one part truth, two parts mixer

Visually complex

Repost from Run on Toast

Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to see Manuel Lima speak at BBH thanks to Made by Many. Sadly I'd just had a massive lunch and was a bit sleepy (damn pasta). For those who don't know, Manuel Lima is an interaction designer, researcher and founder of [the brilliant] Visual Complexity (description stolen from his website). It was pretty useful though. A couple of nuggets:

I liked the idea that 'data is the currency of online services', a belief that I've held true, and which will make a nice quote for a slide someday. The highlights for me were the idea of finding practical applications for data visualisation, what it might look like in the future and also finding out about the sites Many Eyes and Swivel, which allow you to do fun things with your data.

Lima gave this example of using Flickr data (I think) to geotag where photos were taken in Barcelona and at what time over a certain period. This data was then mapped onto a geographical map of the city showing how traffic moved over a day - the most popular routes, paths taken. This sort of stuff could be invaluable to tourist boards. I also liked the example of creating emotional maps of cities by measuring heartrate (not quite sure how this would be done) - would this be invaluable to marketers.

The most exciting thing that Manuel Lima talked about was the frontiers of data visualisation. I didn't catch the names of the experiments but they involved domes and sounds representing nodes - sounds awesome. If anyone was there and got better notes on this stuff, please let me know - I'd really love to learn more.

More double dips

I've been interested in double dipping for a while now (here and here) and it seems like Alison over at what consumes me is too (good post here about designing for multiple screens). Just catching up with my RSS and came across some more good stuff on her blog, this time stats - yummy.

According to the IMMI, women aged 30-39 are the most likely to be online and infront of the TV at the same time, followed by teenage boys.

Table nicked from what consumes me

Where in the isle?

A rather handy venn diagram outlining the differences between Great Britain, the UK and the British Isles. We do like to make things difficult on our little island(s), don't we?

From here. Thanks to Steve for the tip. How did I live without it?

Mother's pride

There was an interesting article from last week's Observer (here) about how working mothers don't feel guilty about going to work 'and believe their working life has improved since having children'. But most importantly, the article yielded some useful stats:

• More than 90% of full-time working mothers say they are a good role model for their children
• More than 80% of working mothers work to provide their family with income without which they would not survive
• More than 75% felt they worked more efficiently at work than before they had children
• Almost 60% felt their colleagues did not resent them for taking time off for children's events or emergencies
• 70% of working mothers said they had no time for themselves
• Almost 90% said they spent little time alone with their partner

The key to happiness

Apparently it is money that buys us happiness after all. The subscribed theory up until now has been the Easterlin paradox, which says that how much you earn relative to those around you matters more than how much you earn in the grand scheme of things. A Brookings Institution study has challenged that saying that affluence is an important factor in happiness, although it does not guarantee it. It it really telling us anything new? How do you really measure happiness? The findings also go against the work of Richard Layard, who I think is a pretty clever chap.

Read the original New York Times article here.

Double dipping

Ooh, I do like a good statistic or typology (you can take the girl out of trends...)

From blinkx/Harris Interactive survey:

1. Double dippers
"Double-dippers are comprised of adults who enjoy surfing the Internet while watching television. Fully 62% of double-dippers surf the web while watching television for content that is not related to what they’re watching. And 25% of double-dippers go online for information specific to the programming they are currently viewing. Most commonly, double-dippers who surf the web for related content are looking for more information or color about what they’re watching, be it profiles of the actors (51%), products/services that appeared in or were advertised during the program (40%), or related upcoming events (39%)."

My ramblings here.

2. Typers vs. Talkers
"One generational consistency revealed in the survey is the difference between a “talker” and a “typer.” In general, the older the individual, the more likely that person is to discuss TV content with other individuals in person, i.e., with co-workers, friends or family. These are the talkers. The largest segment of individuals that routinely respond to TV content via face-to-face conversations (60%) was the 35-44 age group. Correspondingly, individuals aged 16-24 are most likely to interact with others online (17%) or read coverage or reviews of TV content online (24%)."

3. Random stat
"When it comes to watching video or television content online, twice as many online adults typically watch full-length television shows, movies, or sporting events, as compared to user-generated content (25% vs. 13%, respectively)."

Full blinkx press release here.