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joi, 2 mai 2013
Previewing President Obama's Trip to Mexico and Costa Rica
How Not to Visualize Your Data
How Not to Visualize Your Data |
| How Not to Visualize Your Data Posted: 01 May 2013 08:00 PM PDT Posted by Dr. Pete Lately, I’ve been seeing data visualizations everywhere, including the products in my own kitchen. This week, I had sightings on my tea and my tortilla chips. This is a story about the box my tea came in (for the sake of my marriage, I can’t disassemble the tortilla chip bag until it's empty), and how sometimes we take marketing too far. Over the weekend, I discovered this "Taste Profile" (the top version is a recreation, since the real graph was only about 1” tall, but all details are accurate to the original): I’m not attacking the company that made this, and I’m not going to “out” them here – their product is actually pretty great. I just want to use this visualization to illustrate some of the wrong ways to do things, in hopes that we can all raise our game a bit. But It’s So Pretty!I admit – the earth tones are nice, and it’s not entirely unappealing. I guess, for a moment, it made me feel better about shelling out $11 for an ounce-and-a-half of leaves. Maybe that’s even good marketing, although I really doubt this 1” tall graphic on the back of the box has ever swayed anyone’s decision. I’m not trying to say that it’s an ugly picture. The problem is that it’s a pleasant distraction disguised as meaningful data. The job of a data-visualization is to communicate an idea better than the raw data itself could. Of course, that also implies that there’s actual data behind the visualization. So, how do we get it wrong? (1) Pick the Shiniest StyleWe all know that the best chart style can be summed up with two words: “big and shiny!” The radar chart above is pretty shiny – it’s like I’ve discovered some lost continent of tea with my smooth jazz submarine. The problem is that, ultimately, I don’t know what that shape means, and I don’t have anything to compare it to. A radar chart is at its best when comparing two or more profiles. Pick the right tool for the job, not the one that looks the most impressive on your utility belt. Batman is a friend of mine, and you, sir, are no Batman (disclaimer: I don’t know Batman). (2) Use a Lot of Fancy WordsUmami is the exotic fifth taste (beyond the classic four of sweet, sour, bitter, and salty) – it’s a Japanese word meaning “Haha, I can’t believe I got you to eat sea urchin!” To be fair, at least it has something to do with taste. I honestly have no idea how “Brightness” or “Briskness” apply to tea, and if they do, what the difference is between the two. I do know that Lipton has spent a lot of money making us think their tea is brisk, which raises another point – why do you want to compare your $110/lb. gourmet tea to Lipton? Even “Aroma” is a bit ambiguous – do I want a lot of aroma? What if it’s the aroma of some bad umami that I forgot to put in the fridge last night? The goal of a visualization is to simplify information that’s too complex. If you have to make up big words to do that, then you’re missing the point. (3) More Words? Yes, Please!What really brings a visualization together is to explain each of your terms with even more words, preferably ones that make even less sense. Now, please understand – I have no issue with the French. I think Paris is lovely, it’s cool that you helped us win the American Revolution, and I’ve never eaten “freedom fries”. This product wasn’t made in France, though, and I didn’t buy it in Quebec. The company is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Translating every label on the graph into French isn’t just meaningless – it’s pretentious. These secondary labels only serve to add visual noise and make it harder to pair the main labels to their data points. (4) Keep the Mystery AliveEveryone loves a mystery – you don’t hate Scooby Doo, do you? If you can make your product mysterious enough, everyone will think they need it. Sadly, sometimes smoke and mirrors is all a product has to offer, but in this case the product is really quite good. Adding pseudoscience to the label doesn’t create intrigue – it just makes me wonder if the marketing team is drinking their product or smoking it. Communicate, Communicate, CommunicateTo be fair, this 1” graph was little more than a decoration on a box, and it does that job perfectly well. Unfortunately, I’ve seen similar graphs (and worse) in blog posts, research papers, and even reputable newspapers. Every day, it gets easier to make sexy charts, illustrations, and infographics. It’s ok to create something beautiful, but we have to remember that our first job is to communicate. A data visualization should convey useful ideas quickly, because ultimately that’s our job as online marketers. So, think before you open Photoshop. Addendum: So, I've learned that "cupping scores" are not uncommon in the gourmet coffee industry. Here's a 10-factor radar graph (hat tip to @jimbeetle). I just have a hard time seeing this as anything but a way to justify premium prices with pseudoscience. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!       |
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Just for You from YouTube: Weekly Update - May 2, 2013
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Seth's Blog : The critic stumbles
The critic stumbles
Last week, I saw an extraordinary play on Broadway. It got the longest standing ovation I've ever seen in a theater, and Alan Cumming deserved every minute of it. The New York Times critic, though, didn't like the show.
