I am attending a conference about data and how to use it for student success. My head is full of numbers, not words. But just for kicks, and for a much needed diversion, I went out and looked for shapes, signs, bars, (no, not that kind) and anything I thought could be used as pictographs. A pictograph is ‘a pictorial representation of statistics on a chart, graph, or computer screen.’  These are often called ‘infographics.’

So use your imagination with me and think of stats that might go with these infographics.  For example, in the flower plates, I can see data points hugging the x/y axis pretty closely showing a high correlation between whatever it is that the data represents.

Can you see it?  In the four lamps I can see an Analysis of Variance ANOVA with four groups. The difference within groups is represented in the lamp light; the variance between groups is represented in the circles at the bottom.  Do you think I’m crazy yet? I think data presentation and analysis is part art and part science.   I think the show is just as important as the content!

A man saw me taking a picture of a chandelier. He asked, “Do you like blown glass?” “No, I like geometric shapes.” Surprised by my answer he continued to tell me about the glass  blowing factory near by.  I’m sure he thought I was nuts. Oh well. What do you expect of a woman who attends a conference about analytics?

There are some pretty cool infographic software packages out now so it’s pretty easy to doll up your data.  Or maybe you are like me. You see statistics, and patterns, and numbers, and art in everything you see. In that case I suggest you let someone a little more grounded check out your presentations before you show them to the big bosses! 😉