Juice Analytics

Conventional

4-door sedan

Financial spreadsheet

Old-school conference

Un-conventional

Tesla Model S

Interactive model

Product Camp un-conference

Juice isn’t known for doing things in traditional ways. I guess that’s one of the reasons we’re good at what we do. So, when we had the opportunity to sponsor the 2012 Atlanta Product Camp un-conference, we knew we had to get involved.

If you’re not familiar with Product Camp, it’s based on the barcamp un-conference model where people who are interested in a particular concept come together and decide right then and there what sessions they think should occupy the day. In other words, the agenda just includes slots and potential topics, but the actual session topics are not settled until the day of the event. For Product Camp, this is all about product management and marketing: a full day of learning, discussing, and practicing great product management tips and techniques — all based on what those actually in attendance want to discuss.

So, if you’re a Juice fan, a product manager, and in Atlanta (or nearby), click through to register (it’s free) and join Juice and the other 300 folks who are already registered.

Here’s one more conventional/not conventional comparison for the road:

Conventional: donuts

Un-conventional: Sublime doughnuts (the breakfast Juice is providing at Product Camp)

(Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we’ve proposed a topic for discussion: “Winning Friends and Influencing People… with Data!” So, we’d love to see our community show up and vote Juice into a session slot — let’s show the Atlanta product community how to communicate better with data!)

Over the years, our Chart Chooser website has gained fairly significant attention from folks like Jason Shen, O’Reilly Radar, and Lifehacker. But more importantly, it has gained notoriety from folks like you who have loved it and used it to have better conversations with data — and that’s what really gets our hearts pumping.

So, as thanks for making Chart Chooser one of our most popular creations, we decided it is time for a remake. Introducting Chart Chooser Version 2!

Chart Chooser version 2

If you’re new to Chart Chooser, it helps you identify the right chart based on what you are trying to show, and then lets you download the Excel or PowerPoint version of that chart to help you get your job done — all in Tufte-compliant style.

We’ve remade this free tool using HTML (Version 1 was written in Flash which is oh, so last year) and have improved the navigation and filtering. Additionally, we’ve been working on some pretty cool things in the Juice Labs and the new framework will enable us to add the best of these creations for you all to see and use — stay tuned!

Thanks to Andrew Abela of Extreme Presentations for inspiring Chart Chooser with his “Choosing a Good Chart” post and for working with us to put this tool together.

So, are you ready? Give it a click and choose your chart to your heart’s content!

I need your help. I want to ask my wife if she’d like to go see a movie with me. Which way do you think I should go:

Option 1:

“Interested in catching the 7PM showing of Hunger Games at the AMC?”

Option 2:

Time: 7PM

Movie: Hunger Games

Location: AMC

Attend?

Well, we both know the answer: she might be inclined to take me up on my offer either way, but with the second option, she might also be inclined to make me sit on a different row.

We know that when we talk to people, we have to do so in a way that feels warm and personal. Why is it then, that when we design systems for people, we want to woo them with option 2?

Imagine a sales report where you select a date range, the type of transaction you are interested in and the resulting metrics. It might look something like this:

Start date: 1/15/2012

End date: 4/2/2012

Type of transaction: Closed deals

Revenue: $1,500,000.

Number of deals: 6

On the other hand, why don’t we treat these sort of data interactions more personable; more like a conversation? Take that same report and re-imagine it in the metaphor of a sentence. Something perhaps like this:

Between 1/15/2012 and today, there have been 6 deals that closed, totaling $1.5m in revenue.

Nifty? We think so. To see some examples and learn more, check out this latest addition to our design principles library.

Here’s to treating people like… well, um… people!

It’s been a long road. A road fraught with jubilation. A road fraught with tears. A road fraught with… well, you get the idea.

Now we have the final two. It is iPhone over Wikipedia and Google Search over Amazon Store. And not even close:

(click to see the semi-finals results)

So, who will take it all? Will it be iPhone or Google Search on the throne:

(click to see and download a larger version)

Now vote! Remember, your picks should be based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites on the Technology Bracketology championship game. We’ll report on the championship results on Tuesday, April 3rd. Stay tuned!

iPhone. Wikipedia. Google Search. Amazon Store. Now it gets interesting. The winners from each of the four regions, pitted against each other. Nerds versus Dweebs; Geeks versus Dorks. What could be more exciting? (It reminds me of that time in high school when the chess club ambushed the french horns behind the bleachers: lots of broken glasses and mechanical pencils.)

