Randy Krum's Blog, page 11

Sales vs. Marketing

The marketing team for Salesforce Pardot has been doing a great job of playing off the Game of Thrones theme with a number of different content pieces. Fight for the Throne: Sales vs. Marketing is a fun, engaging infographic that plays to fans of the HBO series now that the series os over.

Let’s face it: you don’t need to be watching HBO’s acclaimed series Game of Thrones to see a rivalry like the Starks and Lannisters. A similar struggle for power and recognition is happening in the modern office everyday — between sales and marketing.

With different goals, motivations, and tools, aligning your company’s sales and marketing departments can be a daily challenge. With each team staking their claim to different areas of the business process, it can be hard to find any common ground with which to bring them together. However, when sales and marketing work together to generate leads, nurture relationships, and close deals, a company can thrive. There’s a lot at stake in this struggle!

To help you identify the pain points, mindsets, and opportunities for peace between these two departments, we have put together the fun and informative infographic below.

Sometimes the messages you want to convey in an infographic aren’t based on numeric data, but concepts and business processes. This design does a good job of identifying different corporate departments as rival houses with competing interests.

I also like that the ideas presented here have a long Online Lifespan. This infographic is actually an update to an earlier one they released in 2013: Sales vs. Marketing: The Original Game of Thrones. The rivalry between Sales and Marketing isn’t new in corporate culture, and won’t be going away anytime soon.

Found on the American Marketing Association blog

Visualizing Apple Product Release Patterns (2019 Update)

After Apple’s WWDC (Worldwide Developer’s Conference) Keynote presentation in June 2019, I updated my series of infographics, Visualizing Apple Product Release Patterns to catch up on all of the latest releases in 2019. You can see them all on the InfoNewt site, and that’s where I continue to maintain them and post updates as Apple releases new products and updates.

This year I further broke apart all of the individual product lines so you can see their separate release patterns, or lack of any discernible pattern. Some product lines, like the iPhone Release Pattern (ABOVE), have clearly defined release patterns that can be used to predict future product announcement and releases. In this smaller graphic (BELOW), I only show the iPhone release dates in September every year since 2012 to predict the 2019 iPhone announcement and release dates based on their history:

Apple iPad

The Apple iPad Release Pattern doesn’t follow the same timing as the iPhone. The iPad has its own lifecycle and separate release events. It hasn’t been included in the major September iPhone events for the last few years, and has been consistently receiving updates in March for the last four years.

MacBook Pro

Other product lines, like the MacBook Pro Release Pattern, show no obvious pattern. Apple doesn’t release new MacBook Pro updates on a regular schedule. Instead, it’s based on the release of new processors from Intel and the timing of when other new technology is available, like the new keyboard designs and the Touch Bar.

Apple Watch

The Apple Watch follows the iPhone pattern of September announcements:

Apple TV

Apple TV updates have been fairly scattered throughout the year, but the last two have been in September with the iPhone announcements:

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air Release Pattern seems to be one of opportunity. A combination of when updates are ready and included in one of Apple’s other larger events throughout the year.

Apple iMac

The iMac Release Pattern shows a two-year gap between the last couple of updates

Apple Mac Pro

The Apple Mac Pro Release Pattern shows the huge, multi-year gaps between updates. The last three Mac Pro announcements have all happened during WWDC Keynote presentations.

Apple Mac Mini

The Apple Mac Mini Release Pattern also shows multi-year gaps between updates.

Apple Total Combined Release Patterns

It looks fairly chaotic in total, but the Apple Combined Released Patterns shows all of the product lines together in one timeline. Although the individual patterns are hard to identify, in aggregate you can see that Apple generally avoids any product launches during Jan-Feb and Nov-Dec.

I designed the original Apple Release Patterns in 2013, and have continued to update them ever since as Apple releases new products and updates. I like this visual layout of each calendar year as a column with the days of each month correctly organized so you can discern the days of the week.

The Periodic Table of the Elements in Danger

The Periodic Table of the Elements in Danger was designed by Federica Fragapane for the BBC Science Focus.

The piece is a visual exploration of the periodic table and the under threat elements.

The substances depicted have been used to make everything from rocket fuel to raincoats, but our over-reliance on some – especially those used in smartphones – is starting to put a strain on resources. (BBC Science Focus).

For each element the following data have been visualized: total abundance on Earth, scarcity, price per kg, state at room temperature and part of the smartphone the element is used in.

This was originally designed for print publication in the BBC Science Focus, that’s why the graphic image doesn’t have it own title, sources, and the legend is a separate graphic. Federica posted a number of details on her Behance page, and I wish she had put the pieces altogether into one comprehensive infographic meant for online sharing on her own portfolio.

The 2019 Summer Reading List

This year I’ve decided that I have a Summer Reading List, and I invite you to join me. I have a library of over 100 books on data visualization, infographics and visual communication but I don’t always take the time to carefully read and understand them. I often have books that are sent to me or I’ve purchased, and they pile up. I start off with the good intentions of reading them, but the pile continues to get bigger.