What's the point of his review, then? Clearly the audience, discerning in their own right, disagreed. Do mainstream critics exist to tell us what to like, to warn us off from the not-so-good, or are they there to punish those that would dare to make a piece of work that doesn't match the critic's view of the world? Perhaps the critic is saying, "people like me will have an opinion like this," but of course, there just aren't that many people like him.
Have you noticed just how often the critics disagree with one another? And how often they're just wrong?
And yet we not only read them, but we believe them. Worse, we judge ourselves, contrasting our feelings with their words. Worse still, we sometimes think we hear the feared critic's voice before we even ship our work out the door...
For me, the opinion of any single critic is becoming less and less meaningful as I choose what to view or engage with. And the aggregate opinion of masses of anonymous critics merely tells me that the product or content is (or isn't) mass-friendly. I'm far more moved by the insistent recommendation of a credible, raving fan than I am the snide whispering of some people who just didn't get it.
The math is simple: no matter how big a critic's platform, what moves markets are conversations. And we are far more likely to have conversations about something we're raving about than something we didn't like (because when we don't like it, our friends never experience it and the conversation dies). The win, then, is creating raves, not avoiding pans.
Every single book I've written has gotten at least a few one star reviews on Amazon. Every one. The lowest possible rating, the rating of, "don't bother reading this, in fact it never should have been written." Not just me, of course. Far better writers, writers like Fitzgerald, Orwell and Kincaid have gotten even more one-star reviews on their books than I can ever hope to.
No one has ever built a statue to a critic, it's true. On the other hand, it's only the people with statues that get pooped on by birds flying by.
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miercuri, 1 mai 2013
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
- S&P Predicts 20% Drop in Spain's Housing Prices Over Next 4 Years; Bad Bank to Dump Distressed Properties on Market
- April 2013 Manufacturing ISM at a Glance; What do the Numbers Mean?
- Expect ECB to Cut Rates on Friday; Even a "Shock-and-Awe" Cut Won't Help One Bit
- Canada Goes After Bitcoin; Saskatoon Realtor Lists Home Priced in Bitcoins; Is Bitcoin a Money Laundering Machine?
