Category: Communication

Visual data – a social graph

Another quick look at visual data today. I hosted a very interesting evening discussion around service in a social world earlier this week. I’ll write in more detail about what was spoken and sung about later, but for now I just want to share some emerging visual data I’m playing with.

social graph
social graph

The bubbles show a variety of social tools and the higher the bubble has risen, the more in use the tool is among the community. We looked at usage as an introduction to the extent to which social tools are (and are not) shifting the relationships between employees, employers, and customers. I want to have another play with this and try altering the size of the bubble to reflect usage. I think I can create an equally informative and more visually appealing image this way. Watch this space.

There weren’t many surprises in the data – except perhaps the low usage of RSS readers? I would have expected more people to take their news this way. What do you think? Does the idea work or not? Is there anything in there that prompts a question from you?

PS – here is the raw material, hand drawn style, which I used to kick off the conversation:

raw material 1
hand drawn conversation starter

Playing With Time

One day last week I spotted someone dragging a huge sheet of brown paper around with them. Being curious I followed this guy and started talking with him. Turns out that Ed, for that is the name of the brown paper guy, is helping people to play with time. A bit like Doctor Who, but with fewer Daleks (although I’m sure I’ve spotted the odd alien lurking…) and much more focus on practical application. So what is Ed up to?

playing with time
playing with time

Ed is helping people to sequence and prioritise stuff in a participative way. So he fixes this great long piece of brown paper on the wall, and teams use it as a timeline to stick up notes about what they want and need to do, with whom and by when. Once every one has flung their stuff at the wall, so to speak, the team then thinks about the resourcing of the work and the timing of the work. Then they play with all the stickies and try to reach agreement about what to do, when to do it and how to do it.

What emerges is a useful plan which sets things out for the next few months. Importantly the playing and discussion creates a sense of collective ownership. That’s not to say that everyone owns everything – all the stickies are the responsibility of individual people. And because the timeline has been played with by everyone and the tensions which originally appear are discussed by everyone, there is a sense of community about the outcome. I was going to say a sense of “we’re all in this together” but HM Government has shattered the delightful High School Musical association I previously had with this phrase and forever made it a no go zone.

I’d not seen this method before and I quite like what Ed has helped to make happen here. It’s certainly a whole lot more fun that staring at a spreadsheet! Have you got any examples of enjoyable and effective planning you’d like to share?

Dalek image c/o Jim’s Dalek Site

Illustrating Information

I’ve been experimenting with different ways of displaying survey results. I’m a bit bored of bar charts and graphs. The picture above depicts what people felt employee communication is useful for and clockwise from the left we see: feedback, progress and milestones, executive decisions, and connecting people better.

In this next example we see how people responded to the use of different communication channels. Smileys are good, the top three are wearing sunglasses. Sad faces are not so good, rain clouds indicate the lowest scores.

What do you think about these current methods of employee communication
What do you think about these current methods of employee communication

And this third example is a work in progress based on what new channels of communication interest people. Above the main picture I’m working on here you can see my draft sketch.

New communication channels a work in progress
New communication channels a work in progress

So what do you think? Does this method work for you? Have you seen other examples you can share?