Telling the Story

Mekko Graphics 5 Preference Manager: Up Close and Personal

One of the huge enhancements to Mekko Graphics 5 is the new and improved Preference Manager. We’ve given the Preference Manager a face lift, and the result is that creating and customizing your Mekko Graphics charts is now even faster and simpler. The new Preference Manager puts you in the driver’s seat, allowing you to set your color and pattern style defaults and have more customization options in chart creation.

Let’s take a closer look.

Color Palette Flexibility
There are four tabs:  Colors, Settings, Regions, and Advanced. Within the Colors tab, there are now four subtabs: Multicolor, Black and White, No Shading, and Gantt Colors.

 

 

This means that Mekko Graphics 5 Preference Manager now includes the ability to set your color palette and draw order, not only for multi-color charts, but also for black and white charts and for single shaded charts (no shading), including the default color for the lines in your line charts.  And our default palette for Mekko Graphics 5 is much improved, offering more colors, including the ability to set highlight colors.

Default Flexibility
The Settings tab now allows you to select the Mekko Graphics default setting for chart style and pattern style, as well as your defaults for maximum, minimum, and minimum SmartPlace font size.  So, for example, if you never create single shade or black and white charts, you can set your default to multi-color and all your charts will automatically draw as multi-color. 

 
Patterns Flexibility
You also have a choice of pattern style now. You can define your pattern style for your charts as:  No Patterns, Extended Mekko Graphics or Mekko Graphics.  If you never want patterns to draw on your chart, select No Patterns. For the same functionality of Mekko Graphics 4, select Mekko Graphics.  We actually recommend our new pattern style called Extended Mekko Graphics. This pattern style uses a newer, smarter method to determine when patterns will appear on your charts. The advantages of this pattern style are most apparent when you have charts with a large number of series. Once patterns start to appear on charts, fewer series will contain patterns in your chart, and those patterns will be more evenly distributed than the Mekko Graphics pattern style.

 

Regional Flexibility
The Regions tab allows you to select the Mekko Graphics default setting that corresponds to your geographical area. Each region has a pre-defined setting for

Font typeface - for both Latin and Asian font
Negative number format
Decimal Separator
Thousand Separator
Y axis Title Orientation
Y axis Prefix/Suffix Value

You can choose the region from the pre-loaded drop-down list and Mekko Graphics will automatically reset your Preference Manager settings for that region. You may also overwrite those settings by choosing the Customized radio button and creating a custom definition for your region. Customized settings in this tab are saved for each region.

 

Chart Update Flexibility
Once you use the Preference Manager, those changes will affect future charts that you create or edit. It will not automatically change charts you have already created. For existing charts, you can apply our new Preference Manager settings by opening the chart and choosing

 .

This function allows you to take the active Preference Manager settings and apply them to your chart. To update an entire deck without opening each chart individually, simply click “Update All Charts” from your PowerPoint ribbon toolbar.

 

We’d love to hear your feedback on the new features.  Contact us at support@mekkographics.com with your comments. Or ask a question on our Mekko Graphics Forum . Thanks.

 

 

Communicating IT Value to the Business

Today, we have a guest writer, David Goldstein, Ph.D., Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Knowledge Management Associates, LLC. Thanks for this great post David!

Communicating IT Value to the Business

George Westerman gave an excellent talk at last week's Boston SIM monthly meeting.  He spoke to the CIOs in the audience about how to communicate the value they provide to senior line management.  The information is expanded upon in the book he co-authored with Richard Hunter, "Real Business of IT: How CIOs Create and Communicate Value."  George is a Research Scientist at the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  His insights are based on extensive surveys and interviews of CIOs.

George's principal message was that CIOs must take control of the value conversation.  They shouldn't wait to be asked by line managers.  Their speech, both within and outside of the IT organization, should focus less on technology and more on how the technology improves business value--reduces cost or enhances revenue.

One tool that George displayed was a cascade chart that illustrated how the IT budget is both reducing company cost and increasing revenue.  I'm a big believer in using charts to tell a story.  KMA is the maker of Mekko Graphics, the best business charting software on the market (in my humble, but biased opinion).

