visual analysis

Finally, a good place for pie charts

November 14, 2008

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.

Read the full article →

Tableau is the new Apple

July 22, 2008

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 [...]

Read the full article →

User conference with a view

July 20, 2008

I often have to suppress a question while I listen to pitches for BI “solutions.” I want to interrupt and ask, “Hey, isn’t most of what you’re saying just bullshit?” I’ve found an exception. That voice didn’t even make a peep Sunday as the three-day Tableau Software user conference unfurled in Seattle. Last night at [...]

Read the full article →

A new day for data

June 23, 2008

Almost no one has mentioned Government 2.0 in the same breath as business intelligence—yet they’re destined for each other.

Read the full article →

A proto-dashboard that worked

March 29, 2008

Back in 1971 Chile’s newly elected socialists dreamed of what today we’d call a dashboard, and it was to run the country. They actually did build it, and just 15 months after conception it was good enough to thwart a nationwide strike.

Read the full article →

Visualize this, Harrah’s

February 25, 2008

Around the corner from the TDWI World Conference I spotted a billboard-size sign: “We have 22 years left on our lease. We are here to serve you.” What’s it mean? I understood other signs nearby, such as the $14.95 and the “chopsticks combo special.” I also understood “we are here to serve you.” But for [...]

Read the full article →

Brutally amazing: how not to pitch analytics

February 12, 2008

I went to the post office box and found a rhinoceros. He should have been a bull, bulls being more at home in marketing, but let’s not be picky. He’s a rhino, in profile, with spots. He’s hawking analytics software.

Read the full article →

Alex Vollmer’s review of election day infographics

February 7, 2008

Be sure you don’t miss Alex Vollmer’s excellent review of election day infographics. He wanted to see the margins of victory, percentage of precincts reporting, number of delegates at stake, and other goals. He looked at the New York Times online, CNN, National Public Radio and other media.

Read the full article →

Throwing light on a power company’s data

January 14, 2008

I guess even the guys who live and breathe data get lost in it sometimes. At one power company that enlisted the help of Houston-area Visual Numerics, there was so much data that no one knew how to start pulling it apart. Only when company analysts saw it visualized did they know what questions to [...]

Read the full article →

BI predictions out the other end

January 3, 2008

I’ve read about an 84-year-old farmer in North Dakota who reads pig spleens the way mainstream fortune tellers read tarot. Sadly, he doesn’t service the business intelligence industry.

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →