It’s awesome to see how production has grown over time.

In case you didn’t ever watch “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, the guy on the right is Lieutenant Commander Data. No, he’s not really that much bigger than Captain Picard, it’s just a joke.

Seriously though, for those who are looking for more insight into Big Data (the actual data, not the big robot shown above), Stephen Few has a useful article that goes into what Big Data is not. Warning, it’s a long read but worthwhile – he dissects a book on the subject and challenges a lot of the assertions in a way that gives clearer understanding of what Big Data really is.

My fascination is not so much with big data but with the visualisation of data, big or otherwise. I believe that showing data in a way we can quickly comprehend is hugely helpful in adding value to almost any subject. Sadly, it’s not common to find, and that’s not surprising considering how difficult it can be to do well.

As an example, you can have a look at this visual summary of the South African 2011 Local Government Elections that I put together a while ago. Don’t know about you, but it certainly makes the picture a lot clearer to me than lines and lines of meaningless statistics in a newspaper article.

Have you seen any good examples (again, of big data or little data) that make you look at things differently?

It all started off years ago with a terrible little blog I called “The state we’re in” over at blogspot. The interwebs couldn’t kill it, so it’s still there, but at least it got me started. From there I started writing at outthink.blogspot.com sometime in 2007 I think it was. That was great fun, when the blogosphere was still small. I met a bunch of awesome people online, wrote about stuff I loved and generally had a blast with blogging.

From there I moved to outthink.co.za when I discovered the power of wordpress and thought a stand-alone domain would be a good idea. It was good for a while, I connected with more people, got some cool feedback on the site and even toyed with the idea of somehow turning it into a business of some sort. Then I caught a bad case of writer’s block [can you even get this if you’re not a real writer?]. Boom. Nothing.

After a while, I also started having a few issues with the domain host and eventually decided I’d had enough, so I exported all those posts and just let go of the outthink.co.za domain. Screw them, I thought. Why pay monthly to host a site? If Seth Godin can host his blog on typepad then I sure as hell can host mine on wordpress.com. So I did that.

All the posts were moved into atomicnuts.wordpress.com. I liked the new name. It seemed like a good idea at the time, especially the name. I thought it was witty, clever and very descriptive. It was all about how it’s the little things [“atomic”] that hold things together [“nuts”, as in nuts and bolts]. I lost pretty much all my google-love, links and readers when I moved, but I figured it would be okay.

Turns out it wasn’t. They didn’t return. And the new name irritated me, to the point where I didn’t want to write anymore. The thought of my own thoughts showing up on that domain was not pleasant. But life was busy and I just left it.

Until now. I still have writer’s block , but I figure since I’m not a real writer that actually can’t be true, and I just have to get back to writing about things that really interest me. Well, not writing about them. Just putting words down on paper, or the screen, or wherever else I can find to put them.

So that’s the reason for the change.

And the new name?

One Raging Bull.

Raging Bull… the name given to the logo of Lamborghini [just as an aside, Ferrari has the Prancing Horse. I mean, seriously!? :P]

And it’s also a play on Bull… as in a bullish market, finance-related [just up my alley], and positive as well.

Witty. Clever. And very descriptive too. Wait, where have I seen this before…

Anyhow, here it is. It’s good to be back, and it’s going to be fun.

Any questions?

No is an easy way to grab power, because with yes comes responsibility, but no is the easy way to block action, to exert the privilege of your position to slow things down. No comes from fear and greed…

This is why yes-men and no-[people?] don’t see eye to eye.

The trouble with Yes is when it comes at any cost. When there is no respect or accountability for the consequences of saying Yes; when saying Yes means dragging everyone else through the miry pit as well just to be a people-pleaser.

Be brave and strong enough to say Yes whenever you can. But be smart and humble enough to say No when you have to. [rather than saying No whenever you can, and Yes only when you have to].

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

Please note I am not a political analyst or commentator. I just like a different way of looking at these results, and the fact that doing so helps us to ask some different questions rather than taking the spin being fed to the general public.

I’m not a graphic designer either, but have tried to keep these easy to read and view. I hope you enjoy looking at it this way, would love to hear whether you think it’s a good way of breaking it down and whether there are other ways of doing so.

Here it is:

Here are some other posts of mine that have been “politically inspired” and that also try to take a different perspective on our country’s powers-that-be:

• The 2009 election results – a change in voter perspective
• How times change – SA’s election results since 1994
• South African political parties in a word [or three]
• What are we voting for? Please tell us