Oh Baby, It's Warm Outside?

I love when people can communicate through pictures effectively. 

Truly, a picture is worth a thousand words--probably more. 

This was a simple drawing to depict I assume global warming. 

- 2000 some nice mountain glaciers.

- 2020 the snow is melted.

It's like the person didn't have to say a word. 

But I get it. 

Also, I know there is supposedly a lot of scientific evidence for global warming.

But for me personally, I don't see it or feel it.  

The summers, if anything, feel cooler and the Winters feel colder to me. 

I know that is anecdotal and not representative of the world. 

However, it is hard to reconcile what the scientists say, when your own eyes aren't seeing it. 

Granted, I'm not in Alaska where, for example, the glaciers are melting, 

Still wouldn't we be feeling something here?

Maybe a few degrees really isn't perceptible. 

I guess time will tell us for certain. 

Hopefully, by the time we do see it, we won't get run over by the speeding train.  ;-)

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Oh Baby, It's Warm Outside?

A Mountain Of Data

So I heard this interesting perspective on information and data analytics...

Basically, it comes down to this: 

"Most organizations are data rich, but information/insight poor."

Or put another way:

"Data is collected, but not used."

Hence we don't know what we don't know and we end up making bad decisions based on poor information. 

Just imagine if we could actually make sense of all the data points, connect them, visualize them, and get good information from them.

How much better than a pile of rocks is that? 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

A Mountain Of Data

VICE News Superior

So I have started watching VICE News and you should too. 

It is on HBO and is superior to the other big news outlets in so many ways. 

The intensity and clarity of their photography and videos is unbelievable!

My daughter said to me:

"This is clearer than REAL life!"

And she was right...I don't know how they do it. 

Also, they remove all the clutter from the news screen that CNN, MSNBC, and others use at the top and bottom of the screen--instead it's just clean, focused, and right to the news point. 

VICE puts the key messages in callouts right on the screen in large and easy to read boxes--the impact is you see the visual and the print message dramatically together and you get it and remember it!

They do this for their photos and videos.

Finally, with all the "talk is cheap" news these days, it is nice that VICE seems to focus more on reporting and less on subjective opinion. 

With all the failing, fake, and alternative news out there, it is nice to see that someone has invented a better news program.  ;-)

(Source Photo: Vice News)

VICE News Superior

Thank You Chaplain Berning

I read about this amazing "Spiritual Communications Board" that Chaplain Joel Nightingale Berning invented for New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. 

The board allows hospital patients who are intubated or otherwise can't talk to communicate their spiritual health and needs. 

The top part allows the person to say what religion they are. 

The bottom left, are choices for how they feel from afraid and lonely, to nervous, helpless, and hopeless, and even to identify on a scale of 0 to 10, the level of their spiritual pain. 

And on the bottom right, they can point to ask for spiritual help... from a prayer, song, or blessing to talk with me, sit with me, get my family or hold my hand. 

While hospitals have traditionally been focused on getting a person, with G-d's help, physically healthy again, it is wonderful to see people, like Chaplain Berning looking after the spiritual side of patients wellness and health as well. 

To heal, people don't just need surgeries and medicines, but they need to deal with all the emotions and pain surrounding their condition and their challenging life situations, and this is something that spiritual caregivers can make a huge difference with. 

The health of the soul and the body are linked in more ways than one. ;-)

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Chaplain Berning)

Thank You Chaplain Berning

Design Is Cool

I took this photo of this Design logo on the side of a bag this guy was carrying. 

It is from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in NYC (and if I am ever back in town there, I'd like to go there).

I like this logo a lot...everything from DE*SIGN to all the descriptions of design and why it's so important to us.

- "Design is art people use." (Design is artisitic and creative)

- "Design is communication." (A picture is worth a thousand words)

- "Design is the stuff around us." (It's practical and functional)

- "Design is a verb." (Design is something we do from coming up with the concept to creating the end product)

- "Design is systems." (Design is how we format and package and is integral to making the content easy to use and come alive)

- "Design is a way of thinking." (Design is big-picture thinking that connects the dots)

- "Design is problem-solving." (Design uses visualization to understand and think through process and problems). 

