Axioms of Visual Analytics

As I strive to learn more about the visual analytics space, I've tried talking to people in that industry to understand how the industry is structured and what skills are required to participate. On Friday, one of the smart folks over at Juice Analytics generously (and patiently) spent more than an hour with me answering questions about the space. Here are some of the things I've learned:

Axiom 1: Your data elements are not your children - you're not required to love them all equally. This is a famous-ish quote. What it means, essentially, is that just because you have data doesn't mean you're required to use it. Depending on what you're trying to accomplish. some of it might not be necessary. Which leads to...

Midnight Madness

I had a great meeting this morning with one of the folks over at Juice Analytics and walked away truly excited about the possibilities in the visual analytics field. In fact, I learned so much that I have to condense my thoughts into one or more posts. More on that next week.

Instead, I thought I'd close a blogless week by pointing out that today is the official start of the College Basketball season -- my favorite time of the year. Let's go Duke!

My First Four Analytics Lessons

I had a good meeting the other day with a very smart friend of mine (I have lots of friends who are way smarter than I am -- it's a secret to success). This buddy began his career as a graphic designer and is now a Brand Strategist for a well-known consumer product goods (CPG) company here in town. My intent was to pick his brain about his career -- what kind of training he needed to do his job, what did he look for in a job opportunity, what are the economics of his segment, how might one enter this segment, etc.

But our conversation, interestingly, swiftly turned its gaze towards analytics. I mentioned my interest in visual analytics and described what this field was. He was intrigued. We talked a lot about consumer marketing campaigns and how to measure their effectiveness, particularly when you start rolling social media into the mix. How do you know your marketing spend mix is optimized? How can you measure its impact when we're talking about hearts and minds?

Warren Buffet on Hiring

"In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don’t have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you."

The Conversation Prism

Presented without comment, for now.

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas

Now the work begins...

So I looked at all the bar graphs and spider charts and curving lines and symbols and meters and let them percolate for a while in my head and then suddenly I knew what I needed to do.

I've always been an intuitive decision-maker -- I just "know" when a decision is the right one for me. It's like I can feel the current of my life flowing around me, even though I can't see it.

My career-of-choice candidate is "Visual Analytics". You probably don't know what this is. I didn't either when I started this, so let me explain.

The Butterfly Circus

This movie came to my attention from another blog. It's 20 minutes long and very well made. It appealed to my creative side as all as my theme of finding one's true purpose. Now, I don't see myself as...disadvantaged...as the protagonist in this film, but I think, at one time or another, we all have felt that out of place. The best managers understand who people ARE, not who they'd like them to be. And success usually ensues.

Since I'm linking to their film, I feel compelled to suggest that you also consider donating to the Doorpost Film Project.

I should also point out that I've figured out what I want to do in five years. Now the real work begins. More on that later.

New Resources/Last Assessment

So I found a bunch of new "what do you want to be when you grow up" resources on the web yesterday (via LinkedIn, for those of you evaluating the effectiveness of social media channels).

The most promising of these, whose depths I have yet to plumb, is InternsOver40 -- a blog about people making intentional and sharp career changes later in life.It's laid out a little capriciously, IMO, and somewhat hard to read, but the content makes it worthwhile. I look forward to following it.

As I began to explore the material on this blog, I found links to other sites with a similar theme which, in turn, linked me to things like skills assessment tests and the like. It's like...I don't know...a "web" or something.

"Control of the adjacencies"

I spent the next two days in a kind of Apple-induced thrall, thinking excitedly of what my new Mac laptop would do and when I could get it. I was thinking of all the new, non-PC things I could do when the spell began to fade and I realized I needed a counter-perspective.

So, I called one of my friends who once was a Mac devotee, but who moved his life over to the PC world. (Interesting note is that he blogged about this when he did it and got flaming, vituperative hate mail from Mac people he didn't even know. Everything has a dark side.)

Mr. Wood, Your Laptop is Ready...

So, after much debate, I got online the other day with the Apple Store Concierge and made a "Personal Shopping" appointment for last Thursday. I was still wrestling with this "PC vs. Mac" thing -- logic said PC, emotion said Mac. Which was the right decision?

I walked in at 11:00 am and was met promptly by Kristin, whose business card carries the title "Expert". I was very honest with her:

• Not gonna buy anything today.
• Struggling with why I should pay 2-3x for a MacBook Pro
• Wanting to understand the emotional geas that Apple had magically placed upon me.

Which version are you?

I had lunch with a friend of mine today who has become sort of an informal career counselor in his dotage. (OK, he's not that much older than I am.) I wanted to ask his advice about this My Next Hat project as he's thought about this sort of stuff way more than I have. Plus, it was good to catch up with him.

He has been a manager of Engineers for a long time now and, during our lunch, made the point that different Engineers are needed for different levels of product maturity.

Mac vs. PC

Mye portable difference engine be afflicted with aires and maladies of a moste nefarious sorte so that I fear to touch its keyboard with my sainted flesh. I do observe that its internal aire circulation device does stray now and again from the path of righteousness and that a stern tap is required to restore its gaze in the direction of the Almighty and cause the aire to flow freely once more. And it is similarly afflicted with the twin Curses of Sloweness and Insufficient RAM so that even the simplest piece of godly software does challenge it to its limit, causing internal grinding sounds that surely indicate the unholy presence of the Adversary's daemons. Yea, verily I do need a new one.

So, the question is, what to buy next? Mac or PC? The PC I'd like is probably going to run me about $1000. A similarly-equipped Mac would cost twice that much at least. No brainer, right?