Fast Data

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 .

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...

Lately, it seems there has been an explosion with infographics. The ability to visually and effectively convey data is growing in importance. It's not enough to just show data, but to do so in a way that demands attention. And hopefully, spurs action. Best way to present and to show data - use an interactive infographic . This infographic does a great job of explaining what it is and how to make it go viral: Created by Customer Magnetism, an award winning Internet marketing agency.

Here's a viz I created using Tableau Public .  An easy tool to use that helps you find insights from your data faster. Try creating a data viz and enter the Public Data Contest . Would be amazing to win a free trip to Vegas! <a href="#"><img alt=" " src="http://public.tableausoftware.com/static/images/Co/Comparison/Dashboard1/1_rss.png" style="height: 100%; width: 100%; border: none" /></a> Powered by Tableau

This is such a great metaphor for all those who love and interact with data.  What do you think? Thanks to Epicgraphic.com !   Image by EpicGraphic