A couple of books on Displaying Information

I was introduced to the techniques of displaying information at my first job creating real-time process control software and man-machine interfaces. At that time, there were very few easily accessible resources, to make my job easier and to provide me with good rules on how to present lots of rapidly changing data.

At some point I came across a map that described Napoleon's March in the Russian Campaign of 1812. This map was drawn by a Charles Joseph Minard and re-published by Edward Tufte.

This lead me to Edward Tufte's books "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" and then on to "Envisioning Information".  He has also published "The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint" that rants against the use of slideware (Powerpoint) for presenting data, which has received both acclaim and criticism. More information on Tufte and his works can be found at Edward Tufte's website.

Big Data and Visualization

I have been interested in data visualization and data analysis for a long time now. This is a bundle of blogs I follow that deal with Data Visualization & Big Data.  Take a peek and subscribe to the ones you like.

GHVF June 6, 2012

Keynote Speaker

The keynote speaker, Garth Jestley from Middlefield Capital Corporation, provide a set of lessons learned over his fourty year tenure of investing.   Most people have learned some or all of these, but it's always good to remember them.

1. Humility trumps Hubris - Arrogance blinds people
2. Avoid Productitus - about 25% of the success is attributed to the product
3. If you don't understand the business don't invest
4. The Entrepreneur must be excited about their idea
5. Management is important
6. Integrity - If there is one lie, there will be more - which reminds me of the cockroach theorem: where there is one, there are many
7. Passion - The team must be passionate about their goals, not just about making money
8. Entrepreneurs by definition are optimists, but they need to be realistic too

Three featured companies presented their business plans:

StrategyFit

A Saas (Software as a Service) based tool for managing the Strategy Realization process

Poctis

A better way to connect the dots between business and their surrounding communities with social media

Skura

A Mobile Sales Tool that works across all PCs, MACS, iPads and Android Tablets to deliver sales content seamlessly