A good designer is invaluable and design is absolutely cool. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Design Is Cool

Jewish History At A Glance

I really like this poster graphic outlining Jewish history and key figures from Genesis until modern times. 

While there is already a lot of information on here such major events in Jewish history, world events, Jewish historical figures, Jewish literature and Jewish population, I would suggest adding major Jewish contributions to the world from Einstein to Freud, from Columbis to Salk. 

Also, I found that 23% of all Nobel Prizes (or 193 people) between 1901 and 2013 were awarded to people of Jewish descent--and the awards were across the fields of chemistry, economics, literature, peace, physics, and medicine. 

We are not a very large people--just .2%--in terms of population, but we have a very rich history--a mixture of persecution and contribution. 

Thank you Minna Blumenthal for sending me the link to this!

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Odyeda)

Jewish History At A Glance

Flowchart Your Programming

Flowcharts have been used for quite some time for visualizing and organizing business processes and making them more efficient (e.g. business process reengineering).

Now flowcharts are being used to build and link reusable programming code.

NoFlo or Flow-Based Programming (FBP) simplifies application development by using libraries of pre-written code and then dragging and dropping them into your process flows. 

This leverages objected-oriented programming (OOP) and uses modules of open-source code, which are linked together to create a full program that solves a business problem.

The flowchart helps to avoid spaghetti code by providing for a more organized, modular, object-based development environment. 

These flowcharts can not only be a collaborative tool where developers can build or map code, but can also be part of the systems documentation that ensures a higher-level of understanding of the total programming solution. 

NoFlo raised over $100K on Kickstarter in 45 days in order to advance this project from Javascript to iOS, Android, and Python platforms as well. 

To me, this programming paradigm seems to have real legs:
- A process-based model for decomposing solutions
- Simple information visualization through a common flowcharting toolset, and 
- Reusable object code from programming libraries in the cloud. 

I'd say YesFLo--this makes a lot of programming sense. ;-)

Flowchart Your Programming

Technology Forecasting Made Easy

Here is a really nice technology forecast visualization from Envisioning Technology.

It covers almost three decades from 2012 through 2040.

And includes an exhaustive list of technology categories for the following:

- Artificial Intelligence
- Internet
- Interfaces
- Sensors
- Ubiquitous Computing
- Robotics
- Biotechnology
- Materials
- Energy
- Space
- Geoengineering

Further, specific technologies are informed by their:

- Relative Importance--by bubble size
- Consumer Impact--by size of the node's outline
- Related Clusters--by a jagged edge

Additionally, what I really like about their online version is that when you hover a technology, you get a decent description of what it is.

Looking in the out-years, it was great to see cool innovations such as machine-augmented cognition, retinal screens, space-based solar power, programmable matter, and anti-aging drugs--so we'll be overall smarter, more connected, exist in a more energized and malleable society, and live long-enough to appreciate it all. ;-)

Technology Forecasting Made Easy

Dashboarding The Information Waves

I had an opportunity to view a demo of a dashboarding product from Edge called AppBoard, and while this is not a vendor or product endorsement, I think it is a good example to briefly talk about these types of capabilities. 

Dashboard products enable us to pull from multiple data sources, make associations, see trends, identify exceptions, and get alerts when there are problems.

Some of the things that I look for in dashboard tools are the following:

- Ease of use of connecting to data 

- Ability to integrate multiple stovepiped databases

- A variety of graphs, charts, tables, and diagrams to visualize the information

- Use of widgets to automatically manipulate the data and create standardized displays

- Drag and drop ability to organize the dashboard in any way you like to see it

- Drill down to get more information on the fly 

While there are many tools to consider that provide dashboards, information visualization, and business intelligence, I think one of the most important aspects of these is that they be user-centric and easy to implement and customize for the organization and its mission.

