Imagination at work

Redefining Global Cities The world’s largest metropolitan areas concentrate the drivers of global prosperity, but there isn’t one way to be a global city—this report defines seven types of global cities, providing a valuable lens through which to understand an evolving global economy. As societies and economies around the world have urbanized, they have upended the classic notion of a global city. No longer is the global economy driven by a select few major financial centers like New York, London, and Tokyo. Today, members of a vast and complex network of cities participate in international flows of goods, services, people, capital, and ideas, and thus make distinctive contributions to global growth and opportunity. And as the global economy continues to suffer from what the IMF terms “too slow growth for too long,” efforts to understand and enhance cities’ contributions to growth and prosperity become even more important.

8 tools for visualizing data with open source Data visualization is the mechanism of taking tabular or spatial data and conveying it in a human-friendly and visual way. There are several open source tools that can help you create useful, informative graphs. In this post we will take a look at eight open source, data visualization tools. Datawrapper Playing with Data - Premier League Player Birthplaces 1.265 Billion Pounds. That’s the eye watering amount Premier League clubs were willing to spend improving their teams this summer. An insane amount of money when you consider the reality of the job role, but a sound investment in terms of business, advertising and selling shirts. Yet as the transfer window comes to a close and we say hello to record breaking transfer Paul Pogba and goodbye to England’s golden child Joe Hart, the questions have to be asked: what does all this money mean for the make up of our clubs and what does it mean for the opportunities of English players? So as a digital agency, who is certainly no stranger to data, we wanted to find out: where do our Premier League players come from, and how many are English?

Elements of Editorial Style for the Web Last week, while sitting at Starbucks, I overheard a guy tell his friend, "Making websites is so easy these days. You just buy a template and move text around." I joked with Georgy about asking the guy to do a Meet Content guest post on "Cut-and-Paste Content Strategy." Although most people don’t describe the process as being that easy, many do have an oversimplified understanding of what is involved in creating effective web content. The web has certainly made it easier to publish content, but the process of content creation is just as challenging as it has always been — perhaps even more so.

Population Lines Print I recently produced a map entitled “Population Lines”, which shows population density by latitude. The aim was to achieve a simple and fresh perspective on these well-known data. I have labelled a few key cities for orientation purposes but I’ve left off most of the conventional cartographical adornments. I am really pleased with the end result not least because it resembles Joy Division’s iconic Unknown Pleasures album cover, which in itself is a great example of data visualisation as art. Web Writing Guidelines for Content Contributors As web professionals, we owe a lot to our content contributors. Your college website has tons of content, and no one person can do it all. The more you enable content contributors to write for your site (supported, of course, by a thorough editorial process), the closer you will be to your shared goal of creating great content.

IT GRC Software Solutions - MetricStream In addition to regulatory risk and compliance challenges, IT organizations have to establish the necessary governance frameworks to manage access and identity management threats and segregation of duties. Lately, clean green initiatives in data centers have also emerged as requirement for IT governance and compliance processes. To manage these various demands successfully, the top priority for CIOs and IT executives today is to implement an integrated and enterprise-wide IT GRC program.

A Bubble Chart Showing Corporate Revenue and Profit 3 min read I remember coming across an image on reddit a month ago. It was 50 companies made into boxes and split up into different industries like Finance, Pharmaceuticals, and Retail. Map of scientific collaboration (Redux!) Several years ago, I created a map of scientific collaborations. The attention this map obtained surpassed my wildest expectations; it got published in the scientific and popular press all around the world! I had mainly forgotten about it until I received an email that rekindled my interest in this visualization and I thought it was high time to revisit this visualization. Editorial Guidelines Template - KristeenBullwinkle.com This template is meant to guide you in developing your own set of editorial guidelines. Having these in place will make life easier for all your content producers and editors. It might even make things easier for the people who post your content. Having guidelines in place will mean you don’t have to re-consider an issue over and over. And if you want to break a rule, you’ll have the thrill of knowing that’s what you’re doing. Editorial staff

Free mapping data will elevate flood risk knowledge For the past 17 years we have been capturing LIDAR (Light Detection & Ranging) data in England. LIDAR uses a laser to scan and map the landscape from above and is widely considered to be the best method for collecting very dense and accurate elevation data across the landscape. We use LIDAR to help the work of the Environment Agency in many ways, including creating flood models, assessing coastal change and analysing how land is used. We now have an extensive archive of aerial LIDAR data covering nearly three quarters (72%) of England – the data mainly covers flood plains, coastal zones and urban areas. As technology has improved and costs have fallen, LIDAR data is now being used by just about everybody who works with maps. From local planners to archaeologists, farmers to ecologists, LIDAR data can inform their work.

Transforming Data into Visualization Data visualization explains a story to the user; a story that if told well should help the viewer discern information and relationships between the data. Data visualization, for a designer, is the process of taking a complex structure and breaking it down in a way that the reader can easily comprehend. It is a powerful tool used to translate complex data into accessible insights.