The Art of Visualization and Storytelling

Data visualization is the representation of data in a graphical format. Data by itself can be boring to look at. It is difficult to analyze and draw conclusions by just looking at rows of a table. Data visualization provides an easier, more convenient way for the end user to digest information and make inferences.

In this Information Age, it is absolutely critical for organizations to makes sense of the vast streams of data which are available to them. Understanding the underlying patterns and relationships within the data while tying it the business problem is the key to effective decision making. Data visualizations help the end users to do just that!

A classic example which highlights the potential of data visualization is the Periodic Table. The hidden relationships are well captured and the key chemical elements, their atomic numbers and other properties can be effortlessly understood.

Data visualization is used primarily for two reasons: Exploring and Explaining

• Visualizations for exploring are very useful when you are not sure what the data is telling you. It can help establish relationships and patterns in the data. 
• Visualizations for explaining are useful once you understand the data and are trying to communicate an idea to the audience.

Visualization research has traditionally focused on exploration of data. But as we use data more and more for driving decisions, it is important to focus more on the explaining or ‘story-telling’.

Al Shalloway, founder and CEO of Net Objectives, says, “Visualizations act as a campfire around which we gather to tell stories.” Senior executives are flooded with dashboards and scorecards with an overwhelming amount of analytics. As these managers do not understand the story behind the data, they struggle with data-driven decision making. Storytelling helps a user gain insight from the data through visualization that the data supports.

What are some of the essentials of storytelling?

Understand your dataset
It is essential to have a good understanding of your dataset. You must know the source of the data, the field, the target audience. Knowing your data gives you a sense of authority and credibility.

Find a story and create a good structure
Once you have a good understanding of the data, you need to find a story to tell. It is important to have a narrative that is compelling and engaging.

Guide, don’t push
Your story must be a guide to the user experience. The visualizations must encourage users to understand the facts and draw their own conclusions which are meaningful to them. This kind of experience is more trustworthy and more personal which in turn makes it more memorable.

Keep it simple
It is easy to get carried away by the data and present the user with an overwhelming amount of information. Hence, it is essential that you prioritize and focus on keeping the story simple. Only provide those statistics which help in creating a compelling narrative

In this blog post, we are trying to convey that “how you say it” is just as, if not more important than “what you say”.  Here is an interesting story about storytelling which summarizes our thoughts!

References:

What is data visualization?

http://visual.ly/what-is-data-visualization

Why data visualization matters

http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/02/why-data-visualization-matters.html

10 Quotes on Data Visualization

http://blog.fusioncharts.com/2014/05/10-quotes-on-data-visualization/

Storytelling: The Next Step for Visualization

http://kosara.net/papers/2013/Kosara_Computer_2013.pdf

Tell a Meaningful Story With Data

http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/tell-meaningful-stories-with-data.html

Visual Storytelling: Why Data Visualization is a Content Marketing Fairytale

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/visual-storytelling-data-visualization-content-marketing-fairytale/92513/

Is the Internet of Things really here?

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing internet infrastructure. In IoT, objects and people are assigned unique identifiers and are responsible to transfer data related to activities without requiring human-to-computer interaction. 

Brendan O’Brien, Chief Architect at Aria Systems says, “If you think that the internet has changed your life, think again. The IoT is about to change it all over again!” And we don’t think it is an exaggeration. Each “thing” that exists in the world will have the capability to be connected, communicated and operated automatically in a system that bridges the gap between digital and physical worlds.

There are three key factors to be considered for IoT:

• What are the different types of “Things” are getting connected?
• What kind of data is being collected?
• How to analyze and monetize the collected data?

An interesting implementation of IoT is GE’s Industrial Internet, which is basically the integration of complex physical machinery with networked sensors and software. The industrial Internet is bringing an insightful transformation by connecting intelligent machines, advanced analytics, and people at work. The following video explains Industrial Internet in detail:

While we have commonly heard of thermostats and fitness devices generating data for analysis, the above video represents much larger ‘things’- ships, trains, windmills and so on generating data. Data analysis of thermostat data affects our personal life. The effect of data analysis of ships, trains, power plants, windmills has macro consequences for nations, and for the world. It can result in saving lives by predicting the failure of aircrafts, trains and power plants; saving precious natural resources resulting in both, saving them for the future, and reducing the amount of carbon transmitted into the atmosphere.

The internet of things also represents some security concerns. All devices being connected to the internet makes them vulnerable to cyber attacks. One example of vulnerabilities is using Shodan. Shodan is a search engine for finding devices connected to the internet- webcams, baby monitors and others. Shodan’s founder, John Matherly, revealed in an interview that Shodan has found vulnerabilities in control panels of power and utility systems, a giant hydroelectric dam in France, crematoriums and even a particle accelerator. Further, an HP study revealed that 70% of devices connected to the internet of things are vulnerable in some respect.

Although security concerns pose a serious threat, the internet of things represents significant opportunities. Given the rate of growth in embedded technology that can communicate, Internet of Things could become widely available in the market as early as 2020. There are significant hurdles to overcome from the security perspective for the internet of things to be commercialized, but the internet of things has arrived and will come into its full existence in a few years.

References

[1] Internet of Things - Wikipedia (J. Höller, V. Tsiatsis, C. Mulligan, S. Karnouskos, S. Avesand, D. Boyle: From Machine-to-Machine to the Internet of Things: Introduction to a New Age of Intelligence.)

[2] Is Shodan really the world's most dangerous search engine?

 http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/shodan-exposes-the-dark-side-of-the-net

[3] 70 Percent of Internet of Things Devices Vulnerable to Attack

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?id=1744676#.VCyclRZ_9EM

[4] Internet of Things Installed Base Will Grow to 26 Billion Units By 2020

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2636073