Digital Roam

National Pie Day

It's today!

Found on http://tongodeon.livejournal.com/583338.html

Visualize World Piece

Chelsea sent me this link to the preview materials for this year's attendees at the Davos World Economic Forum. It is a bonanza of information visualization, some good (like this illuminating map of global immigration and emigration):

Some not so good (like this visually useless and meaninglessly subtitled demographic... actually, the more that I look at it, the less sense it makes):

And some just plain scary (like this timeline of measurable atmospheric CO2):

All in all, this site provides a insightful visual summary on the way that global economic decision makers look at the world... and what they see.

The Chart is Half Full

This morning Ted (my literary agent, who catches far more of the really great visuals out there than I do) pointed me towards a miraculous movie made entirely of charts.

Created by  Clemens Kogler, "Le Grand Content" describes the meaning of life with Venn Diagrams, Pie Charts, and a few Quad Plots (you're in good company, Mr. Jobs).

If you love PowerPoint or hate Powerpoint, you'll love this. Plus, it will visually explain your drinking habits.

Thanks Ted!

Steve Job's MS moment

During yesterday's press-stopping Apple keynote, even MC Jobs found the need to rely on a "business 101 chart" to introduce the iPhone.

That's right: Steve Jobs, the unassailable master of business presentations, smoothly worked in a quad chart to show the anticipated market position of his brilliant new phone.

Nice. But according to the Apple "I'm a Mac, I'm Windows" ads, aren't charts like that one of the few things that John Hodgman (as Windows) gets to take credit for?

UPS browns the whiteboard

Wow - somebody's convinced of the power of solving problems with pictures. UPS has just spent $35 million with the Martin Agency to launch a new ad campaign featuring a guy drawing pictures on a whiteboard. I like that.

http://whiteboard.ups.com/

According to company press releases, the ""UPS Whiteboard" is the biggest shift in brown's advertising since 2002.

The ads are nicely done, and I agree with UPS's explanation that " 'Whiteboard' - though the use of a no-nonsense, simple graphic approach - boils down the highly complex nature of UPS's global delivery, supply chain, technology and other services."

Watching the ads, I kept wondering who was the guy doing all the drawing. It didn't seem likely that any old actor could be doing all that sketching. It turns out that after The Martin Agency looked at 1,000 potential actors, they decided to use their own creative director, Andy Azula.

How come he doesn't have to wear brown?