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Month: September 2022

The Insider’s Guide: 5 Ways to Get to Know the Real Morocco

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If Morocco represents the kind of exotic travel you’ve always dreamed of, your dilemma may be deciding on how best to spend limited time in a country that is so diverse. Morocco is vast and distinctive, from the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara Desert, from the magical blue town of Chefchaouen to the fishing village of Essaouira, which has become a modern surfing destination. What is the “real” Morocco? Here are five suggestions.

Dine with a Berber Family

Some Berber mountain villages welcome visitors and it’s possible to visit a family for mint tea, a simple meal, or even an overnight homestay. An ideal way to experience the unique culture of indigenous Moroccans, such visits are included in some tours. If you plan to be near Tagounite Village at the edge of the Sahara desert, inquire about visiting a Berber home at Draa Oasis.  

Visit the tanneries in Fez

Take your pick from three major tanneries in the city — all of them manually strip the hair from animal hides and dye them with color created from natural pigments, the way it’s been done for centuries. It’s “pungent,” done with natural ammonia (from pigeon poo), but tannery visitors are supplied with sprigs of mint to help temper the stench. Mint is used to produce green dye as well. The red comes from poppies, the blue from indigo, and saffron creates the rich yellow. Marvel at the colorful array from your vantage point on nearby rooftops. 

Experience a Hammam

This is a cultural experience, not simply an invigorating soak and massage for tired muscles. The cleansing and rejuvenating ritual has its roots in an era when private plumbing was unavailable, and both men and women went to public baths. It’s a pampering experience that no visitor should miss, whether you go solo, with a partner, or with a group of friends. Enjoy a steam bath, hot and cold plunges, skin exfoliation, therapeutic argan oil massage, or a rejuvenating full-body clay treatment, and emerge relaxed and refreshed. 

Roses — in Morocco?

You bet, the Kelaat M’Gouna Rose Festival is unique to Morocco, held for two days on the second weekend in May. At other times of the year, the valley is worth a visit to see its palm trees, clay homes, and traditional mosques, all with the backdrop of the Atlas Mountains. The scenery is breathtaking and, if you’re lucky enough to visit when the roses are in bloom, you’ll never forget the scent — or the sight — of the spectacular pink flowers that are used both in Moroccan cuisine and for world-renowned lotions and cosmetics.

Make Time for a Prayer

The Hassan II Mosque, on the Atlantic seawall in Casablanca, the largest in Africa, has a striking minaret stands 690 feet tall, and is fitted with a laser beam directed toward Mecca. Remnants of other mosques, including the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalen, the Grand Mosque of Damascus and the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakesh were used in its construction.

Finally, try to spend at least part of a night stargazing, whether from a peak in the Atlas range, or from the desert dunes. The stars above Morocco just seem to be closer and brighter than most other places on earth. Study the constellations beforehand so that you can recognize them! It’s an experience you won’t soon forget, and it’s worth missing out on sleep!

The Culture Guide: 5 Things You Should Not Do When Visiting Italy

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Oh, beautiful Italy, home to magnificent Florence, Rome, and the Tyrolean Alps. It’s a sight to behold and the home of beautiful villages, lakes, islands, and Mediterranean beaches. Italy also has some of the craziest drivers you’ve ever seen that take pride in their Ferraris and Turbo Fiats.

Italians are proud of their culture, which is often very dysfunctional, engaging, and sometimes challenging. A few things shouldn’t be done when visiting Italy, and we’re here to clue you in.

Never Commit the Ultimate Sin; Cheese on Pasta with Fish

Throughout history, numerous Italian leaders have been exiled from the country. Italians may change their governments as frequently as most of us change our pants, but they’ll want to exile you too if you put cheese on top of pasta that includes seafood. This is a culture that touts the wonderful flavor of its food and takes the greatest of pains to ensure every bite is an experience. The chef wants to know that you found the food amazing, not committed something tantamount to the ultimate food sin of covering the flavor of the fish with cheese.

Don’t Wear Shorts to a Church

The artwork in Italian churches is legendary. Walking into the Duomo in Florence, you see some of Michaelangelos’ most marvelous masterpieces. As the origination country of the church, Italians truly value their Catholic tradition, and it is important to respect it.

Jeans are acceptable but don’t wear shorts, tank tops, or flip-flops into these hallowed places if your wish to be respectful.

Don’t Plan on the Trains Being on Time

In northern European countries, trains always run on time; that is rarely the case in southern Europe. A more relaxed approach to life results in trains that can be epically late. In fact, don’t expect punctuality at all. Many shops and restaurants will close at lunchtime when Italians slowly savor their flavorful food.

Do Not Expect English to be Spoken

Almost everyone is fluent in English in Germany, as it is a compulsory subject in German schools. This is not the case in Italy, English is not widely spoken, and Italians don’t really have no desire to do so. Thankfully modern smartphone apps are available to help.

Whatever you do, please don’t yell English words. Yelling doesn’t make them any more effective or translatable.

Don’t Cut Your Spaghetti, Ever

Yes, there is pasta etiquette, and an Italian never wants to see their famous noodles end up in pieces. You will see looks of pure terror. The proper method is to roll your spaghetti around your fork with the assistance of the plate. By doing so, the essence of this dish is fully respected.

Don’t let these tips scare you away from Italy, though. It is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, filled with incredible, iconic art, amazing views, fashion, historical places, and tasty food. It’s magical and a little crazy all at once, making for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, which is also why you’ll find yourself returning again and again.

5 Ways to Transform Your Business Using Data

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Data is everywhere. It’s more than any business could ever process. It’s customer reviews, social media analytics, purchase history, page visits, productivity, and more. 

