Today’s Big Data Scientists are being challenged with discovering actionable insights from the Volume, Velocity and Variety of data resources in cost-effective innovate ways. This is the foundation of Big Data Trends and has tremendous value when understanding is Visualized by today’s Big Data Artists.

Big Data Artists and Data Storytelling

Data comes to life in the hands of Data Artists.  Effective Data Storytelling can inspire new ideas and actions. Statistics guru Hans Rosling is a modern day Michelangelo of Big Data.  Watch his TED Talk video about “global trends in health and economics“.  Hans really gets rolling into this data story at about the 4 minute mark of this video.

Big Data Virtualization

Processing unstructured, semi-structured, and structured data can be accomplished with open-source tools such as Hadoop, MongoDB, Node.JS, with multiple programming languages including Java and Python. Many of these Big Data Tools can be installed and configured within a few minutes.  We can also leverage Cloud Computing for processing Big Data. Cost-effective processing of Graph Data for Social Network Analytics can be accomplished with GraphChi.  My friend and colleague, Brad Cox, created an easy to use plugin to accelerate graph data processing.  There are a plethora of tools and resources out there.  Help others and share your favorites here.

Big Data Visualization

Getting the right information to the right person at the right time in the right way is a big deal.  Data Visualizations should not be cryptic like a puzzle, but easy to understand.  This is not a simple task and is the reason why we need more Big Data Artists in the world. My friend Angela Dunn has inspiring Data Visualization stories at Data is Beautiful.

Data Visualization Tools

Great artists experiment with a variety of material and tools to create their masterpieces.  The modern day Big Data Artist can experiment with these tools to create their next masterpiece.

Gephi The Open Graph Viz Platform: Gephi is an interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs.  This tool makes it fun to experiment with GraphData.

RapidMiner Data Mining System: RapidMiner is an open-source system for data mining. It is available as a stand-alone application for data analysis and as a data mining engine for the integration into custom products.

Sencha Ext JS is an “Enterprise grade JavaScript Framework”.  Ext JS Plugin-free Charting provides advanced charting and graphing capabilities, delivering pixel perfect visuals on any browser on any operating system.

D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation.

Highcharts is a charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering intuitive, interactive charts to your web site or web application. Highcharts currently supports line, spline, area, areaspline, column, bar, pie, scatter, angular gauges, arearange, areasplinerange, columnrange and polar chart types.

Raphaël is a small JavaScript library that should simplify your work with vector graphics.  Raphaël ['ræfeɪəl] uses the SVG W3C Recommendation and VML as a base for creating graphics. This means every graphical object you create is also a DOM object, so you can attach JavaScript event handlers or modify them later. Raphaël’s goal is to provide an adapter that will make drawing vector art compatible cross-browser and easy.

Visual.ly supports Visual Storytelling with data visualizations and infographics.     Visually’s Visual Reports can turn monthly performance metrics into a powerful visual narrative that communicates company objectives and milestones to both internal and external stakeholders. Infographics can also communicate product features.

Visualizing data helps others understand the value of information.  Additional data visualization tools are available here Top 20 Data Visualization Tools.  Visual content inspires conversation, as I was writing this, my friend Kathy Meyer shared this article about using visual content to inspire conversation 26 Ways to Use Visuals in Your Social Media Marketing

Big Data & Visualization Resources

Learning more about Big Data and the art of data visualization is a valuable skill to master.  There are several online classes and meetups in the area.  A recent meetup in the Washington DC area was Uncovering Hidden Social Information with Prof. Jennifer Golbeck. Her book, “Analyzing the Social Web” is available on Amazon.  Another great book to help you master the art of Big Data and Social Network Analytics is, “Mining the Social Web: Analyzing Data from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Other Social Media Sites”.

Summary

Big Data is the Gold Rush of the 21st Century where discovering nuggets of actionable insights is transforming the way we work, live, & play.  Big Data Is Changing the Whole Equation for Business and organizations that fail to define Big Data Leadership will fall behind, far behind.  Organizations that hope to remain competitive in today’s market will include a strategy that implements Big Data tools along with the training and development of Data Scientists and Big Data Artists.

Harnessing the Power of Engagement to Drive Innovation

The negative impact of the global economy has created barriers that prevent organizations and individuals from realizing their maximum potential.  Today’s business leaders are required to do more with less, a lot less.  Reducing costs and increasing productivity take top priority during these difficult times.  Innovative thought leaders are optimizing all business assets to remain competitive.

The most important asset to any organization is the people.  These people include employees, partners, and customers.  Organizations that survive the current transition phase and thrive in the future are the ones that harness the power of engagement.