Here is my interpretation of George's chart:

A CIO would use this chart to present a high level view of their upcoming IT budget to the CFO and the senior management team.  It highlights, in business terms, the impact of three key cost cutting initiatives, one required regulatory initiative, and three revenue enhancement initiatives.

To download a PowerPoint version of the chart, click here: Download ITBudgetCascade.  To edit the chart, you'll have to purchase a copy of Mekko Graphics. 

Some simple charts that are both well-thought out and well-presented can go a long way to improving the dialogue between IT management and the rest of your organization's senior leadership team.

 

Mekko Graphics 201 FREE Webinar!

Our FREE Mekko Graphics 2.0 Webinar has been a huge success!  This more advanced training session takes it to the next level, going beyond the basics by introducing some of the more advanced features that truly distinguish Mekko Graphics to be the leading charting solution. We are currently offering this training every other month, so sign up early to reserve your spot. 

In One Hour You Will Learn More Advanced Editing Techniques such as:

• Link to Excel
• Using the Preference Manager to change default colors, fonts, Y-axis orientation
• Formatting the legend to make it work for your presentation
• Hiding bars, adjusting margins, sorting series, showing data rows and more

We also include a Q&A session where you may ask those burning Mekko Graphics questions. This is a great opportunity to fine tune your already-existing knowledge as well as pick up some new tips!

And if you are a new user or just need a refresher on the basics, we still offer Mekko Graphics 101, which offers a great introduction to key concepts to start you on your way to building charts quickly and easily!  To sign up for the next Mekko Graphics 101 webinar, click here.

Hypnotizing Chickens

A recent New York Times article about how PowerPoint presentations are a major problem in the military contains an example of an actual PowerPoint slide used last summer in Kabul meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy.  The slide is so comical, it’s gone viral on the internet.

The problem has gotten so severe that some military officers have gone so far as to ban the PowerPoint application entirely.  Thomas Hammes, a retired Marine colonel, referred to news media sessions using PowerPoint slides as so mind-numbing that it is like “hypnotizing chickens.”

And comedians are getting in on the act as seen here in this wildly popular stand up routine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORxFwBR4smE&feature=player_embedded

Even Dr. Edward Tufte of Yale University, an expert on information presentation who has participated in the accident investigation of both Space Shuttles, wrote extensively on the misuse of PowerPoint slides in NASA during the accident investigation board.

I once sat in a district-wide, start-of-school-year meeting in which the presenter (with a Ph.D. behind her name) told us how to make classroom learning more interesting.  She presented her material using PowerPoint and read it to us verbatim. Talk about irony!

But aren’t we blaming the instrument, instead of the conductor? PowerPoint isn’t what’s broken; what’s broken is how we use it.  PowerPoint is a tool, and when used effectively, can be valuable in communicating your message, whether that message be in the form of charts, words, images, diagrams, etc.  How?  First, identify your audience. Tailor your message to speak to them.  Be creative, and that doesn’t mean using animation so your slide does cartwheels across the screen. It does mean thinking about the best way to communicate the information.  It could very well be a chart, a table, or list; it could be a diagram, or just text.   PowerPoint is not providing the message -- you are.   Don’t use it if it doesn’t help you communicate something better than you can do alone.  PowerPoint is meant to assist in the presentation, not BE the presentation.

Interesting use of a Bar-Mekko

Ya gotta love Twitter.  Our CEO came across this blog post through a TweetBeep Alert on the word "Mekko". It's a bar-mekko chart (sometimes referred to as a variwide chart) of U.S. CO2 emissions by state.

http://tomschulz.name/2009/us-co2-emissions/

Here's the chart on SlideShare.

U.S. CO2 Emissions by State, both total and per capita (2007)

Note that the width is population and the height represents CO2 emissions per capita. So, do you have a great use of a Bar-Mekko?  I'd love to see it!

Comparing Apples to Apples

A recent article in the Business section of the New York Times referenced a chart which compared recommended nutrition servings to federal subsidies.  

 

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/why-a-big-mac-costs-less-than-a-salad/

 

 

(PCRM)

 

At first glance this chart appears to show a severe imbalance between nutritional needs and federal subsidies of the food industry. But upon closer examination, I found numerous issues with the way information was presented in the chart.

