Client Infographic: An Illustrated View of SAP SPS 18

The SPS 18 Fact Sheet is a new infographic InfoNewt (my company) designed recently for Panaya, a software-as-a-service company that provides upgrade automation to SAP customers.  The team at Panaya has some fantastic, proprietary data and needed a way to share that information with current and future customers.

It’s mind-boggling that the SAP Enterprise software is so big that the last round of updates had 13,349 notes/changes!  I can totally understand the need for Panaya’s simulations and analysis for IT managers trying to manage implementing these updates.  Panaya has a fantastic service that can evaluate the impact of each update package (support package stack) for their clients’ unique and different installations of SAP.

Every company uses (or doesn’t use) the SAP modules differently and knowing which modules have the most notes/changes can make a big difference on how you implement each update.  

SAP Support Package Stacks Have Never Looked so Sexy – An Illustrated View of SPS 18

SAP Support Package Stacks are “mega bundles” of software updates that SAP periodically makes available. These updates include important bug fixes, performance improvements, and legal changes such as labor and tax law changes. The challenge is that most stacks include well over 10,000 changes or “Notes.” And these changes can impact installations in ways that are hard to predict, with possible adverse effect on business processes.

One of the advantages of running a SaaS solution here at Panaya is that we can run aggregate analysis across hundreds of projects. Think “Google Trends” for SAP Support Package Stacks. We ran our simulation over hundreds of different instances to determine the typical impact areas and other stats. The goal is to help you plan towards your implementations.

We sent an early version to several thousands of reviewers and got great feedback.

As a next step, we partnered with designer Randy Krum, who, believe it or not, is not only a talented artist, but also a former SAP BPX-er. So he can actually pronounce ABAP and can tell BI from FI.

So without further ado, here’s SAP Support Pack 18 like you have never seen it before: 

Thanks to Udi and the rest of the team at Panaya!  There’s much more information available at Panayainc.com and ERP Executive: The Magazine for SAP Managers.

Should I Work for Free? - a flowchart

Should I Work for Free? is a great decision tree flowchart from Jessica Hische.  Start in the middle and work your way out.  

I made this flowchart for my future students but I think it’s useful for pretty much any creative, myself included. Prints to come!

I’ve heard some of these rationales before…

Thanks for the link Erica!

The (Visual) Evolution of the Batmobile

This is a really TALL infographic, but fun to read through nevertheless.  The Evolution of the Batmobile from Carinsurance.org (I wish they would credit the designer) is a visual timeline in the form of a comic book page looking at many (I’m sure they missed some, but not many) versions of the Batmobile from 1941 to 2010.  They also cover different versions from comics, television, movies, ads, posters and computer games.

The Batmobile has always been the trademark vehicle for Batman. However, throughout the history of the comic, the Batmobile has undergone some changes to its design and gadgets. Here’s an overview of some of the evolutions of the Batmobile.

How Would You Like Your Graphic Design? #infographic

Designed by Colin Harman, How Would You Like Your Graphic Design? made me laugh this morning.  Great venn diagram infographic.

There are times when things just need to be explained using a spectacular Venn diagram. I made this last night whilst sitting on a screened in porch by an outdoor fireplace when it was late. Design is a funny thing, not as funny as a Kangaroo jumping on a trampoline, but let’s be honest what is as funny as that? I’ll give you a little hint: nothing.

Anyways, I love design, but it has it’s limitations in the creation process. Hopefully this helps you understand what those are and help you choose how you would like your design work in the future.

Your thoughts?

Although designed as a treatise about graphic design, it applies to infographics as well.

Update on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 2:02PM by Randy

The designer, Colin Harman, has made the printed poster available here: http://colinharman.bigcartel.com

The Blog Tree

The Blog Tree is growing on me.  A project collaboration between JESS3 and Eloqua, it uses the tree metaphor to map out the post prominent Marketing blogs by traffic size and category.

The Blog Tree maps out the marketing blog structure from the most prominent blogs at the roots through the leaves which are shown in different colors to indicate the size of each blog’s readership. The positioning and color of the blogs were determined using publicly-available visitor data about each web site on compete.com.

This has gotten a lot of traffic on its own, and they are experimenting with an interesting call to action for viewers.  

As for those blogs not yet portrayed on the infographic, Eloqua invites and encourages their authors to tag The Blog Tree infographic on Eloqua’s Facebook account in order to be included in future versions and receive an official “Blog Tree” badge for their site.

Where’s the infographic blog branch?

Journalism in the Age of Data

Wow!  Journalism in the Age of Data, by Geoff McGhee at Stanford, is a fantastic video documentary looking at the Age of Infographics, and how we got here.

Journalists are coping with the rising information flood by borrowing data visualization techniques from computer scientists, researchers and artists. Some newsrooms are already beginning to retool their staffs and systems to prepare for a future in which data becomes a medium. But how do we communicate with data, how can traditional narratives be fused with sophisticated, interactive information displays?

A video report on data visualization as a storytelling medium.  Produced during a 2009-2010 Knight Journalism Fellowship.  Total running time: 54 minutes with related information and links.

It is 54 minutes long, but nicely broken out into 8 chapters.  Geoff was able to interview some of the true superstars in the Infographics field.

Found on Visual Journalism

Rogue Infographics - The Empowered E-Patient Translated into Chinese

I found one of my recent client infographics, The Empowered E-Patient, translated and posted on a Chinese site, www.mazingtech.com (along with many others), but it’s not a version that I designed.  I also had to view the site using this link with Google Translate.  Someone has downloaded the original image file, translated all of the text into Chinese and then reposted the infographic.

