Analytics can be all about having the right tool for the job. When your data is text, traditional analysis tools (e.g. Excel, OLAP tools) are like peeling a mango with a chainsaw.

There are a number of visual exploration tools specifically designed for text data, including:

• Word clouds like Wordle (fun but superficial);
• Network diagrams like Visual Thesaurus (good for individual words, not text);
• Trend graphs like Baby Name Voyager or Google Trends;
• Granular presentations for interacting and exploring individual phrases, e.g. We Feel Fine and Twistori
• "Word trees" that let you navigate through lines of text to understand the most frequent words, relationships between words, and common phase and sentence structures.

It is quite difficult to find a Word Tree in the wild. The brilliant team at IBM's Many Eyes were the first to make Word Tree's generally available. The same ManyEyes team have also created an alternative approach for visual text exploration with a tool called Phrase Net.

Recently, we built a slightly different take on the Word Tree in Concentrate, our tool which allows users to explore huge search query lists to see how people use search keywords. For geeky entertainment, we created a special Concentrate demo account with the lyrics of songs from Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Click here to sign-in to the demo (Press submit and then choose WordTree at the top).

Here's how our Word Tree works:

• The box at the center is your starting point. When you open a Word Tree, it will contain the most common word in the text data. You can edit this box to "re-center" the wordtree (name that tune):

• Stretched out on either side are words and phrases that are tied to that center word. The size of the words represents their relative frequency.

• Rolling over the words/phrases will highlight the connections to your center word and on the other side. You'll also see a pop-up box with examples of the phrases containing selected words.

• You can open or close branches by clicking on a word. Words with hidden branches are highlighted in orange. We also have an ability colorize the words based on a metric in your text data.

While these more advanced visualizations are a start, I suspect there is a lot of room for other tools and techniques to visually explore text data. I'd be curious to hear about other tools you've seen along these lines.

Over the past few years we've made the point that today's BI vendors stop short of joining data to decision makers at the point of decision and action. We like to call this problem the "last mile". As it turns out, Gartner does, too.

According to a recent article, Gartner analyst Kurt Schlegel states in the report "Overcoming the Gap Between Business Intelligence and Decision Support" that most companies still aren't able to link BI to "the last mile" of making decisions that actually help their businesses.

Gartner joins a short list of other prominent voices (Tableau, SAS) in the BI community that have already come on board with Juice on this concept. We're very glad to see others addressing the gap of making information really and truly useful for decision makers.

While we're at it, that's not the only theme that has seeped into the Gartner perspective: Gartner's global BI manager Ian Bertram says the fundamental problem with BI isn't about technology, it has to do with making BI work better for people. In other words, "BI isn't a technical problem, it's a social one"

So Gartner Folks, if you're out there and following our blog, we're excited to see you coming along side with us. And as long as you're listening, here's a few other ideas we'd love to see you consider as well:

• The maturation process of data analytics
• How today's BI tools should be designed to be used
• The proper application of substance over decoration
• and last (but certainly not least), the importance of good Information Experiences™

Conventional wisdom says that an executive dashboard must fit on a single page or screen. The argument hinges on a pair of assertions about this constraint: it provides necessary discipline to focus on only the most critical information; and it enables the audience to see results "at a glance."

The "discipline" argument is made forcefully by Avinash Kaushik (among others).

"if your dashboard does not fit on one page, you have a report, not a dashboard...This rule is important because it encourages rigorous thought to be applied in selecting the golden dashboard metric."

I buy wholeheartedly into the value of constraints. However, defining a useful constraint as a "rule" assumes there is only one viable means to achieve the desired ends. Confining visual real estate is but one way to focus your thinking. There are others: How about limiting yourself to five key measures? How about demanding that a dashboard can be understood in 3 minutes by a new user? How about only presenting exceptions?

The argument that a one-page dashboard necessarily provides an view of your business "at a glance" is more self-deceiving. Well-known information-ista Stephen Few uses this rationale in his definition of a dashboard:

A visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives; consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance. PDF

I check my speedometer "at a glance". I "glance" at a Heads-up Display (HUD) on a video game showing how much energy my character has remaining. These displays communicate but a single number that is already hovering on the corner of my consciousness. If we follow this advice literally, we'd show:

Assuming one page gives you quick, easy comprehension is like assuming all red cars are fast. That's simply not true. It must be duly noted, however, that all red cars are cool.

More often, people follow the one-page dashboard rule off a cliff like these folks.

There are real problems with this definition:

• In reality, the one-page rule leads to jamming information into the available space.
• When everything must fit on a page, there isn't room to describe the connections between information or fashion a story from the data.
• A good dashboard raises more questions than it can answer. Sticking to a static piece of paper limits any ability to find or present explanations.

Don't get me wrong: A one-page dashboard is often an effective way to create "a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives." But with streaming video, interactive visualizations, podcasts, Kindles, smart phones, video projectors...is it really necessary to limit ourselves to 8.5" x 11" piece of paper. Or might we open ourselves up to some more creative solutions to sharing the numbers; a short movie, a few slides, a short text narrative, or 140 characters.

I'd like to use this definition instead and will be back soon with some ideas on how to make your dashboards clear and concise.