Here are the results from Round 4:

(Round 4 results - region champions)

And here’s the updated bracket:

(The final four! Click to download a copy)

Now vote! Remember, your picks should be based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites on the Technology Bracketology Round 5. We’ll report on Round 5 results on Saturday, March 31st, and we’ll run the final championship round on Monday April, 2nd!

Feel like the NCAA tournament is going stale, with the same teams advancing every year? Technology Bracketology is the cure for what ails you. This weekend saw four upsets in eight games. It was a strong weekend for Google as 3 of their products made the final eight. The big story is Cinderella Google Maps who has crushed every foe thus far, but faces behemoth iPhone this week.

Now it’s time to get down to business and vote for the Technology Bracketology final four.

Here are the results from Round 3:

(Click to see the round 3 results)

Here are the 8 who want to be 4:

(Round 4 bracket - click to download your own copy)

You know the drill: now it’s time to vote!! Don’t forget to pick your winners based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites on the Technology Bracketology Round 4. We’ll report on Round 4 results on Thursday, March 29th.

What could be possibly sweeter than Juice? The Technology Bracketology Sweet 16, of course! And oh! how sweet it is!

The 64 became 32; who became 16. Sixteen technologies that have turned their competitor’s lemonade into lemons. Check it out:

(Sweet Round 2 results - no sugar added)

Here are a couple of games that we found particularly interesting:

Number 2 seed iTunes came out on top of 10 seeded Pandora, but not by as much as we might have expected. Pandora clinched a full 39% of the votes. Cool.

The truly amazing story was how much number 5 seeded GPS crushed number 4 seeded Twitter with 88% of the votes. (Hmmm… sounds like a sweet tweet in the making.)

So, here comes round 3:

(Bracket ready for round 3)

Now it’s time to have at it and vote for your favorite 8! Don’t forget to pick your winners based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites on the Technology Bracketology Round 3. We’ll report on Round 3 results on Monday, March 25th.

And the 16 shall become 8. Sweet!

(By the way we couldn’t help but to point out our favorite comment from one of our voters: “I think that Juice needs to acquire one of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners of the tourney and get a group picture with said winners.” Thanks for your feedback. We’ll get right on that!)

While you guys were watching #15 seeded Lehigh spank #2 seeded Duke this weekend, we were keeping our eyes on the Technology Bracketology slugfest. Round 1 is over and here are the results:

(Click to see the full results!)

While we didn’t quite see the techno-version of the Duke/Lehigh schooling, we did have a few upsets of our own. We were amused to find TiVo showing the Prius how it’s done, but were just plain shocked by Flash’s refusal to be obliterated by Apple’s iOS. Notice any other unexpected playas?

Here’s the updated bracket showing those results:

(Results from Round 1 voting)

And now for Round 2!

Again, pick your winners based on:

• influence: changed how we thought about a problem and future technology solutions
• innovative: new and different, why didn’t I think of that?
• adoption: pervasive, widely used

You can vote for your favorites here: Technology Bracketology Round 2.

We’ll report on Round 2 results on Thursday, March 22nd. Go!

Happy Monday! Have you been thinking about your entry in the O’Reilly Strata Data Visualization Contest that we’re running?

If you’re looking for a more complex visualization example that’s more infographic-y than the ones we’ve been covering over the past few days, take a look at this very well done example done for GE by Fathom and Ben Fry entitled “Powering the Kitchen”.

Fathom has taken a story-like approach with this one by laying it with each tab/page a different interactive view into the data. We like it because it allows the user to explore and investigate the same data from several different, but controlled perspectives. It’s all topped off with nice use of color and contrast to make sure the viewer is looking at the most important fact on the page.

Keep working and don’t forget that all visualizations are due on Sunday 8/28 before midnight, Eastern time.