Fast Data

Found this awesome Creativity Tip Sheet from the folks at Unstuck . Love their website and all the resources that they provide! More and more there is this convergence of the creatives and the data folks. The best data visualizations are definitely a result of data + design. Hope this tip sheet will inspire creativity in you, especially, when you're feeling stuck. Enjoy!

I don't know if it's me, but it seems like data visualization is becoming a very popular space. One way to do that is through the use of infographics . While most infographics are static, there's definitely an opportunity to make interactive infographics with the varitety of tools that are available. I came across this infographic that shares the " 10 Rules That Make An Infographic Cool, Effective and Viral. " Found it to be helpful and just wanted to pass it along. Enjoy! Information + Story + Design = Infographics How To Create A Unique Infographic?

Wow, didn't even think it was possible, but I actually won the Crowd Favorite in the T ableau Social Media Viz Contest ! Thank you to all who checked out my twitter feed viz and for those of you who voted for me!! Really appreciate it! Be sure to check out all the amazing entries ... so much creativity and talent.  Keep on doing incredible work!! :)

One of the wonderful things about Tableau is that you can always find a new way to do something. Even though I already submitted my entry for the Social Media data viz contest, I wanted to use waffle charts that I found here . I modified the waffle charts slightly - it's fun to try using circles instead of squares just to give it a different look. Waffle charts aka square pie charts work well for summary information, but the downside is that they take up a lot of space on the screen. The hardest part was being able to provide a global filter across multiple data sources. And I found out that the only way to really do it is to use a parameter which does require both data sources to have a common field. Big props to Jesse Gebhardt for the help with getting the parameter option to work with these waffle charts! And for providing the template for creating waffle charts in Tableau. This viz breaks down the four groups (Apps, Buffer, Social, and Web) by weekday %. Thought it'...

Tableau is holding another viz contest , this time using any type of social media data. Since I've been tweeting a lot more lately, I thought it'd be very interesting to analyze my own tweets and of course, to enter the contest. :) Twitter makes it super easy to download an archive of all of your tweets (you can request this archive in the settings of your twitter account). Once I downloaded the data, I ended up grouping my tweets into four main categories: Apps - iOS & Android apps such as Flipboard, Zite, YouTube, etc.  Buffer - One of my favorite sites for spacing out your tweets according to a set schedule. I've been using it quite frequently (http://bufferapp.com). Social - Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest Web - Websites that I let tweet for me, the majority of them were done via a "Share button." Some interesting pieces of data that I found after analyzing my tweets: I have a total of 4,540 tweets since I began using twitter in August 20...

It's quite amazing to see the explosion of data + design. Everywhere you look, data is now being communicated in a visual way. The most common occurrence of this intersection of data + design occurs with infographics. One infographic that is able to communicate a wealth of information in a visual way is the 2014 US Federal Budget from Visual.ly : Death and Taxes 2014: US Federal Budget infographic by jess .

Haven't updated this blog in awhile, but I figured I might as well share the  slide deck  that I came up with for my Mom. Hope y'all will take the time to honor and to thank your Mothers this weekend! :) And while you're at it, be sure to check out  Haiku Deck  - a great app to create slide decks! And to set your story free!

Even though Photoshop doesn't seem related to data, you'd be surprised by the reach and breadth of Photoshop.  Especially with the growing fascination of infographics, Photoshop and Illustrator are useful tools for any data analyst. I'll admit that they are programs I am still trying to learn better.  When I stumbled across this Photoshop CS6 Cheat Sheet from Zerolag.com , I made sure to save a copy. Hope it'll be useful for you too! Photoshop CS6 Cheat Sheet By ZeroLag Hosting – Experts in Magento Hosting

With the release of Tableau 8 , there are a host of new features including brand-new visualizations. I took one of my old visualizations and revamped it with things you can only do in version 8. Here's a summary of the things I changed from my original U.S. Unemployment Rate Viz: Decided to pull the latest unemployment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (data is up to Feb 2013).  Utilized a treemap to show the Unemployment Rate % by state (from 2000-2012). Treemaps are an effective way to show many slices of information! Tried using the new packed bubbles visualization to display the U.S. annual unemployment rate (avg) from 2000-2012. It's a catchy way to show information although it can be a bit tricky to use since it may or may not be more effective than your standard bar chart. I'll let you decide. :) Floating containers everywhere! Added text to guide the user on how to use the map as a filter, put color legends closer to the visualizations, and pu...