I See What You Mean

Increasingly, it seems, mass media outlets are talking up infoviz. Great news for us here at Synoptical Charts, but more than that, helpful for people in businesses that demand clear, concise and logical communication. In other words, everybody. Today's installment, from Forbes.com : ...[W]hile Hadoop may be the poster child of Big Data, there are other important technologies at play. In addition to Hadoop, the open source framework for distributing data processing across multiple nodes, these include massively parallel data warehouses “that deliver lightening [sic] fast data loading and real-time analytic capabilities,” as the report states; analytic platforms and applications that allow Data Scientists and business analysts to manipulate Big Data; and data visualization tools that bring insights from Big Data analysis alive for end-users. Big Data is Big Market & Big Business - $50 Billion Market by 2017

"I predict that we will see a lot more visualization in journalism. A lot of stories are already about numbers, with language mostly telling readers the conclusions. Simple charts with some interaction can provide a bit more context, and more can be added very easily. I doubt that we'll see a big visual journalism revolution in 2011, mostly because of the lack of accessible and practical tools, but we will see a lot more experimentation. The increasing demand will lead to more journalism-focused services being provided by visualization websites, in particular ones that also provide the analytic capabilities (i.e., not just pretty charts)." -- from " The State of Information Visualization, 2011 ," by UNC Charlotte's Robert Kosara . Emphasis added, as this is exactly What We Do here at Synoptical Charts.

My New Year's gift to all y'all is this recommendation: RUN DON'T WALK to download  Google Refine . (No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.) Refine is an app that expedites data cleaning, thereby eliminating hours and hours of tedium and letting me get to the fun parts of the project sooner. Google Refine I will certainly be putting it through its paces this year.  If you do check it out, let me know what you think.

See it now. Based on the recent Wikileaks release of military documents , Mike Dewar and Drew Conway created this animated month-by-month infographic showing the number and location of engagements over five years in Afghanistan. Beautiful work and very sobering. Animated Heatmap of WikiLeaks Report Intensity in Afghanistan - Zero Intelligence Agents

Data nerds like me will enjoy wallowing in the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series , a massive collection of U.S. Census microdata that's been made available to anyone for social and economic research. From the website : IPUMS-USA is a project dedicated to collecting and distributing United States census data. Its goals are to: Collect and preserve data and documentation Harmonize data Disseminate the data absolutely free! We are cautioned to "use it for GOOD -- never for EVIL." 'Nuff said. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation , Sun Microsystems , the University of Minnesota and the National Institutes of Health .

As thousands and perhaps millions take to the streets in Tehran to protest Iran's (alleged) election fraud, the UK's Guardian goes nitty-gritty, posting a data set of polling results. * The paper ends its report thus: "Can you do something with this data? Please post us your visualisations and mash-ups below or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk ." Its story also links to data maps from Fivethirtyeight.com and Iran Tracker. (Elsewhere at Fivethirtyeight, Nate Silver considers the statistical analysis that ostensibly proves the election was rigged -- in other words, the basis of the protestors' unrest.) Here's the direct link to the election data, in case anyone out there feels like having a go at it; I hope I'll have some time to muck around with it myself. DATA: Full Iranian election results by province including turnouts and 2005 results. Download them as a spreadsheet. *Per the story: "The figures we've uploaded are, as far as we can work

Urging users to be "Data Rockstars" (oy), software company Tableau is sponsoring a visualization contest . Entrants are to select and depict one of two data sets: proposals for US stimulus projects or data from 2007 mortgage applications around the nation . I look forward to seeing the results.

Another in our occasional series on Where The Numbers Come From : What more could the aspiring info-interpreter want than a Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network ? Hosted/maintained/curated by the folks at the Open Knowledge Forum , it provides more than 350 data "packages" (from the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment to Yosemite National Park ) and code that are "free for anyone to use and reuse." Some packages contain video or podcasts, others static images, still others scientific data. The mix of media means there's something to entice analysts of all bents. For my part, since I am a lifelong Bardbrain (I once wrote a thesis on metaphorical structure in the language of Shakespeare's plays), I find this subsite especially intriguing. I'll try to whip up a Shakespeare-related visualization and post it here soon.