I fully appreciate how much work goes into writing these books. I wrote the Cool Infographics book, and I was the Technical Editor for Building Responsive Data Visualization for the Web, by Bill Hinderman. Developing valuable content, crafting clearly understandable explanations, finding or designing good examples, editing for clarity and accuracy, designing a functional, useable book layout and finally all of the printing, publishing, marketing and compatible web content.

I know there are some incredible insights in these books. Things these authors needed to get out of their system and clearly explain within the pages. I want to learn from them!

I’ve chosen one book per month for June - September, and for each book I want to accomplish the following things:

A book GIVEAWAY of the selected book the first week of each month

At the end of the month, I will post my thoughts and I would like to hear your thoughts and questions from the book in the comments

I will try to get an interview with each author, and ask them some questions submitted from you. (I know Hans Rosling has passed away, but I may be able to get in touch with one of his children that are continuing to run his organization.)

June: Info We Trust by RJ Andrews

How to Inspire the World with Data

How do we create new ways of looking at the world? Join award-winning data storyteller RJ Andrews as he pushes beyond the usual how-to, and takes you on an adventure into the rich art of informing. Creating Info We Trust is a craft that puts the world into forms that are strong and true. 

July: Data At Work by Jorge Camões

Best practices for creating effective charts and information graphics in Microsoft Excel

Information visualization is a language. Like any language, it can be used for multiple purposes. A poem, a novel, and an essay all share the same language, but each one has its own set of rules. The same is true with information visualization: a product manager, statistician, and graphic designer each approach visualization from different perspectives.

August: Factfulness by Hans Rosilng

Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

When asked simple questions about global trends―what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school―we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.

Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases.

September: Good Charts by Scott Berinato

The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations

A good visualization can communicate the nature and potential impact of information and ideas more powerfully than any other form of communication. In Good Charts, dataviz maven Scott Berinato provides an essential guide to how visualization works and how to use this new language to impress and persuade.

BOOK GIVEAWAY!

This is short notice for June, but I am giving away a copy of Info We Trust on June 10th! You can enter for a chance to win a free copy of the book here: coolinfographics.com/giveaway

Enter by Midnight on June 9th, and I will draw a random winner on Monday, June 10th!

ENTER the June 10th Giveaway for "Info we trust"

Visualizing how Fans Rated the Last Season of Game of Thrones

Fans have not reacted well to the final season of Game of Thrones, and The New York Times has visualized the fans disappointment by charting the average user ratings on IMDb for every episode of the eight-year run. You can see above How Fans Rated the Last Episode of Game of Thrones as the worst episode of the entire series.

The data is questionable, since the ratings are mostly upset fans taking to IMDB to share their dislike. Fans never like to see their favorite shows come to an end, but the NY Times also reached into the data for other long running TV series to see how their final seasons fared.

Here are a few other popular shows they found that also dropped significantly in their final seasons:

However, they were also able to find other popular shows with fan ratings at their highest during the final season or even the series finale:

These well-designed line charts do a great job of quickly showing the reader the over all trend, and any outliers (high or low).

My only hesitation with the choices they made when designing these charts is the y-axis. I appreciate that they kept the scale consistent throughout all of the charts in the article, but the non-zero baseline starting at 4.5 is an odd choice. Non-zero baselines are generally a poor design practice, and can mislead viewers that aren’t paying close attention. It looks like using a non-zero baseline was chosen to maximize the visible differences between the ratings, but on a 0-10 scale, it wouldn’t have been much different with a true zero-baseline.

Also, the decision specifically for 4.5 appears to be driven by the show Dexter, which has the lowest rated episode at 4.7. The choice of 4.5 as the baseline allows all of the data to be viewable within the scale.

Visualizing 40 Years of Music Industry Sales

Visualizing 40 Years of Music Industry Sales from Visual Capitalist is a great data visualization design that clearly shows the evolution of music sales. Compact discs clearly set a unmatched precedent.

The record industry has seen a lot of change over the years.

8-tracks took a short-lived run at the dominance of vinyl, cassettes faded away as compact discs took the world by storm, and through it all, the music industry saw its revenue continue to climb. That is, until it was digitally disrupted.

Looking back at four decades of U.S. music industry  sales data  is a fascinating exercise as it charts not only the rise and fall the record company profits, but seismic shifts in technology and consumer behavior as well.

I also like this even clearer view that only distinguishes between Physical vs. Digital:

These designs hit many of the best practices:

Clean chart design.

A few important highlights as callouts.

Minimal text.

The data is labeled in the chart which eliminates the need for a separate chart legend.

All the Companies Owned by Disney

After the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, you can see all of the international holdings of the Disney Company in this massive infographic, The Companies Disney Owns, from TitleMax.

