I have spent much of today reading journals, updating my technical skills and watching videos, in a work-related way.
One of the videos dealt with ‘data visualisation’, which is a slightly nerdy topic, but it will, I feel, become much more important in the coming years.
I love the way the speaker (David McCandless) deals with relationships within and without datastreams.
Mr McCandless has an admirable ability to look at the world with a cross-sliced view.
The urban myths of which country has the world’s largest army and which other country spends the most on armed forces, are easily exposed, but I don’t think anyone is naive enough to believe the answers to those questions are China or the US anyway.
But the way Mr McCandless exposes to public gaze the financial cost of the war in Afghanistan, or the cost of bailing out financial institutions during the current depression, are breathtaking.
The relationship of data, this being Mr McCandless’ point, will, I think, become a much greater feature in the future world of Information Management.
Context is everything.
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Didn’t think I would, but I found that quite interesting.
Even the Rolex ad at the end was watchable (Ouch)
It’s all down to context. I think cross-sliced context-based reporting will become the key to central government performance/activity reports over the next five years.