Best and Worst of 2007
2007 Best:
1) Al Gore’s presentation - An Inconvenient Truth. Yes, it was complete in 2006. However, it wasn’t until after winning an Academy Award in February 2007 that it became popular. It truly is a visual masterpiece! Also, I believe he used Apple’s Keynote software to develop the presentation.
2) Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning
3) New York Times - Simply for the two InfoVis pieces below. If you haven’t seen them already, check ‘em out!
4) Tableau Desktop 3.5 - Arguably the best data analysis and visualization tool on the market.
2007 Worst:
1) Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart
The summary on the left is Super Crunchers. The one on the right is Competing on Analytics . I wouldn’t bet my house on Amazon’s reviews, but the ratings may support my opinion of the book.
It had some repetitive examples and I just found it lacking pizzazz. Since I’m not a quitter, I finished the book with the thought that it’s probably worth the $15 (3 Starbucks trips). Although, I don’t think I would recommend it like I have Tom’s book.
2) Microsoft Office 2007 (Office 12) was released on January 30, 2007 with a new look and feel, but still had the same old problems. Yes, it can handle more data, but the data visualizations are still lacking, the default charts are horrid and in-cell graphing is flawed.
3) Proliferation of gaudy dashboard applications (chart bling). I won’t name any specifically, but type ‘Dashboards‘ in Google and take a look for yourself. Gaudy, gauges, pies, background images - developers trying to cram as much as possible into one piece of software without understanding what the users really need to be effective.
For 2008, I want to discuss Intelligent Business versus Business Intelligence.
Happy New Year!