Achieving higher levels of engagement that establish emotional bonds will create a smarter, more powerful workforce and accelerate innovation for the Enterprise.  The IBM Connect tag line says it all, “Get Social. Do Business.”  People can learn more about the benefits of Social Business from the videos and resources created by thought leaders from the IBM Connect Conference.  Evidence about employee engagement or lack thereof was presented by Jane McGonigal.  Her compelling story warns us about the losses incurred from lack of employee engagement and she shared ideas on how to fix the problem.

 ”Unengaged workers cost U.S. companies $300 billion annually” – Gallup 2012

“71% of U.S. workers are not engaged” -Gallup 2012″

State of Flow, the Engagement Sweet Spot.  The state of Flow is achieved when the person is so engaged in an activity to the point that seems to alter space and time.  According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate experience in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand.

This part of Jane’s presentation describes how we could harness this level of engagement and harness the power of “Crowdsourcing” to accomplish objectives and achieve desired goals.  She went on to explain how much time gamers spend in the state of flow and how that compares to the time invested into creating Wikipedia.  The value of creating emotional bonds has great rewards.

The Engagement Economy

Scalable collaboration and participation is powered by the Engagement Economy.  Enabling mass participation from people with a variety of skills and abilities fuels the engagement economy.  Fostering an environment that supports fluid collaboration and eliminates barriers to participation releases innovation.  Incorporating the principles of “Game Design Thinking” can help people achieve the State of Flow during the collaboration process.  Implementing Enterprise Gamification to support fluid collaboration can accelerate innovation.

“In today’s engagement economy, where time and attention are becoming increasingly scarce and resources precious, people are likely to gravitate to activities that are authentically rewarding and filled with the opportunities to achieve, grow and socialize. The lessons that can be learned from games and game designers are one set of tools to help us increase our return in such an economy.”   The Engagement Economy How gamification is reshaping businesses by  Doug Palmer, Steve Lunceford and Aaron J. Patton (Deloitte).

Fail Forward Fast

We learn best from our failures. Gamers spend 80% of the time failing.  The path to success includes adopting the mentality of Gamers to overcome our fear of failure.

“It is far better to have sloppy success than to have perfect procrastination. It is easy to get caught up in the endless tinkering and perfecting of a project. It is true some things require perfection – most simply need excellence. All need action today!”

“Do you find yourself waiting to launch important projects? Are you forever splitting hairs about elements that are not mission critical. Do you spend hours and hours on details that don’t matter much? “

“Start your day with action! In taking action you may fail – but even that failure will move you forward toward ultimate success. Pick a project you have been putting off and begin today to take the action which will accelerate your path to achievement. “

- Tom Peters

Time to Humanize the Enterprise

Creating emotional bonds that establish deeper engagement will create a more powerful workforce and accelerate innovation for the Enterprise.  Technology trends come and go, but addressing basic human needs will withstand the test of time.  Most people have a deep desire to feel connected and will do extraordinary things when empowered by emotional bonds.  Organizations that master creating Emotional Bonds will crush their competitors that don’t.

Super Empowered Employees

Most of us have heard stories from people that have witnessed super human strength.  Some of these stories include seeing a frail woman lifting a car off a child.  We wonder how can this small person do a seemingly impossible feat.  Then we discover she is a mom saving her child.  Her emotional bond empowered her with super human abilities.  These kind of stories show us that we have extraordinary abilities.  Certain conditions can cause the body and brain to work differently.  Creating conditions in the organization that empowers people to be extraordinary should be the ultimate goal for the Enterprise.

Jane McGonigal wrapped up her session with a great tip about getting a vast collection of research and resources from her website: “Show Me the Science“. Nigel Fenwick (FORRESTER) shared his thoughts about her presentation in The Gamification Of Business.

Jane McGonigal at IBM Connect

You can use the slider to fast forward to the 39 minute mark of this video to see Jane’s presentation.

Achieving the Next Level of Social Business

The current economic conditions, culture shifts, and technology advancements are culminating into the perfect storm set to trigger an innovation explosion that will launch us into the future prepared to solve the world’s most complex problems.  Innovation is the “secret sauce” of business success. Implementing Innovation models in the organization should be a top priority in the Enterprise.

Social Business Innovation

Connecting with Thought Leaders can ensure Social Business Innovation success.  Here are a few important events scheduled in the near future:

• IBM Business Connect Paris 2013: Sandy Carter, Dion Hinchcliffe,..
• Enterprise 2.0 Summit Paris 2013: Bertrand Duperrin, Jon Husband, Anthony Poncier, Rawn Shah, Ana Silva, Luis Suarez, Claude Super, …
• E2 Conference Boston 2013: David Carr,  Chris Silva, …

Unlocking New Levels of Innovation through Collaboration

Enterprise Gamification is the use of game dynamics within organizations to support a collaborative culture that aligns with business objectives.  This creates an agile social business model that can increase chances of success in current competitive markets and future markets.  Applying Enterprise Gamification and implementing game mechanics in enterprise 2.0 platforms plays a very important role in it’s event-driven architecture for capturing the REAL value of enterprise 2.o solutions.  This REAL value is realized by lowering barriers of participation and showing the relationships of people, ideas, and things.  Implementing enterprise gamification strategy should be a part of the complete social business strategy.  Learn more at “The Secret Social Science Sauce of Gamification“.

