Tag Archive for 'Visualisation'

Visualising the Global Dialogue

Published on November 25, 2010 in Ranting and Raving. 0 Comments Tags: .

The World Economic Forum is often described as “the world’ s largest brainstorm” — and the issues on the global agenda are increasingly interconnected and require systemic thinking [Source].

The School of Visual Arts in New York City developed a design that tackles the complexity issue by looking at which WEF councils are seeking dialogue with one another. Their wheel lets you hover over a council name — and the lines indicate the other council they want to reach. The darkness of the line indicates the strength of the relationship [Source].

For example, the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” council understandably has a strong dialogue with their “Terrorism” colleagues. They want to engage the “International Legal” team — but that connection is quite weak.

Please find the wheel here.

Interactive World Factbook

Published on July 27, 2010 in Ranting and Raving. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The CIA World Factbook is a data nerd’s dream and a crowning achievement in data gathering, highlighting every single country in the world, and presenting myriad facts ranging from GDP to important local industries. It’s also mind-numbingly boring and not terribly useful because there’s simply no way to summarize all that data.

IBM’s data-visualisation researchers leveled their resources at the problem, producing their own World Factbook, a sprawling online tool that lets you create thousands of charts on the fly.

For a similar–and even more ambitious–project, definitely check out the World Development Indicators 2010, which contains details about health, environment, and education of every country in the world.