Visualizing Data

Hans Rosling is one of those people, those magnificent geniuses who see the world differently - and want to force the rest of us to see things from his perspective.  He is a 'statistics guru' who uses data to truly understand the world.  Understanding data is one thing, getting average people to understand what you've spent an entire career trying to figure out - that's no easy feat.  Dr. Rosling is a showman - giving his audience on a visual roller coaster ride through data.  His presentations are fun, and the visual presentations are both convincing and easy to understand.  He draws his pictures so clearly that  it's difficult to argue with his conclusion.

Hans Rosling: The best stats you've ever seen | TED Talks

We can use Dr. Rosling's techniques to more clearly and cleanly explain data.  For instance, reporting Admission trends or current headcount, many business analysts would present a complex spreadsheet to decision makers.  That data is great, and when they have time - that might just be the kind of details they're looking for.  Often times, senior managers are busy and simply wants a digestible bite of data.  In these cases a dashboard provides quick access to decision-making data in the way key stakeholders can use daily to understand the current state of data.  They say, "a picture is worth a thousand words" - visual data provides that same kind of compression and gives us the tools to understand data without having to understand all the underlying business rules.