The visual organization: data visualization, big data, and the quest for better decisions

"The era of Big Data as arrived, and most organizations are woefully unprepared. Slowly, many are discovering that stalwarts like Excel spreadsheets, KPIs, standard reports, and even traditional business intelligence tools aren't sufficient. These old standbys can't begin to handle today's increasing streams, volumes, and types of data. Amidst all of the chaos, though, a new type of organization is emerging. In The Visual Organization, award-winning author and technology expert Phil Simon looks at how an increasingly number of organizations are embracing new dataviz tools and, more important, a new mind-set based upon data discovery and exploration. Simon adroitly shows how Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other tech heavyweights use powerful data visualization tools to garner fascinating insights into their businesses. But make no mistake: these companies are hardly alone. Organizations of all types, industries, sizes are representing their data in new and amazing ways. As a result, they are asking better questions and making better business decisions. Rife with real-world examples and case studies, The Visual Organization is a full-color tour-de-force"--

The Visual Organization; Contents; List of Figures and Tables; Preface: A Tale of Two IPOs; Acknowledgments; How to Help This Book; Part One Book Overview and Background; Introduction; Adventures in Twitter Data Discovery; Contemporary Dataviz 101; Primary Objective; Benefits; More Important Than Ever; Revenge of the Laggards: The Current State of Dataviz; Book Overview; Defining the Visual Organization; Central Thesis of This Book; Cui Bono?; Methodology: Story Matters Here; The Quest for Knowledge and Case Studies; Differentiation: A Note on Other Dataviz Texts; Plan of Attack; Next; Notes.

Chapter 1 The Ascent of the Visual OrganizationThe Rise of Big Data; Open Data; The Burgeoning Data Ecosystem; The New Web: Visual, Semantic, and API-Driven; The Arrival of the Visual Web; Linked Data and a More Semantic Web; The Relative Ease of Accessing Data; Greater Efficiency via Clouds and Data Centers; Better Data Tools; Greater Organizational Transparency; The Copycat Economy: Monkey See, Monkey Do; Data Journalism and the Nate Silver Effect; Digital Man; The Arrival of the Visual Citizen; Mobility; The Visual Employee: A More Tech- and Data-Savvy Workforce.

Navigating Our Data-Driv…