Who owns ESPN? Who owns ABC? Does Disney own Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar? The answer is yes, and more — a lot more. We’ve made a map of the companies owned by Disney along with the wide swath of departments and Walt Disney Company subsidiaries. Massive corporations may be too big to grasp sometimes, but this huge list of assets of the Walt Disney Corporation can help media consumers untangle the great network of the mouse.

This is a large, complicated design, and I think it’s worth some discussion.

I actually like their use of the Mickey shape, with Marvel and Fox as the smaller ears.

I get that complicated is part of the story here, but there needs to be a better hierarchy of parents to subsidiaries. Better use a a font size hierarchy and the line weight and size of the circles isn’t clear enough. People have a hard time visually comparing circle sizes.

Another problem with changing the circle sizes is that readers perceive that to have meaning, like the size of these companies, which isn’t true in this case.

Organization inside the Mickey shape needs some help. These are fairly random shapes and direction of company groupings.

Yellow on white is never a good idea.

Use more company logos. Some of them are here, like ESPN and Hulu, but many more of these companies have logos that would have been appropriate to use.

What are all the company circles on the outside of the Mickey shape? Some explanation is needed.

Choose rounded or square shapes and stick with it. Don’t go all circles and rounded rectangles, and then put those in sharp cornered squares. Also, be consistent with the corner rounding. Don’t let the software change the corner radius for each different shape.

The large image size infographic needs to be even higher resolution. At the highest resolution, the smallest text is still pixelated and unreadable.

My biggest question comes down to why is TitleMax doing this infographic in the first place? I don’t understand how this helps the SEO for TitleMax’s website, marketing or their brand equity. This topic just doesn’t have anything to do with their business.

I also say this about a lot of infographics: you need to include the URL of the original infographic landing page in the infographic itself. People are good about sharing the image, but not including the link, so you need to include the URL so readers can find the original on the TitleMax website.

Can I Claim my Lunch on the Go?

Deciding whether or not to claim your food as an business expense on your taxes can be challenging to figure out. Can I Claim for my Lunch on the Go? infographic from Free Agent can answer some of the tricky questions. NOTE: This is a company based in Scotland, so they are talking specifically about tax laws in the UK!

Free Agent has a handful of helpful infographics that are designed really well. They’re short and very focused. Each one handles just one specific topic which makes them easier to read and understand.

Thanks to Helen for sending in the link!

5,000 Year Timeline of Medical Technology

The MedTech Timeline: 5,000 Years of Advances in Healthcare Innovation & Technology infographic from Glow New Media is an impressive collection of our spurious advances in human medical knowledge and technology.

Healthcare has come a long way in 5000 years! We were curious to take a look at the sequence and timing of some of the major advances in medicine which have been made over the history of medicine and clinical innovation. We had some surprises and we're particularly excited to see the acceleration of the pace of innovations. Take a look - we hope you enjoy!

They cheated a little to get the 5,000 years claim. This is mostly a timeline of our medical technology from only the last 450 years.

It’s confusing that they branded the infographic SafeTeam Guardian, which is owned by Glow, and then published it on the Glow website. The footer is missing the URL of the infographic landing page so readers can find the original. If they go to the SafeTeam site, there’s no sign of the infographic anywhere! They wouldn’t have any reason to look on the Glow website.

I appreciate the thorough source citations, but those might have been better listed in the descriptive text of the landing page instead of the infographic itself.

Thanks to Matt for sending in the linK!

How the Tech Giants Make Their Billions

The infographic How the Tech Giants Make Their Billions from VisualCapitalist breaks down how the Big Five major tech companies make their money.

Together, the Big Five tech giants combined for just over $800 billion of revenue in 2018, which would be among the world’s 20 largest countries in terms of GDP. More precisely, they would just edge out Saudi Arabia ($684 billion GDP) in terms of size.

Meanwhile, they generated a total of $139 billion of net income for their shareholders, good for a 17.3% profit margin.

Let’s dig deeper, and see the differences in how these companies generate their revenue.

You are the Customer: In the broadest sense, three of the tech giants make money in the same way: you pay them money, and they give you a product or service.

You are the Product: Both Alphabet and Facebook also generate billions of dollars of revenue, but they make this money from advertising. Their platforms allow advertisers to target you at scale with incredible precision, which is why they dominate the online ad industry.

I have a few thoughts on their use of these doughnut charts:

They tried to use brand color to be relevant to each company, many of the sections are visually hard to differentiate because the colors are too similar.

The thin doughnut thickness allows for all of the data to be shown inside of the rings

I like the color-coded text to match each doughnut segment

Yellow text on a white background is never a good idea, even if it is one of the brand colors. Very hard to read!

There’s an argument to be made that the size of the doughnut charts should be proportional to the total revenue of each company. This infographic stays focused on only breaking down the total revenue of each company, but that visually shows Facebook with $56B in revenue at the same size as Apple with $266B in revenue.