I am always trying to come up with better ways of condensing large amount of data to be easily understood, most of the time this means I create (or at least try to) a lot of graphics and charts.

Some good general tools and examples for visualizations are:

• Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
• Data Visualization: Modern Approaches

To see some interesting data visualizations in action check out World Mapper. These are great maps using demographic and economic data that really cool , for example here is a map visualizing Forest Loss, or this one on Vegetables Imports.

For my normal day to day work I use Excel and sometimes Visio. While they may lack a lot of functionality, they are quick and easy.

The two main reasons I upgraded to Office 2007 was the improved pivot table interface and the improved charting experience, particularly the different chart types within a data set and charting with different scales on the two vertical axis.

That is not to say I wouldn’t love to add a very professional edge, and some killer dashboards using cool tool like Tableau, some of these examples are just amazing, but with the $999.00 for a single user license it is out of the question.

I am always on the lookout for better visualization methods, though being a person with no intrinsic sense of style or form I more often must rely on technical representation as opposed to stylish representation. When trying to portray information I used to struggle with what is the best format, until I found this little gem, Chart Suggestions – A Thought Starter. It lays out beautifully when to use what bases chart and takes a lot of time and guesswork out of continually changing chart types.

I really must stop reading blogs, or listing to news reports, it is far too depressing. I would like to go hide under a rock now thank you.

http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2008/09/08/ever-wonder-what-happens-when-you-dont-teach-kids-science-in-school/ (short video)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26544510/

I particularly like ‘The decree says the aim is to centralize and analyze data on people aged 13 or above who are active in politics or labor unions, who play a significant institutional, economic, social or religious role, or who are “likely to breach public order.”‘  so, everyone!

(This is re-posted from every Moore Alumni networking site I could find)

Have you volunteered for an organization you feel is worthwhile or maybe you work for an organization that is looking for volunteers? Please share with us your experiences.

Why?

Particularly in the current market, you (or others in the Alumni community) may be looking for a way to bolster your experience and strengthen your resume. Do you want:

• Networking connections
• Opportunity to develop new skills
• International experience
• Career advancement opportunities

Volunteering can help!

It seems that everywhere you turn people are saying you should volunteer, you should give back.

What I would like to demonstrate is how volunteering can help you in furthering your goals and I would like to do this by showing the experiences of our Alumni community.

For example, I volunteer for an organization called Water For People as part of their World Water Corps. WFP is an NGO started by members of the American Water Association, focusing on the development of sustainable water resources and sanitation facilities in a number of emerging countries. I will spare you the numbers and, at times heart breaking details, of the number of people living without access to enough clean water and what that means for their lives. Suffice it to say it is a topic I feel strongly about, and I wanted to help.

In March 2008, I spent 3 weeks in India as part of a 6 member monitoring team where we visited a number of sites (borehole, latrine, arsenic removal, and school sanitation) and met with local partner NGO’S to evaluate the program effectiveness in the various townships. It was an amazing and eye opening experience, and if you are interested you can read a blog about my experiences here and see pictures here.

Currently, I am on a 4 member team assigned to a project in Malawi, Africa. We are working with a local partner NGO, which also has a borehole drilling business, to get them in the black so that the failing business is not a drain on the NGO resources. This entails developing a business plan, implement more regular bookkeeping and accounting procedures, aid in sorting out their staff and administrating issues and work with them to develop and implement an overall business strategy that will work their environment.

As a former Chinese tracker living in Germany, working within the African business environment was completely out of my experience. What I am learning about the political/business/social structures in addition to the actual/physical environmental factors gives me valuable insights and actual tangible skills I can transfer to my business. Add in a bit of adventure travel and the added professional exposure I gained while presenting the case for trip sponsorship to my company, and it has proven far more valuable than simply the time invested.

Our Request: Please tell us about your experiences with organizations you feel are worthwhile.

We are compiling our alumni experiences to:

1. Provide a resource to our Alumni community for those whom maybe have thought about volunteering but do not know where/with what and would like a little more insight before starting.
2. Highlight our Alumni community. Over the past few months I have had the opportunity to meet a number of Alumni and let me tell you we have amazing people with incredible experiences in our community! I want to share these stories to help build connections and a stronger community.

