Geography of Job Loss

Over the last few days I’ve caught a number of headlines for research on the recession and the impact on employment throughout the country. The research has rekindled an interest I had many years ago at SGI on data visualization. Economic data, web data, crash simulation data; whatever quantifiative measures you have the big research and marketing challenge has always been how do you quickly and easily identify trends and communicate ideas backed by overwhelming numbers. During my tenure at SGI there were a number of initiatives looking at how to weave the data visualization challenge into market opportunity. The engine behind what became e.Piphany, among other technologies, came from SGI.

Over the last ten years the tools, access and programming models have changed so radically that solving this problem has become so much easier. Adobe’s Flash animation technology alone has dramatically improved and simplified anyone’s ability to create animations and graphics that have changed the way we think of data based research and trending analysis. In the last few days I’ve run across the following two unemployment statistics analyses visualized:
visualization of data

http://tipstrategies.com/archive/geography-of-jobs/

and

http://www.slate.com/id/2216238

Same data, different metrics, very cool and understandable animations!

Now compare those charts mapping the data over time to the following charts from the Brookings Institute:

http://www.brookings.edu/metro/MetroMonitor.aspx

Animation and time lapse comparisons are so much more compelling and communicative than point in time analysis. Now with that said I’m reminded that strategic marketing and executive level folks have always been challenged with how to both identify and then communicate trends. My old friend Kevin Strohmeyer, product marketing extraordinaire, long had a picture / graphic in his office illustrating the Napoleonic campaign into Russia. He and I talked about it at length. It represented one of the finest graphic illustrations of data I’ve certainly ever seen:


Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Minard.png

Now if it were only that easy to do with all the data!