Demystifying Enterprise Gamification for Business

Gamification describes a series of design principles, processes and systems used to influence, engage and motivate individuals, groups and communities to drive behaviors and effect desired outcomes. Originating from the video game industry, many of these pioneering concepts now play a key role in driving incentive and behavior management for both brands in the consumer world and internal scenarios in the workplace. Enterprise gamification is a user experience (UX) and consumerization of IT (CoIT) trend that will take the market by storm in 2012. Constellation believes that by 2013, more than 50 percent of all social business initiatives will include an enterprise gamification component. Learn more at “Research Summary: Demystifying Enterprise Gamification For Business”

Ray Wang @rwang0 of Constellation Research Inc. shares his thoughts about the value of Social Business Gamification in this video from the IBM Connect event.

It’s great to see Ray’s work on gamification over the course of time, all bundled up into a great presentation!  He makes a good point about how Enterprise Gamification is about engaging and influencing behaviors to drive outcomes that support business objectives.  He also includes some gold nuggets about points and virtual currency, along with how Business Models are changing.  The part about the impact of applying game mechanics to Human Resources (32minute mark in this video) is priceless.

Demystifying Enterprise Gamification – Presented by Badgeville

Constellation Research, Inc. believes that by 2013, more than 50 percent of all social business initiatives will include an enterprise gamification component. Brands and enterprises know that motivation and incentive programs can help produce revenue and productivity gains among internal users and external communities. These business leaders also know it can be time-consuming and difficult to streamline, manage and implement such programs. Join Constellation Research, Inc. CEO, R “Ray” Wang @rwang0 and Badgeville @badgeville for an exploration on how organizations can leverage game mechanics to turbo charge engagement, loyalty, and profitability.  Register for this free webinar today.

Many Things in Motion

The Collective Intelligence of Social Business

We are about to embark on an innovative journey that will transform the workforce.  This new innovation age will blur the lines of work and play.  Integrating internal and external Social Media into Enterprise workflows to support collaborative business intelligence will become more of a priority.  The future of Social Business will empower the workforce, partners, and customers in the process of co-creation that will drive new levels of innovation across multiple markets.  These new business models will begin to harness the power of Collective Intelligence as the Enterprise explores collaboration beyond it’s main silo, the firewall.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” – Aristotle

The State of Social Business

Jeremiah Owyang’s “State of Social Business” presentation at LeWeb2011 covers why it is important to have a Social Business Strategy in this video.

Social Business Predictions & Trends for 2012

This year will set the stage for the decade of”radical innovation”.  Everyone may not have flying cars in 2022, but business models as we know them today will seem like ancient cave etchings.  There were several interesting predictions and trends in our Collection of Enterprise 2.0 Predictions & Tech Trends for 2011.  This will be the year of the Social Scientist and Data Artist.

• Cloud Computing: Implementing cloud computing in the Enterprise and Government will be a prime focus.  This effort will start to mature beyond private virtual clouds and Software as a Service (SaaS) to include Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and exploring Business Process as a Service (BPaaS).
• Web-Oriented Architecture (WOA): web-oriented architecture extends service-oriented architecture (SOA).  It’s RESTful methods will help support cloud computing across multiple environments and devices.
• Gamification: This is not angry birds in the workplace, but the use of Game Design Thinking for supporting collaboration and innovation.  Social Scientists will help organizations put an emphasis on psychology over technology to help others achieve the state of flow in business processes.
• Mobile: Organizations will make real investments into supporting mobile technologies. Tablets and Smart Phones are slowly replacing the standard computers in the workforce.  The use of web-based apps and widgets on mobile devices will become more standard.
• Big Data: Context will become the new king as organizations leverage internal and external data sources and social networks for business intelligence.
• Enterprise App Stores & Business Intelligence Dashboards: Understanding information at the speed of business will help ensure success.  Visualizing business intelligence will move from IT departments to business departments.  Technologies like JackBe’s Presto Platform empower business leaders with the ability to “assemble” apps like lego blocks to support business decisions.
• Identity Management:  Yes, the silos are crumbling and this includes corporate firewalls.  Supporting collaboration and secure communication across multiple environments and devices will have thought leaders thinking beyond firewalls and the use of Secure Socket Layers (SSL).  This shift from “need to know” to “need to share” will drive the use of intelligent point-to-point controls.  Attribute-Based Access Controls (ABAC) and Policy-Based Access Controls with eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) will be considered as alternatives to Role-Based Controls.  Additional thoughts about Identity Entitlement and Access Management (IdEA) are available at Jericho Forum.

