Happy Halloween from VisualCue!
Halloween. Whether you plan on going to a party or taking the family trick-or-treating, anyone can appreciate the fun of celebrating the world’s spookiest holiday!
Here at the VisualCue offices we were getting into the spirit of things and debating how best to celebrate.
We all agreed to do it in true VisualCue fashion: data! So we’ve gathered the best Halloween data visualizations from around the Internet to celebrate.
thought the best way for us to Can data be spooky? Let’s find out!
Working with the Data
At VisualCue, we’re pretty focused on data visualization. Makes sense- our entire enterprise is built around the premise that just by looking at data in a new way you can make better decisions and improve whatever you do.
But there’s something that we don’t perhaps talk about as often as we should- and that’s the data living behind that visualization. According to his blog on October 8th, Vice President and Research Director at Ventana Research Tony Cosentino states “To be able to make the best decisions, organizations need access to multiple integrated data sources.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Get inspired with VisualCue!
A few weeks ago, we encouraged you pull up a quiet corner booth and dream big. This week, we thought it’d be nice to see business who did just that, and succeeded, all in one incredible chart.
This weekend’s data visualization is a highly interactive look at businesses that made it so you can be inspired!
Optimization Analytics for Everyone
We heard an interesting statistic the other day. Our friends over at Ventana Research (and here’s a plug for the award they gave us), Robert Kugel specifically, wrote a very interesting piece in August about optimization analytics. He said it was “the application of algorithms to sets of data to guide executives and managers in making the best decisions.”
If the idea of algorithms applied to data sets to optimize performance sounds a little intimidating, that’s because it is. Kugel talks about how this method has been used to find the most efficient route for commercial aircraft and how it informed large retailers when they made pricing decisions.
You may be thinking that with such large implementations and an intimidating name that optimization analytics is beyond your reach. Not so. Kugel explains
“…using optimization technologies and techniques to better manage a variety of day-to-day business issues is becoming easier. I expect optimization, once the preserve of data scientist and operations research specialists will become mainstream in general purpose analytics over the next five years.”
Way ahead of you, Robert. How do we do it at VisualCue? Easy. It’s all about context and thresholds.
Get moving with DataViz
Last week, we encouraged everyone to get out and explore quirky local businesses over the weekend.
Well, we’ve got another suggestion for you. It still involves getting out there, but this time we’re talking about working up a sweat. Time to get up out of the chair and exercise!
We were inspired by this amazing website collecting exercise data from all the world.
How to Make Analytics Easy
We’ve noticed some things in operational intelligence and data analytics. Well, two main things really. It’s cloud-based and getting pretty popular. According to recent studies by Ventana Research “analytics deployed in cloud-based systems is gaining widespread adoption. Almost half (48%) of participating organizations are using cloud-based analytics.” The research then goes on to state that another 50% will either purchase a solution within the next year or sometime in the future. The other 2% will just stick to the old ways, we suppose (you can read the whole breakdown here.)
But the research showed something else that we find incredibly disturbing even as cloud-based analytics platforms. Of those that have implemented a system already, “only one in seven organizations reach the highest Innovative level of the four levels of performance in their use of cloud-based analytics.” Now that’s worrying.
Why? Because 42% of respondents said they do “not have enough skills to use cloud-based analytics.” That keeps us up at night. How are we, as a human population, supposed to benefit from data when so many of us feel we can’t even use it?
Grab a booth and get inspired with VisualCue!
Last week, we invited you to get out there and discover some unique businesses in your area. Well, this week we’re feeling both adventurous and studious. Essentially we feel like going to a cozy spot and dreaming big. We’ve got data visualizations to help you do just that!
Beyond the Dashboard
We live in the age of the dashboard. We’re not talking about the kind in your car, we’re talking about the organizational dashboards many businesses, schools, labs and other places use as data visualizations.
If you take a broad view of what a dashboard is, key performance indicators displayed via charts and graphs relating to the performance of that particular metric (usually over a certain period of time), you’ll start to see dashboards everywhere. They can come in many shapes and sizes- from a widget that sits on your desktop measuring a couple different factors to an entire wall of printed sheets that someone has to update every morning (yeah, we’ve seen it.)
There’s just one problem: dashboards can’t give you the whole story. They can only give you one very broad, general description of what’s actually going on.
We need a change.
Need a weekend idea? Data to the rescue!
We here at the VisualCrew love data visualizations. We love them because we think when they are used creatively they can open up the world of data to everyone. They make information accessible, and that is a powerful thing.
Stop by the VisualCue office on any given day and you’ll see us passing around our favorite visualizations we’ve found across the internet. We’re always looking for visualizations that are out of the box- something that goes beyond the dashboard into something more unique and, through it’s creativity, meaningful.
Data visualizations can be so good that they can even give you an idea of what to do with a weekend! We’ve gathered some examples of data visualizations that you can use to get inspiration for your day off plans.