization and representation solutions can be used now back as sources of inspirations for a more creative business data visualization solutions.
References:
Marca.com (2010), World Cup South Africa 2010 interactive calendar, available at http://www.marca.com/deporte/futbol/mundial/sudafrica-2010/calendario-english.html, (accessed 25 June 2010)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/cover-HR-toolkit-photo-34.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/coperti-Call-Center-2-photo-50.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/coperti-5-photo-13.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/Cover-KPIs-for-Real-Estate-Agency-Scorecard-photo-39.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/img-premium-ad-right-photo-47.jpg&wl=90)
![[no image]](http://www.smartkpis.com/libs/phpThumb/phpThumb.php?src=/photos/products/cover-HR-scorecard-photo-32.jpg&wl=90)