When making critical decisions (especially those involving life and death) and when time is of the essence--we need tools that can be can be easily navigated and manipulated to get the right information and make a good decision, quickly. 
 

As a fan of information visualization tools, I appreciate tools like this that can help us get our arms around the "information overload" out there, and I hope you do too.

(All Opinions my own)

Dashboarding The Information Waves

Nuclear Weapons--A Scary Infographic

As you already know, I appreciate a good infographic.
Unfortunately, I think many of the ones coming out recently are too jumbled, long and complex and read more like a "Megilla" (no disrespect intended).
I was a little surprised to find a infographic on Nuclear Weapons online, but then again it's not a "cookbook" and hopefully those are not being posted.
This one was interesting to me, not only because of the topic of weapons of mass destruction, but also because in 11 factoids, the graphics takes you through a pretty clear and simple overview of the subject matter.
No, its not getting into the physics and nuclear engineering depths of the whole thing, but at the same time, you have starting with the Manhattan Projects in the 30's, some nice history on the following:

• Invention
• Cost
• Types, both fission and fusion
• Testing
• Use
• Inventories, although based on recent articles on the 3,000 miles of Chines tunnels in the Wall Street Journal (25 October 2011) and Washington Post (30 November 2011), the Chinese number may be way too low--the WSJ based on Chinese media reports has it as high as 3,500!
• Even numbers "lost and not recovered"--11!--not comforting, who would've thought?

In the graphic, it would be interesting to see a breakdown by land-, bomber-, and submarine-based, (some nice graphics available for that) but perhaps a number 12 item on the infographic would've been getting too much in the weeds.
Also, a similar graphic for chemical and biological weapons while interesting, would be scary indeed.
(Source Graphic: here)

Nuclear Weapons--A Scary Infographic

Visualizing IT Security

I thought this infographic on the "8 Levels of IT Security" was worth sharing.

While I don't see each of these as completely distinct, I believe they are all important aspects of enterprise security, as follows:

1) Risk Management - With limited resources, we've got to identify and manage the high probability, high impact risks first and foremost.

2) Security Policy - The security policy sets forth the guidelines for what IT security is and what is considered acceptable and unacceptable user behavior.

3) Logging, Monitoring, and Reporting - This is the eyes, ears, and mouth of the organization in terms of watching over it's security posture.

4) Virtual Perimeter - This provides for the remote authentication of users into the organization's IT domain.

5) Environment and Physical - This addresses the physical protection of IT assets.

6) Platform Security - This provides for the hardening of specific IT systems around aspects of its hardware, software, and connectivity.

7) Information Assurance - This ensures adequate countermeasures are in place to protect the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy of the information.

8) Identification and Access Management - This prevents unauthorized users from getting to information they are not supposed to.

Overall, this IT security infographic is interesting to me, because it's an attempt to capture the various dimensions of the important topic of cyber security in a straightforward, visual presentation.

However, I think an even better presentation of IT security would be using the "defense-in-depth" visualization with concentric circles or something similar showing how IT security products, tools, policies, and procedures are used to secure the enterprise at every level of its vulnerability.

IT security is not just a checklist of do's and don't, but rather it is based on a truly well-designed and comprehensive security architecture and its meticulous implementation for protecting our information assets.

Does anyone else have any other really good visualizations on cyber security?

(Source Photo: here)

Visualizing IT Security

Vizualize Yourself

I tried out this new visual resume online called Vizualize Me.

It is currently in beta, but it connects up with LinkedIn and pulls your profile, work experience, education, skills, and recommendations right from there.

You can edit the data in Vizualize Me and even name you URL--I named mine Andy Blumenthal.

There are also multiple themes for showing your information--although, I liked the default one the best.

And you can edit colors, fonts, and backgrounds, but I didn't go that far with it today.

The only problem with the program that I had with it was when I tried to refresh the visual resume after making some updates to LinkedIn, it got locked up.

While the program is still a little kludgy, I like the infographics used for this visual resume and I think it quickly and easily captures a person's professional and educational background.