Let me start by saying that although I designed the original infographic, I don’t think I have a big problem with someone else translating it and republishing it without my permission (or involvement) in this way.  It was done very well, and the client I designed it for feels the same way.

Here you can see the original and the translated version side-by-side:

You can see that someone spent some time with an image editing program trying to do this right and make it look official.  The Chinese text is the same size and color as the original English, and was very carefully positioned.  The visuals were left intact, as were all of the logos, website addresses and even the copyright information.  

Technically, I think this would be considered a copyright violation, but it’s not like another site is claiming ownership or directing traffic to a new, different destination site.  Because of the care that was taken, if this infographic is reaching more people because of the translation, it would be successfully driving more awareness and traffic to the PathOfTheBlueEye.com site.  That was the whole point of the original infographic in the first place!

One issue is that because I wasn’t part of the translation process, I don’t know that it was translated correctly.  If there actually is some existing demand to view this in Chinese, I could have offered that service to my client to make sure that we were happy with the translation.

It’s worth noting, that there are MANY English infographics that have translated into Chinese on this site, but the navigation to find them is very difficult.  Here are a few more from other designers that I have posted before on Cool Infographics, but have been translated and reposted in Chinese.  (You can click the titles to see the original English version I posted)

WTF is HTML5, and Why Should We Care?

Apple, Adobe Flash and H.264

The Visual FAQ of SEO infographic

Visualisation Mag: Hand-Drawn Infographic Contest!

Chris Watson, author of Visualisation Magazine is hosting a contest for all of you.  The next issue will be Visualisation: Volume 4 - Handmade Informal, and the contest winner will be featured on the cover (plus featured on the GOOD Magazine blog, the VisualThinkMap blog and here on Cool Infographics).  Seriously, ANYONE can enter, and you don’t have to be an expert in any expensive design software or programming languages.

Deadline is the end of December, so you have plenty of time to submit your entry.

Chris has setup a special group on Flickr where anyone can submit their entries.

This is the group to share your submissions for the contest to feature your work on the Cover (front wrapping round to the back), a double page spread and a blog post on GOOD Magazine blog, Vism.ag/blog and CoolInfographics.com.

I want to emphasize handmade techniques like, etching, screen printing, metal press, lino, mono printing, drawn, paper folding. the only digital element would be the capturing of the work for the front cover to send us, or taking printed elements and manipulating them by hand… to an extent.

CHECKOUT THESE PEOPLE FOR INSPIRATION:

Stefan G Bucher

Denis Wood & Siglio Press

Grayson Perry

Stefanie Posavec

Sara Fanelli

Amy Franceschini

Alfred Wainwright

VENTURI, SCOTT BROWN AND ASSOCIATES, INC

Visualise any subject you like (try not to be too offensive, would like all ages to appreciate) and to consider the: 

Complexity
Innovation
Culture

TO BE JUDGED 

by GOOD Magazine, Density Design, Cool Infographics & Visualisation Magazine

End date: aiming for end of December. 

Judging: Beginning of January

Dont’ be intimidated if you’re not an infographic designer by day.  This contest is open to everyone who thinks they can tell a good message visually.  Judging will be based on these criteria:

Complexity: More complexity doesn’t always equal better infographic.  Does the infographic improve understanding of a normally complex topic?

Innovation: Is the visual design method innovative, and visualize the data in a new way?

Culture: Is the infographic relevant to a broad audience in today’s world?  Does it have cultural importance?

More details can be found at vism.ag/61

Since I’ll be one of the judges, I can’t enter myself.  I will probably post more than just the winner here on the blog.  I expect the judging will be tough, and we’ll have a number of really good entries.

Please help spread the word and retweet the contest!

Client Infographic: What Consumers Think About Concrete

A project I did recently for The Concrete Network visualizes the results of their 2010 Concrete Floor Survey.  They have some exclusive research data from consumers, and What Consumers Think About Concrete explores the consumer perceptions of concrete floors and uses visuals to make the information interesting and relevant.

The team at Concrete Network did a great job of taking a boring report filled with bar chart after bar chart, converting that data into an appealing infographic and then integrating those visuals into the report they distribute publicly.

Original survey report:

Infographic Design:

Public Survey Report PDF:

Images of actual projects were very important to make the concrete floor color choices relevant and understandable.  

I also made this project somewhat interactive.  Instead of zooming in and moving around a large infographic image, each of the separate data visuals is clickable to view that section in detail.  Using textures relevant to the data also makes the resulting visuals interesting and quick to comprehend.

Thanks to Khara and the team at The Concrete Network!

Client Infographic: The Empowered E-Patient

The Empowered E-Patient is a recent project InfoNewt (my company) did for the Path of the Blue Eye Project.  The statistics are compelling, and certainly support that e-patients are now mainstream.

In 2000, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 25% of Americans searched online for health information.  Today, 61% rely on the Web for medical and health content.  Americans’ growing reliance on Dr. Google and Nurse Yahoo! has led to profound changes in how health organizations and providers relate to and communicate with consumers.

Notably, this infographic provides information on e-patient social media communications from a Project-produced research report, “Communicating with the Empowered E-Patient.”  This report is available free of charge to individuals making regular contributions to the Project’s knowledge community, Living the Path.  Learn more about how to access this report here.

One of the challenges was defining not only what is an e-patient, but also what is the correct term to refer to these people looking up medical information online.  We ended up using Google to determine which terms are used most commonly, and the title ‘e-patient” was clearly the term used most often.

Thanks to Fard and the team at Enspektos.com.  There’s much more information available at the Path of the Blue Eye Project.