I’m currently obsessed with data visualization.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

The main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. It doesn’t mean that data visualization needs to look boring to be functional or extremely sophisticated to look beautiful. To convey ideas effectively, both aesthetic form and functionality need to go hand in hand, providing insights into a rather sparse and complex data set by communicating its key-aspects in a more intuitive way. Yet designers often tend to discard the balance between design and function, creating gorgeous data visualizations which fail to serve its main purpose — communicate information.

Yesterday, Organic posted a wonderful list of data visualization examples and I’ve been enthralled by Wordle which creates very elegant “word clouds.”

Today, I discovered another wonderful example of elegant data visualization - It’s Smartmoney’s Map of the Market which provides a real-time, bird’s eye view of the entire market. It cleverly uses color to highlight the market segments which are up or down on the day. Beneath the surface is tons more data that you can drill down into, including news reports, market analysis, charts and competitive financial metrics. For me, it provides the perfect balance between design and function in communicating the exact information I need.

 http://www.smartmoney.com/map-of-the-market/

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Here’s how it represented this blog:

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On Sunday morning I woke up at 4am to the sounds of what I thought was bombing! I guess I was dreaming about the Soviet / Georgian bombings and awoke in that reality. Then my mind told me I was in “Safe Toronto” but I still felt anxious as the sounds continued.

I switched on the radio - nothing.
I switched on the TV - nothing.
I went to Google and searched for any news on Toronto - nothing.

Then I reached for my Blackberry and sent out the series of Tweets above. Looking on Twitter Search led me to PhotoJunkie and to Youtube videos and Flickr photos.

This episode in Toronto sparked a great commentary by Jeremiah Owyang on the risks and opportunities of citizen journalism.

Dave Lougheed commented on how “Twitter scoops local news.”

Last week, the use of Twitter to report the L.A. earthquakes inspired Organic’s Mike Hudson to write an article about his experiences. Mike held a different view, in which, he found the phone a more useful tool for his crisis:

“While we all look to the Twitter, text and Facebook or whatever else as the ‘next’ way of doing things, I’d say the real hero of breaking news is consistently turning out to be the biggest dinosaur of them all, the phone.”

But in my case… at 5am, I went back to sleep, feeling way less anxious now that I was better informed. The traditional media were all still asleep! They finally woke up hours later and started reporting on the events. Empowered by Twitter, Youtube and Flickr, I was able to express my anxiety with the World, poll the community to find out more, share information and be educated by and be part of citizen journalism on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

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My 6 3/4 yr old daughter has given me a very different view into the next information / knowledge age and how different it is from the world I grew up in.  Over the past six months she’s started to use the Internet a lot more frequently and recently started searching Youtube and Google for her favorite Hannah Montana videos, fashion designs and African animals (elephants, giraffe, lions and rhinos.)

Increasingly she’s started to spend extended periods of time in front of the computer learning new things, not just playing games or watching videos.  Today she spent 60+ minutes exploring the wonderful world of African Rain Spiders.  I watched her use Google, Wikipedia and blogs to read about these spiders, look at images of them and imbibe a huge amount of knowledge.

Her ability to regularly perform a thorough search and retain focus and knowledge contradicts the current view that we are now no longer able to concentrate, focus and learn in this multitasking / continuous partial attention world.  Her mind is obviously able to deal with the hyperlinked world a lot better than her dad’s.

I’ll be learning from her in the future.

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“Experience is integrally interconnected into our psyche. Throughout our lives, our experiences shape our attitudes, our character, our relationships and our success.

It’s art and science at its best.”

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It seems we’ve all been following the “fail whale” drama at Twitter as they’ve struggled to manage their growth. Tales of Twitter’s imminent demise are spread across the blogosphere. As you can see from the chart above, their growth has started slowing in recent months and active Twitterers (me included) started looking at alternatives like Friendfeed. Then, last week, in what seemed like the final straw, they “lost” a whole bunch of followers - we saw the “ego effect” kick in and some people got really mad. In the past few days, the lost followers (sans spammers) have magically reappeared as promised by Ev Williams, Twitter’s founder.

So, what’s next for Twitter? I’m very bullish on Twitter … They’ve recently acquired Summize, a 3rd party Twitter search tool and have rebranded and integrated their service offering into the Twitter experience. This brings several very valuable assets into the fold:

1. Search - Twitter provides a quick shorthand pulse of what’s hot across the globe. I find it fascinating that a 3rd party company was able to build a better search tool than Twitter could themselves, using Twitter’s own API. I think we’ll see more of these types of symbiotic acquisitions in our new open-source innovation world
2. Key talent - the engineers from Summize are all moving to San Francisco to work at Twitter. I’m sure they’ll be offered the opportunity to create new tools / services / products as Twitter starts exploring monetization options beyond the basic “slap a banner ad on the page” strategy that we’ve seen fail at Facebook and other social networks

Will Twitter be valued at $15 billion? Perhaps not but if I was a VC, I’d be lining up for their next round of funding.

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For their latest mission, New York City-based Improv Everywhere (the Frozen Grand Central guys) filled a subway car with identical twins, creating a human mirror. There’s video and more detail in the mission report.

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Lessons in Life by Regina Brett:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.
2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.
8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.
9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.
12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.
13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.
15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, but don’t worry; Go d never blinks.
16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.
17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.
18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.
19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.
20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.
21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.
24. The most important sex organ is the brain.
25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: ‘In five years, will this matter?’
27. Always choose life.
28. Forgive everyone, everything.
29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
30. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
32. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
33. Believe in miracles.
34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.
35. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.
36. Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.
37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.
38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.
39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.
40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.
41. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
42. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
45. The best is yet to come.
46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
48. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
49. Yield.
50. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

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Enjoy!

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