Hope you like it too!

Vizualize Yourself

An Infographics Treasure Trove

There is an amazing web site for creating, sharing, and exploring information visualizations (a.k.a. infographics)--it is called Visual.ly

There are currently more than 2,000 infographics at this site; this is a true online treasure trove for those who like to learn visually.

The infographics are categorized in about 21 areas including technology, science, business, the economy, the environment, entertainment, politics, and more.

I've included an example, from the Social Media category, of an infographic called The Conversation Prism developed by creative agency, JESS3.

As you can see this infographic displays the spectrum of social media from blogs and wikis to Q&A and DIY sites--it is a virtual index of social media today.

What I really love about infographics is that they can convey such a wealth of information in creative and memorable ways.

Moreover, there is such a variety of infographics out there--basically these are limited only by the imagination of the person sharing their point of view and their talents in conveying that information to the reader.

As someone who is very visual in nature, I appreciate when the content is rich (but not jumbled and overwhelming), and when it is logically depicted, so that it is quick and easy to find information.

In the example of The Conversation Prism, I like how it comprehensively captures all the various types of social media by category, color codes it, and visualizes it as part of a overall communications pie (or strategy).

To me, a good infographic is something you can relate to--there is a aha! moment with it.

And like a great work of art--there is the opportunity to get a deeper meaning from the visual and words together then from the words alone.

The shapes and dimensions and connections and distances and colors and sizes--it all adds meaning (lots and lots of context)--I love it!

I could spend hours at a site like visual.ly learning about all the different topics, marveling at the creativity and meaning of the information being conveyed, and never getting bored for a second.

An Infographics Treasure Trove

Describing Meal Time

The USDA released their new dietary guidelines yesterday (2 June).

And while there is no surprise in the recommendations that we eat more fruits and vegetables; what was refreshing was the new imagery for conveying the information.

Gone is the Food Pyramid and in is the Food Plate.

This new visualization overall makes a lot more sense since:

1) As the Wall Street Journal stated today (3 June 2011), "People don't eat off a pyramid, they eat off a plate." In other words, this is something we can relate to at meal times.

2) The plate here is used like a pie chart to easily show what portion of our meals should come from each food category. For example, you can clearly see that fruits and veggies makes up a full half of the plate. (Boy, I'm sure there are a lot of smiling moms and dads out there today, saying I told you so!) Also the role of protein in a healthy diet is reaffirmed with almost a full quadrant itself.

I am not sure why this initiative, according to the WSJ, cost about $2.9 million and three years to accomplish, since the representation seems fairly straight forward (unless some of that went to modifying the nutritional guidelines themselves).

In any case, I think we can all be glad they got rid of the 2005 version of the food pyramid that "left many baffled" as to what they were trying to say.

Still even in this new visualization, there are confusing aspects, for example:

1) Greater than a Pie--The Dairy piece is separate and off to the right of the plate. I would imagine that this is supposed to represent something like a glass of milk, but it is odd in this picture, since it takes away from the pie chart presentation of the plate where theoretically all the food groups on the "pie plate" would add up to 100%. Here, however, the Dairy plate (or glass) is off to the side, so we have something like 120% total--confusing!

2) Missing Percentages--The actual recommended percentages are not noted in the diagram. This type of information had previously been provided in the 1992 Food Pyramid through the recommended servings. Where did they go? I would suggest they annotate the pie slices for each food group with the actual recommended percentages, so that we have the imagery of the slices, but also have a target number to go with. Helpful, if you are counting your calories (and food types) on a diet.

In short, information visualization can be as important as the information itself--with information, having quality data is critical or else you have "garbage in, garbage out." Similarly, with information visualization, you can take perfectly good information and portray it poorly and confuse the heck out of folks--in essence making the resulting information into potential garbage again.

This is why efforts such as the Choose MyPlate are important to help us communicate important information effectively to people, in this case so they can eat and live healthier lives.

I think the new Food Plate is generally effective at presenting the information and I support this effort wholly, but I'm still looking forward to version 3.1.