So please share with us your experiences (blogs and pictures are also welcome), a short description of the organization, the types of activities you participated in and what you feel was the benefit to you and/or your career.

Administration Details:

You can post your stories in Moore Alumni forum (https://www.xing.com/app/network?op=home;tab=1;name=moorealumni) on xing.com (Xing is a free networking platform; think the European version of Linked-In). Alternatively, if you prefer you can email me directly brandi(at)brandigunn.com and I will post/re-post the responses in the Moore Alumni group.

Thank you for your participation!

My Ideal Tool:

I am drowning in information. So many topics, different directions, different connections, I need a tool to connect it all. I need it to be visual, because text is boring and you can never find connections that way, I need it to be easy to use, integrate with tools I am already using (i.e. Word) and be really really cheap, preferably free. Yeah this may be too much to ask.

I want one integrated tool that allows me to “think visually” (i.e. Mindmap) aggregates all of my data into one place, or at least one interface and makes it easy to both add new information and find what is already inside. Basically I want OneNote but bigger/better.

I need to be able to take information from the web, .pdf, office files and be able copy a section or the whole document (including pictures and tables), tag it and search based on those tags. In a perfect world it would also support “ink” from Tablet PC.

Requirements:

1. Aggregator for all the information. Regardless of its original format; pdf, web page, blog post, word document.

   Currently I am using a combination of One Note, Zotero, and I have recently started playing around with Mendeley. Together they get close to what I need, but not everything and not integrated.

2. Organize my thoughts and information.

   I am very visual and so I am a big fan of mind mapping. Unfortunately I lost my Mindjet CD somewhere in my move between China and Germany and I cannot justify the $349 or €349 for a new copy, plus there is additional charge for all the really useful plug-ins, (apparently like many businesses, Mindjet thinks its customers cannot tell the difference between the US dollar and the Euro and do not know how to switch countries on their web site, but that is a rant for a different day).

   I have recently tried a slew of mind mapping software:

• The free FreeMind which unfortunately does not yet have all the functionality I want.
• The Brain which is really a very cool concept and gets close, it is mind mapping but also data storage/organization. I have to give these guys credit, not only do they have a very cool product, but they sent updates during my trial period with links to training and examples to encourage me to learn and continue to use it. It has functionality to add tags and comments inside of file and connect the files.
• I wish Mind Mapper had done the same, they also seem to have a very good product, but I forgot about the trial version and by the time I got back to it my time was up.
• I also tried some online tools such as Map Meister which uses Google Gears to have offline functionality, another must have for me. Unfortunately in my brief trial I could not figure out how to get the central idea any color but the default blue and I could not add colored boundaries to sup topics, I am visual I need colors.

1. A way to find what I need when I need it.

   Most of my personal “library” consists of .pdf files (hundreds of them), with and without restrictions on permissions. For most files I can highlight and take notes by inserting comments, but this is not integrated and not on protected files. It also means it is impossible to search for tags or keywords in my comments unless that document is open which makes it pretty much useless. Option 2 is to cut-n-paste into OneNote but I lose the formatting, particularly tables and again this only works for non-protected files.

One Note

Why I like Microsoft OneNote (2007)

OneNote the Good:

• The most useful tool is the tags. I can select a single section of a file and have multiple tags for different sections overlapping each other. In practice this means that as I read a case study or press release I can categorize different sections of the text as “Competitor — XXX”, “Market Potential”, “Opportunity”, “To Research” and with a single click see all tags or just one category. This has made organizing and finding information much easier. Being able to have multiple tags for sections within a document (as opposed to a tag for the entire document) is now critical for me.
• When I cut and paste information into OneNote it includes a link “Pasted From” as to where I got it from, a life saver for when I forget to include a separate references list.
• I like the different folders/notebook organization; it is intuitive and therefore easy to use.

Needs Improvement:

• The “Pasted From” only works on web pages or Microsoft documents, so if I past something from a .pdf I am out of luck.
• Including a timestamp in the “Pasted From” line would be great, I keep a lot of data in OneNote that I am continually updating, knowing (and then being able to search) on when any particular section was added speed things up considerably.
• Pdf integration, Onenote allows you to “print” a file into your notebook, but unfortunately it pastes .pdf as pictures, which means not tags within the text, many of the case studies I work with are over 100 pages, pasting as a picture is simply not feasible.

