Before I begin, readers (and especially family and friends) should not derive any subtle conclusions from the topic! Believe me, there is nothing to announce. Who has time?
I have always been fascinated by data, and especially different methods to represent data. I can’t tell you how many times I have revised spreadsheets and charts just to make the information more understandable. I’m also on the lookout for innovative ways to display complex and sometimes overwhelming amounts of data.
Several years ago I came across the Baby Name Voyager. This unique java-based website taps into a monstrous name database and lets you view the popularity of various names throughout the last several decades. But the most intriguing aspect of the site is how the data is displayed.
You start with what looks like a jumble of stacked lines.
You then start to enter letters at the cursor. For example, entering "K" constrains the data to all names beginning with that letter.
As additional letters are typed the data is constrained further and dynamically updated. Finally we get to the name we want.
Which is when we often realize that our names peaked right around when we were born. I wonder why that is…! Rolling over the various components of the chart will provide additional information like overall rank and trending.
Now… imagine how this type of data display could be used in business. Take sales or other financial data. The aggregate could be for the entire business, then you could dynamically drill down by division, value stream, work cell, and part. Has anyone seen such a system?
Peden says
While Lean purists would find designs like these wastefull (overprocessing?), it certainly looks great! And there must be some serious algorithms behind it.
Sylvain Martel says
Hi Kevin,
Apparently Wal Mart uses similar algorithms to determine the product usage per stores as well as tool to analyze the upcoming trend which would by example trigger their Florida stores to stock up with beer before a hurricane comes and then with Pop Tarts after the hurricane. Thomas Friedman bring up several examples like this in his book “The World is Flat”
Cheers,
Sylvain
david foster says
OT…hi, Kevin…FYI, I just linked your old post on the outsourced bill processing center (the case where the payment vouchers didn’t fit the envelopes properly) here:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/5604.html#more-5604
Pete Abilla says
First off, my wife’s favorite discussion topic is baby names.
Second, if you haven’t read Edward Tufte, you need to; he’s a mathematician at Yale, whose research area is the visual display of quantitative information — it is about simplicity, meaning, and not an art project. Amazing stuff.
Third, I disagree with your first commenter on this post — the visual display of the baby name data is intuitive, simple, and usable — there’s no overprocessing there. In fact, the simple elegance is quite TPS.
Guy Davis says
You may find this map of popular baby names interesting as well (http://www.babynamemap.com or click my name below). It includes the Social Security Administration data set used by the Voyager, but also has data from a bunch of other countries.
Ken says
The more you look at this the more you see how much information is conveyed. Male, female, ranking stratification by shades. Pretty incredible.
I liked looking at how some “fad” names were born and quickly died (luckily), like Candy, Bambi, and the like. Also note how some names began as male names then became predominantly female, like Taylor and Toby.
That’s one slick piece of software. I’d love to use it with business metrics.
The Right Baby Name says
The Right Baby Name is very interested in applying the data underlying patterns in baby naming to help parents choose baby names. You may be interested in the tools we have at http://www.TheRightBabyName.com They’re derived from analysis of numerous name databases in addition to the SSA’s. Take a look and let us know what you think…
The Right Baby Name Team
Kevin says
Kevin is still the most popular name among its variants, and even if it’s off its peak, in terms of ranking, it’s still at the top 50! See this chart for ranking as well as usage: http://www.babynamespedia.com/meaning/Kevin