Describing Meal Time

Mapping Our Social Future

I came across this interesting Social Network Map (Credit: Flowtown).

We are all part of and participants in social networking, and are genuinely hooked on it.

(Even going so far as the guy who was tweeting about his Continental flight plane crash in Denver in 2008.)

But sometimes it is hard to figure out what is going with all the social networking tools out there.

Hence, I find this 2010 map a very interesting visualization that sort of sums it all up.

The social lands are sized by number of users--hence Facebook looking like the goliath out there with 500 million users (now up to 600 million already!) surrounded on either side by Friendster and Twitter (with approximately 115 million users each).

Beneath Facebook are the "Volcanic Islands of iPhone Apps" (and add to that the Android Apps)--and with their explosive growth these are truly volcanic.

On top, you have the land of defunct social networks like a bunch of fallen Yahoo properties, along with the "Receding Glaciers of AOL and Windows Live" as well as the "Former Kingdom of MySpace"--together these are essentially the equivalent of the Siberia of the social map.

On the bottom, you have the "Empire of Google" (sounds a little foreboding with a ring of Darth Vader to it) plus there is what was then the up and comer, the "Rising Island of Google Buzz".

Near the "Sea of Desperation" is Match.com--that's funny.

Then there is a pretty sizable Island for YouTube with the "YouTube Triangle of Viral Videos"--plenty of those and now they are competing with the Networks and Cable.

And on the Right is LinkedIn for professional networking and a whole "United Territories of Wikipedia"--hey, the Encyclopedia of the web deserves it!

There are many more familiar sites like Digg, Flikr, and don't forget Blogger-- a personal favorite. :-)

The Strait of Bing is another one that is apropos since search is still Google pretty much all the way.

Finally, in the center under Facebook is the "Sea of Personal Information"--something we should all be concerned about; our privacy is important and shouldn't be overlooked, even as we open up and share of ourselves more publicly than ever before.

There really is something about a picture being worth a thousand words--I like the Map and how it portrays this activity and I am interested in seeing how this evolves as well as in how this might be applied to other social issues including everything from alternative energy to the spread of democracy and human rights.

Mapping Our Social Future

Leading With Business Intelligence

Check out this great video on Mobile Business Intelligence (BI) put out by MicroStrategy (Note: this is not an endorsement of any particular vendor or product).

Watch the user fly through touchscreen tables, charts, graphs, maps, and more on an iPhone and iPad-- Can it really be this easy?

This fits in with my firm belief that we've got to use business analytics, dashboarding, and everything "information visualization" (when done in a user-centric way) to drive better decision-making.

This is also ultimately a big part of what knowledge management is all about--we turn data into actionable insight!

What is so cool about this Mobile BI is that you can now access scorecards, data mining, slicing and dicing (Online Analytical Processing--OLAP), alerting, and reporting all from a smartphone or tablet.

This integrates with Google maps, and is being used by major organizations such as U.S. Postal Service and eBay.

Running a business, I would want this type of capability...wouldn't you?

As Federal Judge John E. Jones said: "What gets measured get's done, what gets measured and fed back gets done well, and what gets rewarded, gets repeated."

Leading With Business Intelligence

A Peek at The Future of Information Search, Analysis, and Visualization

I am not endorsing any vendor or product, but here's an impressive video on what Recorded Future is doing with what they call a "Temporal Analytics Engine" to analyze open source information on the web as well as structured data sources.

This goes way beyond search as we do it today--this is a look into the future of iterative search, link analysis, information visualization (both temporally and spatially), and predictive analytics.

The video shows an example of how the technology can be used in counterterrorism efforts to "connect the dots" on the bad guys and protect our nation and its people.

Envision many other applications across government (including law enforcement), business, academia...check it out.

A Peek at The Future of Information Search, Analysis, and Visualization

Powerful Information Visualization Demo

This is not an endorsement of any vendor or product, but rather just sharing a great example of how robust visualization and enabling technology can help us comb through myriads of data and get meaningful information quickly to the people of the front line.

