I just came across this data visualization contest held by the U.S. Department of Transportation. I missed the whole thing. Did any of you hear about this? The idea was very interesting. Too bad it didn’t receive more publicity.
Check it out at:
It’s worth visiting the site and looking at the finalists and winners.
Here’s a quick snapshot of a couple of the entries.
Our business intelligence dashboard tax dollars at work!
Hubert Lee
The Dashboard Spy
Dashboard designers and anyone who is mocking up business intelligence dashboards should avail themselves of the many free chart and graph icons that exist. Take a look at this screenshot and I think you’ll agree that these icons would work well for business intelligence applications.
You can download these icons and more at this link:
http://findicons.com/search/chart
Use this as a jumping off point for your search for the right icons for your BI application.
Be sure to send us a screen shot of your app. We’d love to feature your design on http://executivedashboards.org
Available as a free download for a limited time, the “Inspire” Backend Admin Template is presented as a PSD (photoshop) file. Even if you can’t personally open a PSD file, you should download this very helpful template for your development team or user interface designer. They’ll love you for it.
Here’s the link:
http://www.mightydeals.com/free_stuff
And here’s some screenshots of the graphic design elements the UI Kit contains:
Dashboard Spy readers are always interested in knowing how their salaries stack up against others. How much does their knowledge of business intelligence and enterprise dashboards translate to in terms of a salary difference?
Here’s a direct link to the 2012 annual Salary Guide for IT professionals from Robert Half Technology.
While the report won’t tell you exactly how much your dashboarding skills will bring, it does mention that the focus of Business Intelligence was rated as one of the top technical skills in demand according to the 1600 CIOs surveyed for the poll.
The other hot skills are:
Here is the link:
The cover of the report:
What exactly is data governance and why should you care?
Here are some characteristics of data governance programs. Data governance has a purpose, is cross-functional, requires resources (and hence project and program management requirements) and has multiple entry points.
Take a look at this excellent video to learn more:
Dashboard Spy readers seem never to tire of the Dashboard Spy theme song. I get questions every week asking for the mp3 file.
Well, did you know that there’s a video of the Dashboard Spy Theme Song? I don’t think it will ever make it on to VH1 or MTV, but, hey, you never know! Here’s the video:
Can’t believe there’s actually a song about metrics, portlets and data tables, right?
Hubert Lee
The Dashboard Spy
http://www.enterprise-dashboard.com/the-dashboard-spy-song
No, this is not another post about which chart or graph is best for data visualization. For that discussion, we have posts like this one: Why line charts are better than pie charts.
And nor is this about the history of the pie chart. See The First Pie Chart (yes, you can see the very first pie chart!).
What I’m aiming at in this particular post is that what makes a pie chart compelling is simply the data itself. Data visualization is about telling a story. Yes, it’s got to be dramatic, compelling, obvious, and, of course, truthful.
I’m saying this because I came across a pie chart diagram in my email. It was from September 21, 2010 when the firm Canaccord first released a “buy” recommendation on Apple stock (then trading at $356 a share – now at $629, nearly a doubling of the price in less than 2 years). Here it is:
Wow – is that data compelling or what? Look at the incredible profitability relative to the market share.
Yes, that’s a powerful pie chart.
And it’s because of the data.
Warmly
Hubert Lee
The Dashboard Spy