Blog post at PeteSearch
Snow wasn't the first person to draw these kinds of maps, he wasn't the first to draw them to track disease, and in fact he wasn't even the first person to map this particular outbreak! The Sewer Commision produced a very detailed map showing the death locations. The power of Snow's version came from his decision to leave out a lot of details (sewer locations, old grave sites, etc) that cluttered up the Commision's version. Their map was so muddled that it didn't tell a story, but Snow's was stripped-down to show exactly what he needed to bolster his theory that the epidemic spread from the water pump.
As Johnson puts it in his book "the map was a triumph of marketing as much as empirical science".
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Turning data into money
Blog post at PeteSearch
Here's my hierarchy showing the stages from raw data to cold, hard cash:
Here's my hierarchy showing the stages from raw data to cold, hard cash:
- Data
- Charts
- Reports
- Recommendations
You're offering them direct ways to meet their business goals, which is incredibly valuable. This is the Nirvana of data startups, you've turned into an essential business tool that your customers know is helping them make money, so they're willing to pay a lot.
My rephrasing of Pete's post: Showing people information is usually not enough. You often have to recommend what to DO with that information.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Watching "the game"
Something of a misnomer...
Football (article from the Wall Street Journal)
According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.
The typical length of a broadcast is 185 minutes, making the actual game ~6% of your typical broadcast.
Baseball (article from the Wall Street Journal)
A similar study of two nine-inning baseball games, one from Fox and another from ESPN.
The result is that during these games, there was a nearly identical amount of action: about 14 minutes. To put that in context, that's about 10.9% of the total broadcast time (excluding commercials).
Add in commercials, and the proportion drops even lower.
Reminds me of the "human" body, where human cells are outnumbered 10 to 1 by bacteria.
Football (article from the Wall Street Journal)
According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.
The typical length of a broadcast is 185 minutes, making the actual game ~6% of your typical broadcast.
Baseball (article from the Wall Street Journal)
A similar study of two nine-inning baseball games, one from Fox and another from ESPN.
The result is that during these games, there was a nearly identical amount of action: about 14 minutes. To put that in context, that's about 10.9% of the total broadcast time (excluding commercials).
Add in commercials, and the proportion drops even lower.
Reminds me of the "human" body, where human cells are outnumbered 10 to 1 by bacteria.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Quotes by John Tukey
This is my new personal motto.
The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see.
- John W. Tukey. Exploratory Data Analysis. 1977.
Hat tip to Flowing Data
And another great one to remember
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.
- John Tukey
Hat tip to Flowing Data
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Using capitalism, for good
Blog post by Seth Godin
Part 1: The bottom is important.
Almost a third of the world's population earns $2.50 or less a day. The enormity of this disparity takes my breath away, but there's an interesting flip side to it: That's a market of more than five billion dollars a day. Add the next segment ($5 a day) and it's easy to see that every single day, the poorest people in the world spend more than ten billion dollars to live their lives.
Part 2: The bottom is an opportunity (for both buyer or seller).
Part 3: It's not as easy as it looks
So you see the paradox. A new product and approach and innovation could dramatically improve the life and income of a billion people, but those people have been conditioned to ignore the very tools that are a reflex of marketers that might sell it to them. Fear of loss is greater than fear of gain. Advertising is inefficient and ineffective. And the worldview of the shopper is that they're not a shopper. They're in search of refills.
The answer, it turns out, is in connecting and leading Tribes. It lies in engaging directly and experientially with individuals, not getting distribution in front of markets. Figure out how to use direct selling in just one village, and then do it in ten, and then in a hundred. The broad, mass market approach of a Western marketer is foolish because there is no mass market in places where villages are the market.
Part 4: The (eventual) power of the early adopter
Just because it is going to take longer than it should doesn't mean we should walk away. There are big opportunities here, for all of us. It's going to take some time, but it's worth it.
Seth Godin's blog post relates to the mission of the Acumen Fund, "Investing in businesses to end global poverty"
Part 1: The bottom is important.