This is the type of architecture that pulls together end-user mission requirements, the vital information to perform, and the system to meet those needs in an eliquent end to end solution.

Powerful Information Visualization Demo

Enterprise Architecture Design

User-centric Enterprise Architecture provides information to decision-makers using design thinking, so as to make the information easy to understand and apply to planning and investment decisions.

Some examples of how we do this:

1. Simplifying complex information by speaking the language of the business (and not all techie).
2. Unifying disparate information to give a holistic view that breaks the traditional vertical (or functional) views and instead looks horizontally across the organization to foster enterprise solutions where we build once and reuse multiple times.
3. Visualizing information to condense lots of information and tell a story—as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
4. Segmenting end-users and tailoring EA information products to the different user groups which we do with profiles geared to executive decision makers, models for mid-level managers, and inventories for the analysts.

Interestingly enough, in the summer issue of MIT Sloan Management Review, there is an article called “How to Become a Better Manager…By thinking Like a Designer.”

Here are some design pointers from the experts that you can use to aid your enterprise architectures (they are written to parallel the principles from User-centric EA, as I have previously described above):

1. Embrace simplicity—“people often confuse simplicity…with simplistic….it takes courage to be simple…and the simplest solution is often the best.”
2. Look for patterns in the data—“good problem solvers become proficient at identifying patterns.” Further, designers seek “harmony to bring together hierarchy, balance, contrast, and clear space in a meaningful way.”
3. Apply visual thinking—often managers…rely heavily on data and information to tell the story and miss the opportunity to create context and meaning,” instead managers need to “think of themselves as designers, visual thinkers or storytellers.”
4. Presenting clearly to specific end-users—“good design is about seeing and communicating clearly.” Moreover, it’s about “seeing things from the clients point of view…designers learn pretty quickly that is not about Me, it’s about You.”

MIT Sloan states “we have come to realize over the past few years that design-focused organizations do better financially than their less design-conscious competitors…design is crafting communications to answer audience needs in the most effective way.”

This is a fundamental lesson: organizations that apply the User-centric Enterprise Architecture design approach will see superior results than legacy EA development efforts that built “artifacts” made up primarily of esoteric eye charts that users could not readily understand and apply.

Enterprise Architecture Design

"Visual Thinking" and Enterprise Architecture

A must read…The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam presents a topic near and dear to me: the power of Visual Thinking.

Visual thinking—"taking advantage of our innate ability to see--both with our eye and with our mind's eye--in order to discover ideas that are otherwise invisible, develop those ideas quickly and intuitively, and then share those ideas with other people in a way that they simply get."

In visual thinking (similar to me to “mind mapping”), we solve problems with the power of pictures. The ability to effectively visualize enables us to see difficult problems and “nearly invisible solutions.”

What kinds of problems can be solved with pictures?

“The answer is almost all of them. Pictures can represent complex concepts and summarize vast sets of information in ways that are easy for us to see and understand.”

How do we do this?

Look—“collect and screen” information (In user-centric enterprise architecture, we call this capture)
See—“select and clump” (catalogue the architecture information)
Imagine--see what isn't there (analyze the baseline, target, and transition plan)
Show--make it all clear (serve up the information in useful and usable ways i.e. make it user-centric)

Visual thinking provides us a way to clarify vague ideas, synthesize and analyze information, communicate and collaborate with others, and tackle difficult problems.

Dan’s approach is particularly interesting to me as I have also been developing and implementing a visualization-based approach to problem solving--User-Centric Enterprise Architecture.

In fact, my approach began as a response to the usual way of doing business, which was to produce fairly lengthy and convoluted technical documents or “artifacts” to solve pressing problems, and then to find that nobody read them.

While enterprise architecture is not a “back of the napkin” exercise, Dam Roam’s approach of visual thinking is compelling and consistent with how we can implement a more User-centric Enterprise Architecture.

"Visual Thinking" and Enterprise Architecture