1. The pyramid on the left is an attempt to represent a percentage of food subsidy dollars. The largest percentage of food subsidy dollars go to meat and dairy, claiming 73.8% of the subsidy Assuming these numbers are accurate, the use of a three-dimensional pyramid leads to a skewed representation of the data. The meat/dairy slice, for example, is approximately 73.8% of the height of the pyramid. However, since a pyramid is three-dimensional, the reader is drawn to the height of each slice, but the overall volume (size) of each slice. A slice which is 73.8% of the height of the pyramid (starting from the bottom) actually takes up over 95% of the volume of the pyramid, thus lending the visual impression that the meat/dairy subsidy is significantly larger than it actually is.

 

The pyramid on the right side of the chart (recommended servings) puts the protein category near the top of the pyramid, thus reversing the effect. The two pyramids, each with their own exaggerations, combine to create a highly distorted message.

 

2) The pyramid shape also conveys a relationship beyond that of simple  size differences.   Pyramids are most often used to indicate some level of dependency - that things on the top of the pyramid are somehow dependent on the things at the bottom.  That is why we tend to  
resort to construction terms and refer to the bottom as the foundation.   (I never liked the old "food pyramid" for this same reason. You need all those foods).

3) Finally, in the chart on the left, what does a "percent" actually  mean?   Does it mean that 73.8% of the cost of meat is subsidized, or  does it mean that 73.8% of the subsidy dollars go to meat (as I suggested above)?   The  difference is important because the cost of producing meat is not the same as the cost of producing grains. Since grains are actually used to feed cattle, it is possible that some of the meat subsidy dollars actually ends up subsidizing grains (ranchers need to purchase grain to feed the cows).

By putting those two pyramids side by side, the suggestion is that one serving of meat or dairy is somehow equivalent to one serving of say, vegetables, and also that the cost of producing a serving of each is roughly the same.  Of course, that is not true - meats and vegetables  
provide for different nutritional needs, the cost of producing them is  different, and both are important to your health.

To do a true comparison, you would first need to choose a format that did not imply dependencies.  Then, to be truly fair, you would need to  somehow normalize the subsidy side to deal with factors such as  differences in cost to produce, nutrition density (you get all the  
protein you need in only 6 servings, but it takes 11 servings of  grains to give you what you need, etc.)

 

It's tempting to enhance the appearance of your charts through effects such as 3-D models, but you have to be careful that the use of such effects does not distort the information you are attempting to display.

Great new book!

“The ability to communicate clearly through effective charts and graphs is as indispensable a skill as good writing.”  So says, Dona Wong, author of The Wall  Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics: The Dos and Don'ts of Presenting Data, Facts, and Figures.  Only released a month ago, and already touted as the ‘Strunk & White of graphics’, this book focuses on how to convey your message in a data-driven world, using effective charting techniques.

This book appeared on my desk about two weeks ago (a gift from my boss), and I have to say, I have never read a more practical, well-layed out, easy-to-understand book on business charting.  Her guidelines are both perceptive and clear, not buried under six feet of abstractions.

The meat of the book, which comprises chapter 2, contrasts effective and poor graphics on side-by-side pages. This useful design complements her key points, and while many books give rules, few go beyond the simply stating the rule, and further show us why the rule makes sense.  Some examples include when and how to set scales to make meaningful comparisons, rules for bar order and the exceptions to those rules, when to plot absolute values versus percentage changes, when horizontal charts are best used, etc.

There is also a strong chapter on color and lines – what colors to use in combination, palettes, color order, line style and thickness, number of lines on a chart, and the use of labels with data points.

Wong’s methods are not as much geared toward creating an aesthetically pleasing chart (although they do), but focus on the ability to convey the intended message well and with clarity. She is a no-nonsense writer and a no-nonsense thinker.  The book in and of itself does what it teaches - communicates without excess while delivering a message effectively.  Dona Wong, a Tufte protégé , has created an essential reference work for everyone from the average PowerPoint user to the sophisticated business and strategic professional.

Interestingly, there is no discussion of what tools were used to use to make the graphics or how the graphics in this book were rendered.  I have a suggestion…

Telling the Olympic Story

A recent article in the NY Times "Paying for the Olympics: The Toughest Course" displays both the revenue and expenses of the governing International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee (which receives funding from the IOC) in an impressive graphic.   