Social Business Thought Leaders on Twitter

This Social Business Thought Leader twitter game board represents people focused on sharing ideas about Social Business Strategy.  Connect with more social business thought leaders on this twitter list: Social Business Strategy Leaders.

rwang0

oscarberg

dhinchcliffe

rhappe

rossdawson

krcraft

byAgah

raesmaa

absolutesubzero

A Collection of Social Business Predictions & Tech Trends

• The Future of Cloud Computing: Industry Predictions for 2012
• Dachis Group: Social Business Predictions for 2012
• Michael Wu: Future of Collaborative Enterprise
• CNN: The Top 10 tech trends for 2012
• The brainyard: Social Business In 2012: Enter The Water Dragon
• Gartner: Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users for 2012 and Beyond
• CIO: Top Ten Tech Predictions for 2012
• IBM’s Social Business Predictions for 2012
• Deloitte Predicts the Top 10 Technology Trends for 2012
• Real Story Group: 2012 Technology Predictions
• BCW: Top 5 Network Technology Predictions For 2012
• The Next Web Architecture
• MainStreet: 10 Tech Predictions for 2012

Update 01/01/2012

• 10 Biggest Social Business Stories Of 2011
• 10 Ways Cloud Computing Will Disrupt our Businesses in 2012
• How Digital Business Will Evolve in 2012: 6 Big Ideas
• Tech Trends That’ll Kill It In 2012
• 7 Gamification Predictions for 2012

Social Intranets in Social Business

Collective intelligence structures that harness network effects improve as more people use them.  Learn more from “Social Intranets in Social Business” by Lee Bryant.

This new innovation age in Social Business will remind us of the Industrial Age, but instead of mining for precious gems of gold and silver, we will be mining for precious gems of knowledge.  Instead of factories that pollute our environment will have idea factories that improve our environments.

Open Standards and the W3C

On November 12, 1990 Sir Tim Berners-Lee @timberners_lee submitted a paper that would change the world, this paper was the WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a HyperText Project.  Sir Tim Berners-Lee leads the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).  The W3C is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. Led by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C’s mission is to lead the Web to its full potential.  The W3C is having it’s very first Developer’s Conference (Free Streaming Video Available)  #W3Conf @w3cConf on November 15 – 16, 2011, “W3Conf Developer Conference“.

Data and Services Integration

Integration of heterogeneous data and services has always been a concern for creators and managers of services. With the emergence of the Web, the need for reusing data and services became even stronger, as the number of available services raised.

Cloud-based services are also created using different paradigms and present the same challenges as the ones found in Enterprise Services, or on the Open Web, and the opportunity to create mashups of services using different models.

There is currently extensive deployment experience with Web Services; the Semantic Web is more mature; and the XML Stack has become ubiquitous. The increasing use of JSON-based services and Cloud-based computing combined with experience and maturity of the XML-based services and of the Semantic Web technologies suggests that now is a good time to find ways to bridge and combine these various technologies to make a coherent platform for future business and technical work.  Additional information, reports, and presentations are available from this W3C Workshop.

A paper submitted by IBM to the W3C Data & Services Workshop describes the challenges of multiple data formats and possible solutions for loosely structured data, “Experiences with JSON and XML Transformations“.  This paper explains common problems developers and web service providers face when trying to develop a common interface.  The presenters identified many real-world key problems that left me wondering about a different solution that I hope others elaborate on here.

Web 2.0 App Model with XML AJAX API

Modern Web 2.0 Apps use Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) to create dynamic interactive displays with data.  Many AJAX apps use JSON instead of XML.

What if they used Standard XML leveraging XPATH with cross-platform and language-independent DOM?  This approach could let us use object-oriented programming to work with object-oriented data.

The Data

The problem with loosely structured data is identifying target areas. This simple example of a book collection does not have unique identifiers in the data elements. Unique identifiers in the data elements would allow us to use standard methods to work with targeted areas.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<bookstore>
<title owner="webtechman">Top Shelf Book Store</title>
<book category="COOKING">
  <title lang="en">Everyday Italian</title>
  <author>Giada De Laurentiis</author>
  <year>2005</year>
  <price>30.00</price>
</book>
 
<book category="CHILDREN">
  <title lang="en">Harry Potter</title>
  <author>J K. Rowling</author>
  <year>2005</year>
  <price>29.99</price>
</book>
 
<book category="WEB">
  <title lang="en">XQuery Kick Start</title>
  <author>James McGovern</author>
  <author>Per Bothner</author>
  <author>Kurt Cagle</author>
  <author>James Linn</author>
  <author>Vaidyanathan Nagarajan</author>
  <year>2003</year>
  <price>49.99</price>
</book>
 
<book category="WEB">
  <title lang="en">Learning XML</title>
  <author>Erik T. Ray</author>
  <year>2003</year>
  <price>39.95</price>
</book>
 
