Infographics, data visualizations… what’s the difference?
Information graphics, or infographics, have been around awhile. (Cave paintings, anyone?) In fact, they’ve become so integrated into daily life that we often don’t notice them or think of them as such. What you may have noticed, however, is the recent uptick in slickly designed infographics popping up in social media, by politicians, and even in college football. Often, they’re used in an attempt to distill huge amounts of data involving complex issues into bite-sized nuggets of information. Sometimes they’re successful (see one of our favorites here) – and other times, not so much.
What makes the difference between infographics that work and those that just… don’t? We’ll cover that in an upcoming post. For now, let’s go into what an infographic is, how you can use it, and compare the infographic to its cousin, the data visualization. […]
The Four Degrees of Freedom
The value proposition for this blog is unassuming but profound (in our humble collective opinion). Indeed, my TrueBearing colleagues and I stake our intellectual and pragmatic passion on four interlocking principles of organizational leadership and decision-making that we refer to as The Four Degrees of Freedom. The Four Degrees are important touchstones in our work as evaluators. Without further ado, here they are:
The Four Degrees of Freedom
• Context is king.
• It’s always a good time for a gut check.
• Data rules.
• Bring it. Tweak it. Repeat.
In the next several posts we’ll explore what the Four Degrees are and why they are so urgently needed in today’s work environment. Let’s start by looking at where the term “four degrees of freedom” came from. […]
The road ahead
Back to the question with which I opened the first post: does the world need another evaluation blog? As one of my professors used to say when one of his assertions met an annoying challenge: “Well now, that is an empirical question.”
Well, as evaluators we are hardcore empiricists, so that works for us. We’re less interested in abstraction and idealism than in what works. Evaluators get to be up-close-and-personal witnesses to some of the best and worst practices in management. Too often, it is not a pretty picture. So, we see a need for a viewpoint that integrates evaluation with sound, realistic leadership principles.
You see, all those books and blogs on leadership abound with advice. Some of it is useful, and some of it is frankly appalling. But in nearly every case, contemporary approaches to leadership zero in on one—and only one– of three basic premises: […]