Someone please build a combined OneNote/Zotero/mindmap solution that can handle pdf files!! Pretty please with sugar on top!

In the mean time the search for a better tool continues…

Most of the time I feel like my life consists of juggling 10+ balls in the air and hoping not to drop any of them, which leads me to wonder what am I spending my time on, is it really on the “right” things?

Over the years I have read a slew of time management books and gone to a few time/goal management classes. Knowing the concepts and tools is not the problem; it is the motivation to follow through that I sometimes lack. When I feel I am in a rut I read new “Getting Things Done” success stories to rekindle that motivation.

This time instead of reading another book I watched Randy Pausch’s lecture on Time Management. While for me there was nothing “new” in the presentation, is was very much a case of what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it.

I tend to feel guilty if I am not working on something “useful” or “productive”, if I am not “making progress” toward something. My most important take away is to no longer feel guilty about the time I spend with friends and family doing nothing productive. While watching the presentation I realized that the goal of doing anything “useful” or “productive” was to have the luxury to be able to spend time with family and friends “doing nothing”. That is the whole point.

I now make my “To Accomplish” lists with a different focus in mind and I must say over the last two weeks I have been pleasantly surprised. I have finished the most important things in half the time I originally allotted. Clearly there is still some tweaking to be done to my new system, but positive results means I have new motivation to continue, which again was the point.

Like many people, I would like to live my life as responsibly/sustainably (environmentally/socially/financially) as possible without actually giving up too much, too much effort or being too inconvenienced. The question is where is that line? I suspect the answer will change depending on the person, circumstances, mood that particular day…

I read a number of blogs on the theme of simpler/cheaper/greener living and as these blogs are in English they tend to be US focused, this has brought to mind some cultural differences.

My life, while fairly ordinary in German terms, would qualify as “Green” if not fanatically so in the US. This is partly due to the fact I am I by nature a bit cheap (I like to call it economically efficient) and the principles of “green” also tend to coincide with the principles of “budget living”. I also remember the mantra taught by my 8th grade science teacher; reduce, reuse, recycle and I make a conscious effort to do this in my daily decisions.

I separate my trash, recycle and compost, which is the norm in Germany. I use both sides of paper whenever possible and make an effort not to print unless needed, this is a particular challenge for me as I concentrate better when reading on paper with a pencil ready for notes.

I don’t own a TV or a microwave, two things I thought I couldn’t live without in the US. I haven’t had a TV for most of the last 4 years, initially because I moved to China and there was simply nothing to watch, through this I realized how much of my life was wasted watching basically nothing. After a while of paying ITunes to keep up on my favorite shows I have finally broken the TV habit and plan to keep it that way. Living without a microwave was a much easier habit to break, though initially unintentional, my furnished apartment didn’t have one and I didn’t feel the need to get one. The only thing I really miss is popcorn.

I don’t own a car, (though my boyfriend does, so I do have access to rides and long trips), my main form of transportation is my bike (2nd hand). With saddle bags I get our weekly grocery shopping home with no problems. Unless the weather is particularly bad we normally ride our bikes for local errands (library, movies, meeting friends at the biergarten), though it was hard at first, my legs are now getting used to being more active.

Most of the time I work from home but on days I need to go into the office it is a 3 km ride to the train station, 15min train ride and 4 km to the office. On days when I need to wear a suit or it is raining, it is 3 buses and about 1.5 hours. Admittedly a pain, but not so much of a pain that I am willing to make car payments, insurance payments not to mention the cost of gas. For the moment the tradeoffs are in favor of the bike, though if you ask me again when winter is here and I am riding through snow I might give you a different answer.

I am a not-quite-recovering shopaholic, I simply love to shop. In the US I was particularly bad (i.e. wasteful), here it is easier not to be. This is due to a couple of factors. First, most stores in Germany don’t accept credit cards and so I no longer carry them. It is amazing how much less you buy when you must actually have the money to pay for it. Secondly, my living space is currently very limited and thirdly, when I buy something I have to get home on the bike, also good motivation to do no more than window shop.