</bookstore>

The Data with NoDeCode Identifiers

This simple example of a book collection has unique identifiers in the data elements. The “XQuery Kick Start” book element now has a unique id, it’s author elements all have unique ids, along with every element in our XML data. Unique identifiers in the data elements allow us to use standard methods to work with targeted areas. No DeCode between JSON and XML is necessary with NoDeCode identifiers.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<bookstore id="0">
<title owner="webtechman" id="1">Top Shelf Book Store</title>
<book category="COOKING" id="2">
  <title lang="en" id="3">Everyday Italian</title>
  <author id="4">Giada De Laurentiis</author>
  <year id="5">2005</year>
  <price id="6">30.00</price>
</book>
 
<book category="CHILDREN" id="7">
  <title lang="en" id="8">Harry Potter</title>
  <author id="9">J K. Rowling</author>
  <year id="10">2005</year>
  <price id="11">29.99</price>
</book>
 
<book category="WEB" id="12">
  <title lang="en" id="13">XQuery Kick Start</title>
  <author id="14">James McGovern</author>
  <author id="15">Per Bothner</author>
  <author id="16">Kurt Cagle</author>
  <author id="17">James Linn</author>
  <author id="18">Vaidyanathan Nagarajan</author>
  <year id="19">2003</year>
  <price id="20">49.99</price>
</book>
 
<book category="WEB" id="21">
  <title lang="en" id="22">Learning XML</title>
  <author id="23">Erik T. Ray</author>
  <year id="24">2003</year>
  <price id="25">39.95</price>
</book>
</bookstore>

The NoDeCode identifiers are added as attributes to the XML DOM object with a few simple lines of code.

//Add nodecode for indexing elements
xmlUtil.prototype.addNodeCode = function(xmlNode){
	for (var i = 0; i < xmlNode.childNodes.length; i++) {//each child node
		if (xmlNode.childNodes[i].nodeType == 1) {//no white spaces
			//add nodecode attribute
			xmlNode.childNodes[i].setAttribute("id", this.getNodeCode());
			//http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-id/
			//setIdAttribute is not supported in common web browsers
			//xmlNode.childNodes[i].setIdAttribute("id", true);
		}
		//recursive to child of children
		this.addNodeCode(xmlNode.childNodes[i]);
	}
}

Simple AJAX Interfaces for Targeted XML DOM Objects

The NoDeCode supports connecting standard user interfaces to targeted data areas in the XML DOM Object supported by standard XPATH methods.  It is important to note that no round trips to the server are taking place at this time.  All the user interactions are taking place in the XML Object on the client.  The data can be manipulated and modified on the client, then the data object can be transformed into a string and posted to the server using standard HTTP protocol.

NoDeCode has been tested in the following web browsers:

• Firefox 7
• Google Chrome 15
• Internet Explorer 8

NoDeCode Supports:

• Standard HTTP protocol to get XML string
• Method to convert XML string to XML object
• Method to convert XML object to XML string
• Methods/Properties to target loosely structured XML
• Methods to connect User Interfaces to XML objects

The NoDeCode AJAX XML XPATH DOM Model demonstrates how to extend existing web browser objects and methods for custom needs.  It also shows how to use Object-Oriented JavaScript programming to create custom objects that can easily be extended to include new methods and properties.  NoDeCode contains many resources in it’s source code and was written in a single HTML page to support fast modifications and quick testing.  The source code along with a sample XML file can be downloaded here, NoDeCode.zip

Please feel free to share your thoughts and comments here.

Data Visualization

Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning “information which has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information”.  According to Friedman (2008) the “main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. It doesn’t mean that data visualization needs to look boring to be functional or extremely sophisticated to look beautiful.

Data Visualization Strategy

Edward Tufte @EdwardTufte delivered a great presentation about data visualization strategy for the star studded Tech@State event audience.   Tech@State ( @techATstate ) connects tech innovators and those interested in diplomacy and development to enable 21st century statecraft by improving education, health and welfare of the world’s population.   The Edward Tufte: Beautiful Evidence (Highlights) video is available here. Edward Tufte’s complete data visualization strategy presentation video is available here, his presentation begins at 14:24.

If your display isn’t worth 1000 words, to hell with it – @EdwardTufte

Data Visualization Tools & Services

Google Data Visualization Services

Google Data Visualization Service provides a variety of charts that are optimized to address your data visualization needs. These charts are based on pure HTML5/SVG technology (adopting VML for old IE versions), so no plugins are required.

Sencha ExtJS Data Visualization Tools

It has always been hard to draw things in web applications. HTML is really not cut out for creating charts and other richly interactive imagery, but Sencha ExtJS 4 supports data visualizations HTML applications. Typically this need has been met with Adobe Flash, but this gave Sencha two problems: most people like writing code in JavaScript, and Flash isn’t available on all devices. The ExtJS 4 solution to these problems is a pure-JavaScript drawing library that can create incredibly rich charting and graphics. It works everywhere – from IE6 to iOS – and will also be available as an add-on for Sencha Touch (mobile).

