Is Information Visualisation the Next Frontier for Design?

As design work shifts to infrastructure and problem solving, sexy infographics are part of the new skill set. You've seen them. Those tag clouds in the right-hand column of Web sites with jumbled type of varying weight and size indicating the relative usage of words. Tag clouds may be the most common example of an emerging field known as "information visualization," an offshoot of graphic design devoted to the clear display of complex information. Executive pay in relation to shareholder returns. Senate voting patterns. The geographic location of cell phones. Similarities among rock albums. Graphic designers are mapping over the known world and posting their graphic interpretations on sites like Visual Complexity.

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Who’s Got Your Back: Why You Need the “Lifeline Relationships” that Create Success and Won’t Let You Fail, Keith Ferrazzi

Lifeline Relationships Behind every great leader, at the base of every great tale of success, you will find an indispensable circle of trusted advisors, mentors, and colleagues. These groups come in all forms and sizes and can be found at every level and in nearly all spheres of both professional and personal life, but what they all have in common is a unique kind of connection with each other that I’ve come to call lifeline relationships. These relationships are, quite literally, why some people succeed far more than others. There’s a good chance that you’ve already experienced the power and potential of lifeline relationships at some point in your life. Imagine some of the attributes of the best bosses you’ve ever had— the kind of boss who encourages you, who gives you space to grow, who appreciates your efforts, who doesn’t micromanage but guides your development with wisdom, and who handles your slip-ups with firmness, understanding, and candor. Or think back to that good friend or family member who dropped everything to be there for you at a critical juncture in your life and didn’t let you fail. Picture that associate you had at work who took a risk for you, and whose influence still touches you today. If you’ve ever had an important person or group of people in your life who’ve shepherded you in the right direction—even if you’ve had just a taste of it—you know what I mean.

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Ending the Illusion of Control: Let’s Kick This Bad Forecasting Habit, Spyros Makridakis, Robin M Hogarth & Anil Gaba

Many reputable institutions issue regular economic forecasts that are widely cited in the international press. And yet, how accurate are these forecasts? Should we really trust them? In April 2008, for example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that global economic growth would slow to 3.7 percent in 2008, and remain broadly unchanged in 2009. In addition, it predicted that the U.S. economy would tip into a mild recession in 2008 as a result of mutually reinforcing cycles in the housing and financial markets, before starting a modest recovery in 2009. In October 2008, the IMF stated that the world economy was entering a major downturn and that economic growth would slow substantially in 2009 with a modest recovery to begin only later in the year. In January, 2009 the growth forecast was cut to 0.5%. In February it was further reduced to 0.0%. And in March it slid into the negative for the first time since the 1940s.

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The Small Revolution - Linda Kaplan Thaler & Robin Koval

Change It’s a word we’ve all heard a lot this year. We’re looking for change in Washington, in our environment, in our culture, and in our economy. Hey, these days, even change for a dollar would suffice. The need for change spurred the election of a new President and brought together a nation divided in ideologies. The desire for change is great, but sometimes it feels as if our problems are greater still. In the face of our individual, national, and global challenges, change can feel impossible. When we try to change the world all at once, we become overwhelmed with the vastness of our problems. Debts are too large to pay, jobs are too scarce to find, and life is too stressful to conquer. In times as complex as these, however, the answer is surprisingly simple. We have to start thinking SMALL. Now is the time for the SMALL revolution. When tackling problems, we are often told to think big. We filter out life’s seemingly insignificant details in order to concentrate on the greater issues. After all, big ideas yield big results, or so the assumption goes. Certainly, no one wants to be thought of as the person who “can’t see the forest for the trees.” But many times, these very same little details are the ones that can serve as the real catalysts for change in our own lives and in the lives of others—if we only start to recognize their potential.

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Humanities more than just a word

JOHN Armstrong ("Transform into friends of society", HES, November26, 2008) says the humanities in Australia need to "transform themselves into friends of society" and to be "in the service of life", not just ofacademics. A return to "core concerns" with notions such as civilisation would dissolve that false dichotomy of value, between the intrinsic or noble and the instrumental or practical, that bedevils university and government resourcing of the sector. If such "important things buried within the disciplines" could re-emerge, our "economic anxieties would recede". Like Armstrong, I went along hopefully to the speech by federal Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Minister Kim Carr on why the humanities matter for innovation and was not disappointed by his reference to the"intrinsic value" of works such as PeterTemple's Broken Shore and John Bell's latest Hamlet.

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