Be a strategist, not a “geek”
Data analysts who simply explain the data and ignore managers’ real needs risk losing “strategist” status &mdash: and become just a “geek.”
Stalking the why: selling visual analysis
How do you show the value of visual analysis to business people? Dan Murray can show it in demos, but he keeps looking for the “magic dust” that explains in a snap.
He sees visual analysis as a key part of low-cost business intelligence at small- and medium-sized organizations — and he’s set out with evangelical [...]
Visual analysis is pragmatic, not just “pretty”
So many of us who feel drawn to visual analysis can’t understand why everyone can’t see the value. “Pretty pictures,” the skeptics mutter. On Eager Eyes, Robert Kosara makes important points that I haven’t seen before.
Toward the end of his post he writes, “We need a new term.” He rejects the aged and indefinite “visualization” [...]
A long look at Stephen Few’s “Now You See It”
Stephen Few gave a snappy name to his new book, Now You See It, and a cover that signals a gem — all black with a slice of sunset that highlights the “see.” The question, though, is who the “you” is.
Dave Wells’ prescription for the incurious
Former TDWI education director Dave Wells keeps running into users whose BI reports might as well be printed. These users simply accept the data as presented and don’t ask questions. That’s nothing new, of course. The difference is that Dave has a way to deal with it.
I caught part of his session today at TDWI [...]
Data intimacy
Long before Scott Davis made the self-service ETL tool he calls Lyza, he tried to find out how analysts really work. He remembers in particular the woman in a focus group who said, “I want to stay close to the data.”
He didn’t understand at first. The data was right in front of her, neatly summarized. [...]
Mashed data visualization for holiday analysts
Among the visarazzi— data visualization’s foot soldiers, scientists and evangelists—”chart junk” is a no-no. If you make a bar chart about trees, for example, don’t for god sakes actually show drawings of trees. That would be silly.
However, the visarazzi probably don’t mean to prohibit chart junk food.
Finally, a good place for pie charts
The junk food of data visualization has found a home. Pie charts show up everywhere, just like trans fats. Visual analysis expert Stephen Few condemns them, and I’ll bet Tableau Software designers held their noses the day they added pie-chart templates.
Radical BI
Blogger Nicholas Goodman writes that Tableau’s visual analysis tool is not actually radical or revolutionary. He trivializes it as if it were a Coke machine with a cool new button.
For now, let’s not quibble about the meaning of radical, revolutionary, or button. Let’s not worry about the title of Nicholas’s post, “Sexy vs. experience,” stated [...]
Tableau is the new Apple
It’s hard to watch Tableau Software CEO Christian Chabot and Tableau visual-analysis demos and not think of Steve Jobs and Mac OS X. Chabot has the same bright stage presence, and his product has the same simplicity and elegance. Like Mac, Tableau makes you love it.
In Monday’s keynote, Chabot couldn’t pace. The conference’s overflow [...]
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