Highcharts Data Visualization Tools

Highcharts is a charting library written in pure JavaScript, offering intuitive, interactive charts to your web site or web application. Highcharts currently supports line, spline, area, areaspline, column, bar, pie and scatter chart types.  You can also you create stock or general timeline charts in pure JavaScript, including sophisticated navigation options like a small navigator series, preset date ranges, date picker, scrolling and panning with Highstock.

Current Data Visualization Twitter Game Board

Diversity fuels innovation. Sports fanatics have their fantasy football teams. This is my fantasy innovation team. This Data Visualization twitter game board represents people focused on sharing ideas about how to make data make sense.

EdwardTufte

NoelDickover

JohnFMoore

SuzKPH

techATstate

StateDept

lovisatalk

visualisingdata

noahi

Accelerating Innovation with Engaged Employees

Would you use this device for listening or speaking?

Organizations that harness the power of “Social Business” with engaged employees driven to add value to their market will increase their levels of success moving into the future.

During one of OpenText’s Exploring Organizational Purpose events, I had an opportunity to talk with Scott from OpenText about real innovation in the Enterprise.  I don’t have the authorization to write about all of his amazing thoughts, however, I can summarize it in one word.  The single word that summarizes real innovation in the Enterprise is, “Connected“.

Breakfast with Michael Edson

Michael Edson ( @mpedson ) gave an entertaining and intelligent presentation at the Exploring Organizational Purpose #purposeBiz event in Washington, DC.  Michael is a living example of “passion with purpose”.  He shared his ideas about the “power of now” and how to fan the flames of passion in organizations to fuel real innovation.

His presentation along with additional text and links is available here.

Michael also shared additional thoughts about “Crowd Accelerated Innovation” and Openess here.

Marisa Peacock (@marisacp51) wrote about this event in her article, “Going Boldly Into the Present with Michael Edson“.

Breakfast with John Seely Brown

John Seely Brown ( @jseelybrown ) is Co-Director of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge. His research and insight into how we as a society are learning to live in an age of constant flux is masterfully structured and presented. [more]

I am a huge fan of John Seely Brown’s work and believe you will discover many tips and ideas you can apply to your organization in this video, “Collaborative Innovation by John Seely Brown“.

The hotel where this event was hosted had internet issues, but John’s video should be available soon. In the meantime you can see John sharing how tech is changing education and society in this video.

Breakfast with Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee ( @amcafee ) coined the Term Enterprise 2.0 five years ago. Since then, he has researched, written and reported widely on the capacity of individuals and teams, the types of problems collaboration can solve.  This event scheduled for November 1, 2011 will sell out fast, so RSVP now.

What If?

These events sponsored by OpenText show us the future of Social Business.  Organizations that seek to deeply engage with their community will emerge as leaders in their field.

What if every organization offered events where people can connect and share ideas?

This could unlock real innovation to solve problems in our everyday lives.

Current Social Business Innovation Twitter Game Board

Diversity fuels innovation. Sports fanatics have their fantasy football teams. This is my fantasy innovation team. This Social Business Innovation twitter game board represents people focused on Innovation in Enterprise 2.0 and Social Business now.

mpedson

deb_lavoy

jseelybrown

mixtmedia

amcafee

bhc3

lovisatalk

jimworth

dhinchcliffe

with Gabe Zichermann

Game Design Thinking can improve engagement, loyalty and strengthen communities. Gabe Zichermann delivers innovative strategies derived from multiple leaders in the field of Gamification in his “Gamification Master Class video collection. The “Implementation, Agile Processes & Gaming the System” section is worth the total cost of the complete video collection. This segment about “Engagement Loops” and “Gaming the System” will help you think differently about the “User Experience. The strategy outlined within these two topics can save people and organizations a tremendous about of time and money. Investing less than $100 dollars on this collection of Gamification Strategy videos can help you and your team improve the odds of achieving the desired goals from your systems and services.

How can game mechanics and game design help you deliver an engaging, sticky and viral experience to your customers?   Gamification expert Gabe Zichermann [@gzicherm] uses this collections of videos to show you how to take advantage of gamification—the secret ingredient that’s fueled the success of Foursquare, Nike, Groupon, and many other websites.  These videos demonstrate the design strategy and tactics you need for integrating game mechanics into any kind of consumer-facing website or app, whether new or existing.  Learn more here, “Gamification Master Class Videos”.