| Posted: 01 May 2013 01:05 PM PDT Spain's "bad bank", Sareb to speed up distressed property sales in an ambitious new timetable for liquidation. The bad bank is hoping to sell almost 42,000 housing units in the next five years. This is about half of the properties in its €50 billion (£42.5 billion approximately) portfolio.Cleanup "Advance Stage" Nonsense from IMF To suggest the cleanup of undercapitalized banks is in an "advance stage" is complete nonsense. It only makes partial sense if there is a zero percent probability of haircuts on Spanish sovereign debt. I suggest the probability of haircuts on Spanish government bonds is far greater than 50%. And since Spanish banks are loaded to the gills with sovereign debt, the banks are severely undercapitalized by implication. S&P Predicts 20% Drop in Spain's Housing Prices Courtesy of Mish-Modified google translate from El Economista, please consider S&P predicts that housing in Spain fall by 20% over the next four years. The credit rating agency Standard & Poor's does not see "signs of improvement" in the Spanish property market given the "precarious economic conditions and the heavy weight of the 'stock' of unsold homes," and anticipates that home prices will fall 20% over the next four years.S&P Optimistic I am of the opinion the S&P is overly optimistic about Spain, about France, and about the Netherlands. The European recession is worsening, credit conditions are awful, employment conditions are awful, and there are scant buyers of property because discounts are not large enough and credit is nowhere to be found. None of this remotely takes into consideration the very strong likelihood of a Spanish debt writedown in the next year or so. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| April 2013 Manufacturing ISM at a Glance; What do the Numbers Mean? Posted: 01 May 2013 11:25 AM PDT US Manufacturing as measured by the April 2013 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® is treading water barely above contraction. Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in April for the fifth consecutive month, and the overall economy grew for the 47th consecutive month, say the nation's supply executives in the latest Manufacturing ISM Report On Business®.ISM at a Glance
Synopsis Manufacturing employment has grown for 43 months. I expect that trend to break next month. Production was up but inventories were way lower. The drop in inventories, in conjunction with a big slowdown in employment, is likely a leading indicator of future production. The positive surprise that does not fit into the above assessment is that new orders grew at a faster rate. Next month may be telling. I expect the new order divergence to resolve to the downside as the global economy and the US economy are both slowing. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Expect ECB to Cut Rates on Friday; Even a "Shock-and-Awe" Cut Won't Help One Bit Posted: 01 May 2013 09:59 AM PDT Eurozone inflation collapsed to 1.2% in the latest report, from an expected print of 1.6%. Given the ECB has an inflation target of 2%, rate cut calls range all the way from a cut of 25 basis points to a cut of 75 basis points. With the current rate at .75%, a 75 basis point to 0% is very unlikely. A cut of 25 or 50 basis points is almost certain but even 50 basis points won't do much good. Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank writes via email: Calls for cut in ECB rate by 25 bps from 75 bps to 50 bps. We see 25 bpsInvestors Fooling Themselves Echoing the opinion of Steen, please consider Investors may be fooling themselves about an ECB rate cut High hopes ride on the European Central Bank, which is set to make its latest monetary policy announcement on Thursday. Despite the fact that poor economic data continues to flow out of the euro zone, investors seem convinced that the euro area is a fleeting concern, and certain that the ECB will cut rates from their current level of 0.75% in order to relax credit.Shock and Awe? Consensus is for a 25 basis point cut. I would not at all be surprised by a "shock-and-awe" announcement of 50 basis points. However, cuts of any size will not help because the problems in the eurozone are structural: Structural Issues
Anyone who thinks that even a 75 basis point cut would solve those issues is not thinking clearly. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 01 May 2013 12:37 AM PDT Is Bitcoin a Money Laundering Machine? Bitcoin trumpets itself as being totally anonymous. Facts speak otherwise. New Bitcoin World tackles the issue in Can code and competition build a better Bitcoin? Everyone from the mainstream media to Wikileaks to the now-disbanded hacker collective LulzSec has trumpeted Bitcoin as "anonymous." But the truth is that researchers have long since proven it's anything but — since every bitcoin transaction appears on a public ledger distributed to everyone in the network (called the "block chain"), tracking bitcoins back to individuals is often trivial.Saskatoon Realtor Lists Home Priced in Bitcoins Just in time for tax season, the Canada Revenue Agency says BitCoins aren't tax exempt. Originally designed as a virtual currency alternative to conventional money, the cash value of a BitCoin jumped from under $50 US to above $250 and back earlier this month, as speculators flooded the market after awareness of them grew.If you think the anonymity of bitcoin will hide what you are doing, you probably better think twice. And the more popular bitcoin gets, the more government will be asking questions. If bitcoin gets big enough, governments will do far more than ask questions, they will demand an accounting of every transaction, where the money went, and whether taxes were properly paid. For more on bitcoins please see Mish Interview With "Bitcoin Jesus" Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
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