Analysis from the Bottom Up

A good article was recently published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America that describes using Information Theory to understand the signals that whales use to communicate with each other.

The computer analysis and the human observers all found that whale songs are not only hierarchical, they convey around one bit of information per second. By comparison, humans generate 10 bits of information, or variance, for every word that is spoken.

This application is an intriguing mix of biology with mathematics sure to be used in more applications as scientists seek to better understand the complex patterns that shape the world around us.

Take a look at this recent blog post that mentions Edward Tufte’s Sparkline concept and links to a couple of other sites that have information about effectively deploying them.

If you are a developer looking for a better visualization toolkit, check out the newly released beta called Prefuse. Dubbed as “a Java-based toolkit for building interactive information visualization applications”. This is a BSD-licensed toolkit so it won’t break the bank for you to try it.

More insight into this particular development package can be found on Matt Stephens Blog

From the LA Times about Cliff Atkinson, who runs a one-man, Los Angeles-based company called Sociable Media. His site and his work are worth checking out. While the business world might in fact be better off if PowerPoint was eliminated completely from desktops, that seems unlikely to happen.

A better approach is to learn the tools necessary to effectively communicate with this software, not forgetting that the presentation slideshow is meant to enhance your presentation not be your presentation. So why not use some of the same techniques that Hollywood has employed for years in producing movies, namely the 3-act storytelling structure? Something to consider the next time you are preparing yet another rambling list of bullet points and hoping that your audience will stay awake. Get them engaged by using a well thought out flow.