Almost a third of the world's population earns $2.50 or less a day. The enormity of this disparity takes my breath away, but there's an interesting flip side to it: That's a market of more than five billion dollars a day. Add the next segment ($5 a day) and it's easy to see that every single day, the poorest people in the world spend more than ten billion dollars to live their lives.
Part 2: The bottom is an opportunity (for both buyer or seller).
Part 3: It's not as easy as it looks
So you see the paradox. A new product and approach and innovation could dramatically improve the life and income of a billion people, but those people have been conditioned to ignore the very tools that are a reflex of marketers that might sell it to them. Fear of loss is greater than fear of gain. Advertising is inefficient and ineffective. And the worldview of the shopper is that they're not a shopper. They're in search of refills.
The answer, it turns out, is in connecting and leading Tribes. It lies in engaging directly and experientially with individuals, not getting distribution in front of markets. Figure out how to use direct selling in just one village, and then do it in ten, and then in a hundred. The broad, mass market approach of a Western marketer is foolish because there is no mass market in places where villages are the market.
Part 4: The (eventual) power of the early adopter
Just because it is going to take longer than it should doesn't mean we should walk away. There are big opportunities here, for all of us. It's going to take some time, but it's worth it.
Seth Godin's blog post relates to the mission of the Acumen Fund, "Investing in businesses to end global poverty"
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Simplicity is highly overrated
(in mass-market consumer goods)
Blog post by Don Norman
If a company spent more money to design and build an appliance that worked so well, so automatically, that all it needed was an on-off switch, people would reject it. “This simple looking thing costs more?” They would complain. “What is that company thinking of? I’ll buy the cheaper one with all those extra features – after all, it’s better, right? And I save money.”
Logic and reason, I have to keep explaining, are wonderful virtues, but they are irrelevant in describing human behavior. Trying to prove a point through intelligent, reasonable argumentation is what I call the “engineer’s fallacy.” (Also, the economist’s fallacy.”) We have to design for the way people really behave [emphasis added], not as engineers or economists would prefer them to behave.
Blog post by Don Norman
If a company spent more money to design and build an appliance that worked so well, so automatically, that all it needed was an on-off switch, people would reject it. “This simple looking thing costs more?” They would complain. “What is that company thinking of? I’ll buy the cheaper one with all those extra features – after all, it’s better, right? And I save money.”
Logic and reason, I have to keep explaining, are wonderful virtues, but they are irrelevant in describing human behavior. Trying to prove a point through intelligent, reasonable argumentation is what I call the “engineer’s fallacy.” (Also, the economist’s fallacy.”) We have to design for the way people really behave [emphasis added], not as engineers or economists would prefer them to behave.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Stats make something else interesting (golf)
Along the same lines as my previous post regarding fashion, statistics are making golf interesting.
Slate's "Moneygolf" series
Seven million shots
How golf really works
The dark art of putting
FYI - "Moneygolf" is a reference to Michael M. Lewis' book "Moneyball", which talks about the field of Sabermetrics (statistics applied to baseball).
FYI2 - After recently watching "The Blind Side" (an emotional drama), I was very surprised at first to find out that it was based on a book by Michael Lewis ("an American contemporary non-fiction author and financial journalist"). However, after finding out that there were two story lines in the book - one about the evolution of NFL offensive strategy and one about Michael Oher - I am once again reminded of the changes that occur when a book is transformed into a movie.
Slate's "Moneygolf" series
Seven million shots
How golf really works
The dark art of putting
FYI - "Moneygolf" is a reference to Michael M. Lewis' book "Moneyball", which talks about the field of Sabermetrics (statistics applied to baseball).
FYI2 - After recently watching "The Blind Side" (an emotional drama), I was very surprised at first to find out that it was based on a book by Michael Lewis ("an American contemporary non-fiction author and financial journalist"). However, after finding out that there were two story lines in the book - one about the evolution of NFL offensive strategy and one about Michael Oher - I am once again reminded of the changes that occur when a book is transformed into a movie.
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