Gamification Promotional Video

Gamification Master Class Collection

The content in this collection is professionally presented in the following sections:

1. Introduction to Gamification: Gamfiication is radically changing businesses both large and small, in industries as diverse as healthcare, education, software and travel. In this introduction, well lay out some thought exercises and overarching structure to help us tackle this design process. Well also define gamification for the purposes of our work together.
2. Foundation & Basics: How do we leverage gamification and its key elements? In this section, well explain what the basics of gamification are – and arent – and what kinds of problems can be solved with these exciting techniques. Well also look at why gamification is receiving such attention today, how to measure engagement, and how others have leveraged it in their business.
3. Player Motivation: Because gamification is at the intersection of motivational design, game design and human psychology, its critical to understand what drives people to play and engage with complex systems. That understanding underlies everything we design and build. Why do players choose to dedicate so many hours and dollars to the pursuit of challenges? Well pull together relevant theory and practice here to shed light on what drives all of us.
4. Player Types: In his famous taxonomy of players, Richard Bartle outlines a series of player motivations and types (Achiever, Explorer, Socializer, Killer) that help us understand the canonical players and what kinds of behavior to expect. This also helps us start to shape our reward and incentive design. Well also complete exercises designed to help us think about our target players and how to motivate them.
5. Progression to Mastery: One theory of user engagement with complex systems is that they seek mastery – the sense of fulfillment and achievement from getting control over the world around them (or their internal state). In Progression to Mastery, well explore the stages of mastery and how to apply these to your product, service or idea.
6. Be the Sherpa: If you want to build gamified systems that scale and create long-term engagement, you need to align yourself with your users progression to mastery, design a system they can follow, and be their sherpa throughout the process. In this section, well tackle that idea and how you can build design the feels natural and challenging at the same time.
7. Point Systems: In the first of our game mechanics sections, well look at point systems – the most important of all. They are present in almost all gamified designs – even if they arent always presented to the user. Well look at five different kinds of point systems and how they can be leveraged to create engagement, and work on one of the core exercises that frame a gamified project – point assignment.
8. Levels: How we mark progress is critical – and levels are one of the most commonly used techniques. They take many forms in gamified systems, but in this section well explore the most common designs for levels and work through a model for designing levels that drive user behavior in your system.
9. Leaderboards: Controversial but powerful, leaderboards are used in most systems with an element of competition. When are they appropriate in your design, and what are the latest/greatest techniques for turning the leaderboards of old into the motivational powerhouses of the social era? Find out in this section.
10. Badges & Customization: Badges may be loved and hated – but they are elemental techniques that exist in the world outside of games and have for centuries. While theyve taken center stage in most gamified designs, theyre typically not enough for most interactions. Find out how to make the most of badges by looking at great and weak patterns to develop your own badging system. Well also take a look at customization and some of the challenges in desinging for it.
11. Onboarding: You may not know it, but the first minute of your users experience with your product, service or brand is critical. Games have developed highly refined ways of turning that first minute into powerful training and reinforcement tools that can create long term engagement and loyalty out of the gate. Find out how these exciting techniques can be used in your business in this section that explores onboarding from the inside out.
12. Challenges & Engagement Loops: Most products, services and ideas benefit from virality. Gamified designs take virality and embed it intrinsically into the design of the system. In this section, well explore the classic viral loop and how to apply it to your environment. Well also look at challenges and how successful games leverage them to drive and reinforce user behavior.
13. Implementation, Agile Processes & Gaming the System: One of the most common concerns about gamification is that users will game the system to gain unfair advantage or rewards. While we have reason to be concerned, this section shares a simple rubric that can be used to clarify the approach to systemic protection that maximizes consumer engagement. Well also look at implementation concepts, including how to meld agile with gamification design.
14. Technical Consideration & Next Steps: Finally, well concern ourselves with a few key technical considerations, including vendor analysis and recommendations for how best to proceed.

Reviews

“good value for some outside the box brain food” – John Brady

“Gabe does a very good job at explaining Gamification with real live examples and exercises after each lesson” – Yousuf

“Gamification Master Class is a top-notch, three-hour introduction to an exciting movement in software design and marketing” – Aaron Sumner

Bonus

The purchase of “Gamification Master Class Videos” includes bonus material and a mini-workbook that help you achieve meaningful engagement.

Gamification is a new item in the Gartner 2011 Technology Hype Cycle.  Organizations can leverage “Game Mechanics” and “Motivational Design” to drive real engagement.  Social Business Gamification strategies include the psychology and social science of game dynamics to support Behavioral Economics.

FUNdamentals of Real Engagement

The Game Mechanics Engagement Playdeck

SCVNGR has proven the value of using game mechanics for results driven business in their TheLeveUp platform.  Others can unlock new levels of engagement by learning how to think differently, from the customer’s perspective with “SCVNGR’s Game Mechanics Playdeck“.  People can print their own version of SCVNGR’s Game Mechanics Flash Cards. Here are a few concepts from this deck that can help other achieve the game-frame mind:

Epic Meanings

Definition: players will be highly motivated if they believe they are working to achieve something great, something awe-inspiring, something bigger than themselves.