My favorite store right now is the second hand shop run by the local developmentally disabled group. They have the largest selection of used books, house wares, furniture, you name it, I have seen in Germany. So, I can find great (i.e. cheap) deals, not require any additional raw materials and the profits go for a good cause. When I no longer need something, or no longer have room for it I simply donate it back and the whole processes starts over.

Here the streets are filled with bicycles and everyone has 4 containers to separate trash and recycling. More “sustainable” living is here is not special effort, it is simply the normal habit of living. My life as I live it here is something I am not sure would even be possible in the US and what I do and take for granted now are steps/efforts I probably would not have take in my previous life back home.

The subject of mentoring and advice to perspective interns has recently come up so here are a few observations. While they may sound like “no brainers” they are based on actual events.

All pointers can all be summed up in two words, “Act Professionally”, simple right? Apparently not…

1. Don’t put your honesty and ability to be trusted into question before you start (or after for that matter).

   While you may think it is “cool” or “no big deal” explaining to your boss on your first day that you will not pay for a bus/train ticket, you “rode black” all last year and had no problem (i.e. didn’t get caught) puts your honesty and ethics into question will seriously hurt further trust and opportunities.

2. Behave in a professional manner, yes, this applies even in casual work environments.

   Sleeping at/under your desk (unless it is late at night and/or an internet start-up) because you “have nothing to do” simply doesn’t cut it, find something productive to do, if you can’t think of something, ASK!

   Walking in the morning saying “Whatzzzz up!!!” in a loud high pitched voice also does not portray professionalism.

3. Communications Style: Use “I” statements instead of “You” statements.

   Sending your boss a message saying “Your email was totally unclear” will probably not produce your desired result unless that desired result is a defensive and pissed off reader who’s first reaction is that you must be an idiot for not understanding a simple email. Instead try saying, “I don’t understand what you meant in your email” or “I am unclear as to what you mean”. You will get the answer you need to do your job without leaving the impression that you cannot be trusted with outside (vendor, customer) communications unsupervised.

4. Your chosen “stress relief” should not harm/annoy others.

   Do not bring a 6ft. bull whip into the office and practice cracking it between your co/workers’ cubicles (ok, this was a mid-level manager, but it is good advice for interns too)

5. USE SPELL CHECK!

   Yes, even on internal emails. Everyone makes mistakes but if there are errors in every single email it shows you can’t be trusted with basic communications internally and therefore you will not be trusted with anything externally.

6. Leave the attitude at home.

   You may be the smartest person around; you may know more about the industry/situation/finances better than anyone else on earth, but sometimes you will still be overruled. Displaying a “rebellious teenager” attitude in words or tone shows you are not ready for a leadership role and are too high risk to be allowed to sit in on meetings with business associates with whom you might disagree.

7. Do not have a temper tantrum in the office.

   When given a large new project don’t say, “that is impossible by that deadline” and storm out of the room. If you have concerns about deadlines or tasks, it is ok to raise them, however storming out the room (or hanging up on the phone) will make no progress towards addressing your concerns and will harm your long term prospects no matter how many times you apologize, the damage is already done.

8. When contacting potential mentors keep I mind their time is valuable, as is yours presumably. They are not likely to be interested in spending time mentoring someone if that person does not bother to write a decent request :

   Hey Brandi,
   

   I found you through the Berlin Chapter at Netimpact and I´m interessted what are you specially doing, coz as I saw you are already in an managing posiotion and out of the university I´m on my way to find out my field and would like to share with you my thoughts about it.
   

   Regards
   

   XXX
   

I read a lot of blogs, ALOT, I subscribe to over 200 feeds and at least skim the titles everyday. As I don’t own a TV or subscribe to a paper, they are my main form of targeted news. One thing I have growth to hate is headlines for headlines sake, for example “Oxfam Says Biofuels Pushing 30 Million Into Poverty”.

Yes, they there is the disclaimer that they are quoting a study, however, the issue of Biofuels and fuel in general is complex and messy, printing blanket statements like this simply make people think there should be (and is) a single simple solution to the problem. That is not the case.

Upon first reading this article I was to be honest quite upset that an NGO would be so irresponsible as to make such claims without explaining the complexity of the issue involved. So I started looking for this report to see for myself exactly what was said. I was able to find a report Bio-fuelling Poverty from November 2007 which listed some of the recommendations but it did not seem to match the tone of the Reuters article, so I kept looking and found this page http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/issues/global_food_crisis.html

Why is it happening?

