Alastair Dant (Recommended!)
Head of Interactive Development at The Guardian
http://vimeo.com/channels/sameas#21911927

Mark Graham
Geomapping expert
http://vimeo.com/channels/sameas#21886943

Andrew Walkingshaw
Co-founder of Timetric
http://vimeo.com/channels/sameas#21856570

Brock Craft
Research Fellow at the London Knowledge Lab
http://vimeo.com/channels/sameas#21912974

Thomas Down
Creator of the genome browser Dalliance
http://vimeo.com/channels/sameas#21914592

Noah Iliinsky
Co-author of Beautiful Visualisation
http://vimeo.com/channels/sameas#21914387

These make up a smaller proportion of the data than one first might expect, but are still significant [other incidents may involve arrests, IED detection, engagements that didn't result in a KIA].

This is a map of Afghanistan, showing the regions the incidents occured (by colour), the size of the mark denotes the scale of the KIA count, whilst the shape of the mark shows who the attack was on.

Take a look at it ‘full screen’ for more ease of use, hovering over individual points will give you some details, as well as the fact you can filter by how many people were killed in the incident, and filter down to what type of incident.

Some other more detailed analysis was conducted by the Guardian (amongst others), who had pre-release access to the data. Further information on the data can be found on Wikileaks – Afgham War Diary. This visualisation was created using Tableau Desktop, and published to Tableau Public.

I’ve always been interested in ‘Where Twitter Might Go’ – both from their infrastructure, staffing and the future products/services they may be rolling out. Thanks to Twitter opening up a job site, we can get a picture as to what they are planning to do in the future.

The obvious is regarding monetisation, it’s taken a while but there are now ‘official’ rumours that some form of an ‘ad platform’ will be launched at SXSWi next month where Evan Williams, the Twitter CEO will be one of the Keynote speakers.

This is backed up, by the fact they are actively recruiting for product marketing, and software engineers to work on monetisation.

What’s more interesting, to me, is the other jobs on offer. Especially regarding data analysts, and data visualisation. Just recently Twitter mentioned that the twittersphere are tweeting at a rate of 50,000 times a day.

That’s a lot of data being put out there, a lot of opportunity for text semantics, trend analysis, and harvesting the information. Which makes sense for Twitter to be after data analysts etc. Though the fact they are actively moving into the visualisation market is interesting. Below is a visual they made at the time of the Superbowl, tracking both mentions of the Superbowl, and contextual analysis around the brands being mentioned.

To me, the combination of their active recruitment in these two areas is an indicator that they may be releasing in the future, a tool that allows for the contextual and semantic analysis of Your Brand, they are slowly rolling out corporate tools (like being able to say who a Tweet was attributed to without having to use ^NH etc)

Who knows what the future might look like, I’ve got my ideas, and got my own side projects!

It’s been used to produce some pieces of analysis on this blog, and I use it regularly for work. What’s great is that alongside their latest commercial release, is that they unveiled Tableau Public. This is a free version, that allows you to download the software, create your analysis and deploy it to their web servers.

You can then grab the embed code, and display visualisations on your blog; which people can then interact with. This platform takes it one step further than just a static image. It’s on par with IBM ManyEyes, but doesn’t use java and, to me at least, is much easier and intuitive to use.

The product has the same feature set as the commercial version, with the only limitations being a 100,000 row limit and restricted data sources.

So for those who have chastised me for using ‘expensive’ software before, don’t worry – you can have a go with one of the latest challengers on the block, as according to Gartner.

P.S. There is an obvious lack of a Tableau Public embedded chart in this post, that is because it does not support the Apple platform. Damn. Instead, here is one they produced:

SXSW Interactive features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer.

The alternative viewpoint is:

SXSWi is the school skiing trip to Austria: all the cool kids go on it at Easter and then talk incessantly about until the summer holidays.

I’ve got the essentials: pass, flights, hotel sorted. Want to know what sort of things are going on, then take a look at the Schedule to get an idea about the types of keynotes, panels, workshops and parties that will be occurring.

It’s my first time, and no doubt will be quite an experience, I’ll be after any tips and handy advice from the ’seasoned pros’ (or at least people who have been before). Let me know what you wish you would have known first time round etc.

Two (of many) panels that caught my eye include:

Data is Money: How Geeks are Changing Finance
Cooking for Geeks: Science, Hacks, & Good Food

The current thoughts are to take Day 1 ‘easy’, and to ensure that I’ve got ‘backups’ of panels – as undoubtedly I’ll either get time sidetracked, lost etc.

What else should I know about, get prepared for, bring with?