Example: From Jane McGonical’s Ted Talk where she discusses Warcraft’s ongoing story line and “epic meaning” that involves each individual has motivated players to participate outside the game and create the second largest wiki in the world to help them achieve their individual quests and collectively their epic meanings.

Micro Leader-boards

Definition: The rankings of all individuals in a micro-set. Often great for distributed game dynamics where you want many micro-competitions or desire to induce loyalty.

Example: Be the top scorers at Joe’s bar this week and get a free appetizer.

Fixed-Interval Reward Schedules

Definition: Fixed interval schedules provide a reward after a fixed amount of time, say 30 minutes. This tends to create a low engagement after a reward, and then gradually increasing activity until a reward is given, followed by another lull in engagement.

Example: Farmville, wait 30 minutes, crops have appeared.

Social Business Gamification

Get Your Game Mechanics Playdeck Flash Cards Here

“It’s not the technology, it’s the psychology”

Anyone that has ever been on a diet or has worked on creating healthy lifestyle habits can tell you that changing behavior is not easy. The path to success usually involves positive reinforcement from within and others. Negative behaviors from within or others can easily keep us from achieving our goals. This human behavior also applies to “Motivational Design”, as in the use of “Gamification” to help guide players through desired behaviors to achieve goals.

It’s not the technology, it’s the psychology

Innovation Gamification

Gamification combined with Design Thinking can help us think differently about innovation. Leveraging this process with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) provides new levels of engagement for supporting desired behaviors. The seven phases of design thinking and a video about teaching design thinking through gamification are available here, “Design Thinking Gamification for Accelerating Innovation“.

Beyond Gamification of Healthy Behaviors

Gartner predicts that by 2015, more than 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will Gamify those processes, “The Gamification of Innovation in the Enterprise“. Gartner also added Gamification in their 2011 Technology Hype Cycle report. Gamification does have a lot of hype, but can also be used for good.

Robert Scoble recorded an amazing interview with keas‘ Adam Bosworth that goes beyond Gamification for healthy behaviors. Adam candidly talks about the jagged rocks of failure scattered along the curves on the road to success. He also mentions numerous stats and facts, this within itself shows the value of understanding your audience and measuring what is important. There are a LIFETIME of lessons packed in this 41 minute video.

Quick Quotes

• “Never start a web project as a platform problem”
• “What are we really trying to do?”
• “It’s not the technology, it’s the psychology”

Powerful Persuasive Points

1. Help Solve Real Problems
2. Positive Reinforcement is Powerful
3. Make. Measure. Modify.
4. Surface Specific Steps
5. Think People Over Technology
6. Seek First to Understand
7. Practice Persuasive Design
8. Group Size Affects Engagement
9. ???

How Gamification of Health Works

The “Power of Play” guides behavior and changes attitudes about goals. See how keas works and why gamification of health is important in this video.

Twitter Gamification Gameboard

Gamification and the art of Motivational Design are complex topics, but there are many smart people and organizations willing to help. Here are several people and organizations on Twitter that are focused on Gamification, Game Mechanics, and Game Theory for engagement on this Twitter Gamification Gameboard. People can also connect with others by following this Gamification Twitter List.
marigo Seriosity mbjorn gzicherm dingstweets amyjokim mich8elwu mmartoccia GrahamHill

Creating Persuasive Experiences

Adam Bosworth talks about creating persuasive technology during the process of creating keas in his video interview. Persuasive Technology is broadly defined as technology that is designed to change attitudes or behaviors of the users through persuasion and social influence, but not through coercion (Fogg 2002). Such technologies are regularly used in sales, diplomacy, politics, religion, military training, public health, and management, and may potentially be used in any area of human-human or human-computer interaction.

Here are a few resources for developing a strategy on creating persuasive experiences.

Stanford Persuasive Tech Lab: By empowering millions of people to create persuasive experiences with technology, we will have thousands, and perhaps millions, of forces working toward the better in the world.

Stanford Behavior Design: The best design solutions today change human behavior. Yet despite decades of research, challenges remain for people who design to influence. First, “persuasion” seems a dirty word. It shouldn’t be. We should now embrace that we’re in the business of behavior change. Next problem: conceptual confusion. The landscape of persuasion can be disorienting, muddied by impractical theories and over-hyped techniques. Our new work provides a clear view of behavior change, including language that is simple yet accurate.

Stanford Game Theory: Game theory is the study of the ways in which strategic interactions among economic agents produce outcomes with respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those agents, where the outcomes in question might have been intended by none of the agents.

The Gamification Summit NYC is the must-attend event that shows you how to use the power of games to create breakthrough engagement with your customers and employees. Companies like Gilt Groupe, Google, Microsoft, NBC/Universal, MTV, Recyclebank and Aetna have leveraged gamification to transform their businesses, and will share startling insights, statistics and hands-on workshops at GSummit NYC.