Climate change, high oil prices, increased demand from China and India, population growth and the growing pressure for biofuels are just some of the reasons for soaring prices.

But there are other factors playing a part, like underinvestment in agriculture, the dominance of big companies, and the mismanagement of agriculture and food policy.

So how does this = “Oxfam says biofuels pushing 30 million into poverty”???

Oxfam certainly makes strong suggestions against biofules, most of which I do not agree with, they also use what I feel are oversimplified assumptions and some that I feel are outright falsifications, but my reasoning for my opinions is a post for another day.

My main objection is how this has been presented in the news and the reaction of people who are making decisions with only half the picture presented.

“Many New Zealanders will morally object to being forced to use biofuels that are contributing to starvation and causing food riots and poverty,” he said. http://www.odt.co.nz/news/politics/11056/oxfam-report-issues-warning-about-biofuels

There is no simple one size fits all solution for the world’s problems with poverty, food prices, water scarcity or energy issues.

I think a number of biofuels policies are badly designed, they incentivize the wrong aspects. That does not mean all are wrong, or that the entire concept should be put on a shelf. There are many connecting factors and the result of halting biofules will not magically end the rise of food prices or keep people from poverty.

I am sitting on a lovely terrace sipping a Caipirinha watching the sun set at nearly 10:30pm. It is perfect here.

Norway is the land of tunnels and waterfalls. The longest tunnel was 25km, another was 11km, we pasted through probably 25 tunnels in all. It is unbelievable how many and how often, but the mountains are sooo high and so much snow event now in summer that they would be impassable if not for the tunnels.

I spent a lot of time this trip looking at the buildings and surroundings noticing what was made locally form materials at hand and thinking how to apply better efficiency to business. Because of this one thing I have been very aware of this trip is natural systems and natural rhythms. Coming from California it seem almost unnatural that the sun sets at 10:30pm gets dark around midnight, but never really dark and the sun rises again around 4:30am, completely messing up my natural rhythms.

There are waterfalls everywhere in the high country, always running and crashing, there is soooo very much fresh water here it is unbelievable. In fact thought Norway has significant amounts of oil reserves almost ALL of their electrical needs are supplied by hydro power.

Before we came we were warned that is always rains in summer in Norway and that if we were camping we were going to get wet. We were prepared for rain and mosquitoes but really had neither, it was beautiful and warm (21-29C) the entire time. It is unusual for Norway to be this dry, so unusual in fact that in our walk by the coast this evening many of the tress and bushes were wilted and dying, even 2 meters from the water. They simply are not used to going this long without rain. If it continues several more days there will be a dry, brown ugly coast this summer.

Tomorrow morning early we head back to Germany and there are so many interesting things happen at work I am really looking forward to getting back.

We have been lucky enough to spend the last 10 days in Norway, the first 8 camping along the way between Oslo and Bergen and the last 2 visiting friends in Oslo.

We came in on Norwegian airlines and there were a few small bad experiences that put me in a bad frame of mind right from the very beginning. One thing I can say for sure is that they are CHEAP and I don’t mean in a good way. My first clue was when is when we were charged 7.50 each to check a bag, and for another 7 Euro we would have been allowed to choose our seat. After getting on the plane the standard flyer that food was available for purchase, ok, no problem, I am use to that, it is only a 2.5 hour flight. A little later the drink cart came by, when I asked for an orange juice she handed me a tiny little can “that is 15 NOK”. As you cannot take drinks past security and drinks in the airport are nearly as expensive as on the plane it ensured we had nothing to drink until we landed and got out of the airport. Food I can understand, but no drinks is too cheap for my taste. To make matter worse they woke us up 4 times in 2 hours trying to sell things at inflated prices over the loudspeakers. I will certainly try to never fly Norwegian air again.

Thinks were better once we landed. EVERYTHING in Norway is extremely expansive, but we cam prepared for that , we had our tent so that we did not need to pay the 200 Euro a night for a hotel room and our first stop was a grocery store as we could not afford 20Euro per person per meal.

We have lovely warm, sunny weather as we wandered through the mountains driving about 180km per day. It is about 3 weeks before high season so we never had any trouble finding a nice camping place always on the water with beautiful views.