You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘information’ tag.
The words“geek” and “nerd” are often used interchangeably, despite the clear differences between them. Finally, a comprehensive infographic that explains the distinctions, both broad and subtle, between the two. Click the above image for the entire infographic, as this is just an excerpted portion. Enjoy.
As Marty mentioned in a previous post, the new Delicious design is a little wonky, and no longer pumps content to our blog and Twitter account. So here’s a roundup of articles I’ve stumbled across over the past month that you may find interesting:
- Two sides of an argument/book review about the value of unpaid internships in the modern workforce
- Compelling infographics on voice recognition applications, inspired by the launch of the iPhone 4S
- Scott Adams (Dilbert) on creativity, and the stifling thereof
- A press release for an academic article on learning while sleeping
- We’ve posted several entries about publishers moving content online, but here are some folks who are moving in the opposite direction
- On confidence
- The End of the Future
- “Creative Class” around the globe
- There is no evidence supporting auditory and visual learning…(some psychologists say…)
- The back story on Lorem Ipsum
- Tumblr on the up and up
So who’s more ‘with it’ – younger or older people? Seems like it depends on what you’re looking for. It appears that at age 20, “fluid intelligence” peaks. The ability to learn quickly, observe patterns, analyze, and retain information is at its zenith. Also, abstract reasoning and puzzle solving are paramount-the ability to dream freely and create dream-like scenarios. Rebellious youth with their heads in the clouds!
Things begin to change as we age, but don’t see it as “selling out” on yourself, it’s a natural process of the shifting of dimensions of intellectual curiosity and cognitive development.
Of note, fluid intelligence is most predominant in those with Aspergers Syndrome (i.e., the piano virtuoso with never contrived C minor/major seventh chords progressions swimming in his head).
When one reaches middle age, said to be early 50s, intelligence becomes grounded in knowledge and experience, not recognition. This type of intelligence utilizes the ability to refine concepts though iterative learning and improvement, to contextualize and find meaning through comparison and analogy. Over time, practice of this type of intelligence is said to positively effect people’s social reasoning and general overall well-being (i.e. the ‘mellowing out’ affect of middle age).
Hence, as we age, we don’t change who are are, we’re still the same ‘us’. We remain true to ourselves and our goals and ideals. It’s how we work our way through the maze of life, acquiring stuff in our heads and moving forward, that changes how we keep moving.
The U.S. Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies has long supported (for the past ~5 years) an online system for pulling area-based employment and residence data using a visual map-based selection tool called OnTheMap. This software is fairly intuitive and fun to use, but can also be quite useful in exploring a specific market or region to understand where workers live and work, and how that has changed over time.
OnTheMap is useful for more than work location, however. It’s a multi-layered mapping tool, with companion data on demographics, earnings, industry characteristics. We’ve also used it to identify exact metropolitan statistical areas and radius ranges, to find transportation routes, greenspace, and tribal and military lands, and to simply better understand a physical marketplace.
For years, organizations like the Census Bureau relied heavily on point-in-time estimates, tables of statistics and physical and static maps for data exploration like this. As new systems come online, are developed further, and improved over successive versions, our ability to access information from our desktops is not only facilitated but empowered.
The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting infographic showing the percentage of adults with college degrees by county. They’ve added a nice piece of interaction that lets you follow changes over time since the 1940 census. You can view by gender, ethnicity, county, etc. Check out the full interactive version here.
Infomous is a dynamic and intuitive navigation solution – perhaps soon to pop up on websites you visit. Web developers for content-rich sites have integrated word cloud and tablet-style flip navigation over the past few years, but this is a solution that seems to combine aspects of both: reference triggers and dynamic script. The tool is currently available in preview/beta version through a relationship with the provider, but will roll out later this year, ready for embed. More info at Infomous – they have a demo up for world news, a version for sports news, entertainment news, science news. It’s easy to explore and find links to try.
Beautiful series of infographics by Peter Orntoft about how the Danish people feel about a number of pressing social issues. Though shortfalls of time, budget, and creativity force us to revert to PowerPoint Smart Art, it’s inspiring to see work that challenges what an infographic can be.
Jeff Ely, economics professor at Northwestern University and contributor to the Cheap Talk blog, recently wrote a great article about titles, or names. His examples focus on bank names, and how they engender trust, and the names of legal documents, which could perhaps be simply skimmed to get a sense of utility or relevance. But the article is an interesting reminder and idea spark, for researchers and marketers.
There are varying degrees of scope and sophistication in our wildly different projects and initiatives. Our work is passed to our clients, to internal teams, to executive management, to various partners and outside parties. The names of studies, reports, presentations, tools used in the process, task force teams, strategic plans, products in development, etc. do matter.
Names should be clear and communicative – presenting the topic but also the considering the audience. Names should not be overly technical or detailed. Names should be intuitive, parsimonious, and should be readable (and intelligible) “out loud.” But names should also hold up over time, regardless of how related issues change or evolve. Future researchers should be able to refer back to your work, referencing a name that still communicates something to them. It’s somewhat a lofty challenge, if you think about the implication of the choice of title. The goal is to strike a balance between communication and brevity – if the name simply “fits” in these terms, it will likely carry and communicate as desire.