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/07/business/07metricsg.html?scp=2&sq=metrics%20olympics&st=cse. 

 

NYT Olympic Metric

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The graphic is well done, and does a good job telling the story.  It's  visually appealing and reminded me of this graphic made famous by Edward Tufte, a world-recognized expert on information display and author of the groundbreaking 1983 book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. 

 

But, Tufte is an artist. He approaches charts from an aesthetic point of view. His charts are beautiful, but are they practical in today's fast-paced, data-driven world?

This 100% stacked bar chart, created using Mekko Graphics software, captures much of the key data and can be developed very quickly. 

 

Olympic Metrics

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In the end, information visualization is about finding useful, actionable visual patterns in the data and make them stand out. Our Mekko Graphics chart won't win any awards for aesthetics, but it does the job, and it does it with a minimal investment of time and effort.

Colorful Expressions Part 2

In my previous post “Colorful Expressions,” I started a discussion on the use of color and talked about its occasional overuse. Color can be a much more effective and powerful tool when it’s used sparingly and with purpose. We see this concept in images all the time. If you ever saw the movie “Schindler’s List”, there is a very powerful scene where Schindler sees a little girl wearing a red coat. The red coat is one of the few instances of color in the black and white film. The little girl's jacket is red so that she stands out from the masses. When color is used, it makes a point and an impression.

 

 

Similarly, when creating charts, you can use color effectively to make a point and impression.  There are some very good techniques for using color in your charts.

Use color to:

1)   highlight data (i.e. bring something to users’ attention)

2)   group data (i.e. a different color per sales region)

3)   convey a specific condition in the data (i.e. red = negative, green or blue = positive)

 

 

Using Color to Highlight Data

It’s a good idea to use color to focus attention on an item that is particularly relevant to the reader. Consider this chart from a Southeast regional sales conference. 

 

Colorful Expression Highlight Data

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In this example, the user is calling attention to the Southeast Region to show their third place status in sales revenue. It’s best to use bright and dark colors for highlighting data. You want that data to stand out and be noticed.

 

Using Color to Group Data

Color can be used to group data into different sets in order to show similarities or differences. In the following (fictitious) example, I compare sales revenue for three brands of running shoes across various countries.

 

Colorful Expression Group Data

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Competition between brands is tighter in the US while Nike has a clear lead in other countries.

 

 

When grouping data, use medium shades for each group. You want each group distinct, but you don’t want one group to stand out more than others, so try and make sure their levels of intensity are equal and that there is a sense of balance among the groups.

 

Using Color to Convey a Condition

And finally, if you want to convey a specific condition, make sure that the color meaning will be understood by your users.  In the following example, an organization is tracking their monthly billable hours for 4 major projects.

 

Color Expression Convey Message

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Project 1 was overbudget in Oct. but stayed within budget in Nov. and Dec.  
Project 4, however, has consistently been overbudget over the three-month period.

 

Instead of color-coding by project, they color coded by their ability to stay within budget. Red is commonly associated with danger or warning, blue with stability, and green with safety. 

 

Sometimes when it comes to color, less is more. Think about how you are using color in your charts. The use of color should add value to the visualization and help tell the story.

License Error: Alert Information

Recently our Mekko Graphics Support team has been noticing that there’s been an increase in the incidence of an error message experienced by our users.  That’s the bad news. The good news is that there’s an easy solution and I’d like to provide that here, as well as some background on the error itself.

Here’s the symptom:  For users of Mekko Graphics 4 and higher, they launch PowerPoint and the following error displays: 

 
The problem is actually that our Mekko Graphics PowerPoint add-in references a standard Microsoft Windows file called comdlg32.ocx.  Microsoft recently did an update that replaced this .ocx file with a version that does not work well with Mekko Graphics. For users who have installed this Microsoft update, our add-in generates an error when PowerPoint starts. As a result, the Mekko menu is unavailable.

To remedy this problem, we have created a patch. All you need to do is go to our home page at www.mekkographics.com, look at the bottom of the page for our   symbol, and click on the link to download the patch file.

Once you have downloaded the file, exit PowerPoint if it is running, copy the downloaded file to C:\Program Files\Knowledge Management\Mekko Graphics 4 and overwrite the existing file.