How to create a visualization Over the last few years I’ve created a few popular visualizations, a lot of duds, and I’ve learned a few lessons along the way. For my latest analysis of where Facebook users go on vacation, I decided to document the steps I follow to build my visualizations . It’s a very rough guide, these are just stages I’ve learned to follow by trial and error, but following these guidelines is a good way to start if you’re looking to create your first visualization. Play with your data I was lucky enough to spend a few hours with Andreas Weigend recently, head of the Stanford Social Data lab. In my case, we have a Cassandra cluster with information on more than 350 million photos shared on Facebook. Click to enlarge. I was chatting with my colleague Chris Raynor about this, and he asked me if we could tell where all the visitors to those places were coming from. When I was learning engineering, one of my favorite case studies was an investigation into an air-traffic control system. Pick a question
The programme and its benefits - Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs The European exchange programme for Entrepreneurs Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs helps provide aspiring European entrepreneurs with the skills necessary to start and/or successfully run a small business in Europe. New entrepreneurs gather and exchange knowledge and business ideas with an experienced entrepreneur, with whom they stay and collaborate for a period of 1 to 6 months. The stay is partly financed by the European Commission. Benefits As a new entrepreneur, you will benefit from on-the-job training in a small or medium-sized enterprise elsewhere in the Participating Countries. As a host entrepreneur, you can benefit from fresh ideas from a motivated new entrepreneur on your business. It is really a win-win collaboration whereby both of you can also discover new European markets or business partners, different ways of doing business. Please read the programme guide for more information on conditions of participation.
8 Tips on How to Anticipate Customer Needs Edit Article Edited by bbyrd009, Elizabeth Douglas, Whoze, Krystle and 16 others Anticipating a customer's needs is an important part of most retail and wholesale businesses, especially in a more challenging retail environment so they choose to come back. Anticipating needs also provides opportunities for personal and professional growth. A business that takes the extra step of anticipating and providing for an obvious corollary need can generate loyal, repeat customers; and even a humble clerk who is alert to the needs of the customer standing in front of them is sure to advance. While much of this may involve remembering or noting the desires of the individual customer, it also largely means putting yourself in a customer's place, which takes a little practice. Ad Steps 1Do your best to put yourself into that individual customer's place in the transaction (fulfill a need). 8Expect a certain amount of idle trade due solely to customers practice of affirmation. Tips Warnings
Slide Design for Developers So I gave this talk called How GitHub Uses GitHub to Build GitHub. Someone submitted my slides to Hacker News, where it stayed at #1 for most of the day. This was pretty strange to me at first. My slides are not designed for people who didn't see the talk in person. They're designed to support my words, not some online audience. What's more, many commented that they found the design of the slides to be noteworthy. Working on your slide design pays off for the audience in front of you and for the audience online reading your slides later. Colors Color is the very first thing people will notice. Head to a color site like Colour Lovers and find a palette you like. Size Make your text huge. Most of my text in my entire deck is at least 90pt. For the curious, I use Yanone Kaffeesatz as the typeface for both my slide deck and the headings on my blog. One of my favorite tweets from my New Orleans talk said "Great slide design- I was way in the back and could read every single word!" Repetition
Why Some Startups Succeed And Others Fail: 10 Fascinating Harvard Findings How to Sell a Product: 15 steps Featured Article Categories: Featured Articles | Sales In other languages: Italiano: Vendere un Prodotto, Español: vender un producto, Deutsch: Ein Produkt verkaufen, Português: Vender um Produto, Français: vendre un produit, Русский: продать товар, 中文: 销售产品, Bahasa Indonesia: Menjual Sebuah Produk, Nederlands: Een product verkopen, Čeština: Jak prodat produkt, العربية: بيع منتج Quick Practical, Tactical Tips for Presentations In the past I’ve given some tips for handling meetings effectively, covering topics like: - How not to let your meeting go down a rat hole; - Dealing with the elephant in the room; - Dealing with skeletons in your closet; - How to make meetings discussions, not “pitches” - A tale of two pitches (I eventually invested in the first company that pitched) Today’s post is a subtle one about positioning yourself in a presentation. This might be a VC meeting but also might just be a sales or biz dev meeting. It’s any meeting where you are in a small room and are being called on to present on some form of overhead slides 1. If you look at Diagram A above you’ll see that the presenters are sitting at the opposite end of the table from where the screen is. If you look at Diagram B you’ll see that the people you’re presenting to can look you in the eyes and glance up at the screen. 2. I’ve lately been attending meetings with our shareholders (called LPs or limited partners). 3. 4. 5. 6.
5 Steps To Bootstrapping Your PR Efforts Public relations is just one of those things. It's something that every company knows they should do, but only see two ways of making it happen -- hire an expensive PR firm or cross their fingers and hope for the best. The latter is, well, not really much of a PR strategy. There is a third option, however. Bootstrapping. I've written in the past about how to bootstrap your PR efforts, but never really dug into the nitty gritty. Here it is, Moz family. Step 1 - The Mirror Check The first step is what I like to call the mirror check, something that gets glossed over far too often. Save your time, and more importantly, everyone else's. Step 2 - Building Your Publication List Once you've got a solid story, it's time to start building your list of publications. It's important to note that PR isn't a numbers game, as many think. Step 3 - Finding the Right Contact This is so important that it deserves its own step. The first three fields are fairly self explanatory, then we get into the meat of it.
The Presentation Mistake You Don't Know You're Making - Heidi Grant Halvorson by Heidi Grant Halvorson | 8:00 AM October 23, 2012 During an interview, your potential new boss asks you to briefly describe your qualifications. At this moment, you have a single objective: be impressive. So you begin to rattle off your list of accomplishments: your degrees from Harvard and Yale, your prestigious internships, your intimate knowledge of essential software and statistical analysis. “Oh,” you add. Or is it? Actually, it isn’t. The problem, in a nutshell, is this: We assume when we present someone with a list of our accomplishments (or with a bundle of services or products), that they will see what we’re offering additively. Only more is not in fact better to the interviewer (or the client or buyer), because this is not how other people see what we’re offering. To them, this is a (10+ 10+ 10+ 2)/4 package, or an “8″ in impressiveness. More is actually not better, if what you are adding is of lesser quality than the rest of your offerings.