The World Is Flat

We didn't win the contest – Adam McCann did with his fantastic visualization in which he incorporates great design with a simple political model piloted by the user who can run interesting scenarios.

I appreciate the difficulty in creating that visualization – he needed to combine smart design, clever technical execution, statistical models, and a simple user interface to make it work.  He did not do it all in Tableau – like our submission, he needed multiple tools to make it happen.

This integration reminds me of Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat.  In it, he describes that a single tool expert in the 1950’s – think of a slide rule engineer – had a fantastic career; whereas today, there’s global competition for single tool operations.  Today’s fantastic careers feature integration of multiple tools, disciplines, and approaches.

As a father of young kids, I encourage integration by exposing them to an eclectic collection of life activities – rich in arts, music, sports, and academic endeavors.  As a BI professional, I search for the right balancing point between reporting, analytics, visualization, and presentation.  And this optimal balance point constantly evolves based upon each user’s unique thinking, their goals, and the decision they want to make right now.

It is a tough balance to make and Adam did a great job getting it right.

Carl