So forget about the overwhelming enormity of it for a minute. Instead, get hyper-focused on how they can actually use that data now to transform your business in real and tangible way. 

Here are 5 great places to start.

1. Business Intelligence, Not Just Data

It’s easy for business leaders to spread themselves too thin, reducing their effectiveness — especially when it comes to data analytics.

Given just how much data is out there, you’ll need to focus your efforts to see the greatest return on investment. Business intelligence is more than just collecting a lot of data.

It uses technology to narrow your focus to what’s important and helps you get a comprehensive view of performance. Harness an overwhelming amount of data quickly and efficiently so that it becomes more useful. Make more data-driven decisions because you always have up-to-date and useable information. 

For example, simple data collection can tell you how much revenue you generated in the third quarter. But business intelligence leverages the power of technology to analyze many data points. It helps you understand:

  • Why revenues rose/fell
  • Where they’re coming from
  • What you’re doing to affect them
  • How you can consistently repeat the desired result
  • How you can cut costs while doing it

Business intelligence data is not acquired through a specific type of tool. Rather, it’s a feature to look for in a great data analytics platform across industries and departments. Don’t just look for the tool that collects the most data. You can always collect more data. 

Rather, choose analytics tools that present data to you in a useful way.

2. Better Customer Targeting

For most businesses, somewhere around 50-75% of the target customers’ journey happens online. That’s great for your business. 

You can track most of what customers do online, within reason.

Don’t be a stalker. 

You can’t see everything. But you can use what you can to better understand who your ideal customers are.

  • What drives their decision-making? 
  • How do they find you?
  • What do they need from you?
  • How do they respond to your efforts?
  • What keeps them coming back?

Knowledge is power. Now, take what you learned to influence what they do. 

The real power is in collecting first-party data through your own customer relationship management software (CRM) such as HubSpot or Salesforce.

3. Cutting Costs Through Efficiency

Data analytics can help you streamline operations in every department. Identify where you’re wasting money. Then use that same data to narrow down the cause and start applying strategies to eliminate that waste.

Not only is this good for business. Employees and customers suffer in inefficient businesses. Businesses that overlook ineffective people, tech, and processes will lose customers and employees.

Enterprise resource planning tools (ERP) help you track, streamline operations, and cut wasteful resource usage related to:

  • Quality issues (internally and with vendors)
  • Productivity loss
  • Inefficient processes that should be automated or revised
  • Overspending on raw materials

4. Enhancing Customer Service

Data gives you a window into how well your customer service team is addressing customer complaints and questions.

See how these influence their future buying decisions and revenues. Gain insights into how you can generate more delighted customers. 

As an example, use data to identify your customer’s most common questions. Then build chatbots to answer those questions and free up your people to manage more advanced issues.

Not only are customers getting their answers without having to wait for a customer service rep. Customer care gets to stop answering the same obnoxious questions over and over.

Your CRM centralizes data across departments and helps you view the customer’s whole brand journey. Explore its customer experience enhancement features and put them to work to transform that brand experience.

5. Protecting Sensitive Data

Data can help you track who’s accessing private data and how they’re using it. Machine learning — a type of data analytics — can learn from the data it collects. It can spot nefarious activity more quickly, notify you, and even address the situation on its own with automation.

Network Security Monitoring tools and vulnerability scanning technology can help you begin to capture and track this data.

The Edge: 5 Ways Big Tech Companies Have Used Data to Transform Their Business

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“Big Tech” are the Tech Giants, also known as the Big Five. They are Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Microsoft. These are the dominant companies in search, online advertising, e-commerce, social media, computer software, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud services, and more. The companies are all “unicorns,” having market capitalizations of over $1 trillion up to $3 trillion.

Jaron Lanier, an early advocate and inventor of virtual reality, says, “If an online service is free, you can bet it is feeding a scheme that makes money by subconsciously manipulating people.” They achieve this manipulation by collecting and mining data with the help of artificial intelligence and then make money selling the results to the highest bidder. 

Here are five ways that Big Tech uses data to transform their business.

1. Algorithms

Big Tech created complex algorithms called “algos,” for short. An algo is a program that optimizes for a specific function, such as relevance or engagement. Using algos made these companies billions in profits.

Goggle’s algos are so powerful that they can predict a user’s behavior before the user thinks about the idea. Not only does Google know you better than your mother does, the algos know you better than you know yourself.

Meta has some algos that optimize for engagement. They learned that social media posts, which provoke outrage, attract more attention. This phenomenon is why negative information, even if untrue, spreads so quickly. Using this method is how the company keeps users engaged.

2. Big Data Mining

People using web content create a dataset of user information everywhere they go online. There is also mobile-phone tracking data showing where a person went, even if their phone is off. These two datasets can be combined and mined for insights.

Did you know that there are thousands of dataset repositories on the web? Scientists, researchers, students, or anyone interested in data mining can search for datasets using the Google tool.

Big Data mining looks for trends and gives insight into patterns that are not obvious and may be counter-intuitive. All Big Tech companies have massive data mining programs in progress and use many datasets to train AI.

3. Artificial Intelligence

Alphabet, through Google AI, is making such rapid advancements with artificial intelligence that it recently sparked a controversy about whether AI is sentient or not. One software engineer claimed that the AI was demonstrating self-awareness. Google promptly fired him for publicly making these claims and leaking confidential information.

Perhaps we can forgive him if he became confused between AI and human responses. The AI running behind the scenes for the Google Assistant, which you activate by saying, “Hey Google,” feels very humanlike at times. The huge amount of data collected by Google allows it to train the AI to simulate human responses, which are uncannily similar to what a real human person sounds like.

4. In-App Purchases

If you download an app from the Apple App store that contains in-app purchases, you may use the app for free. However, some users will make an in-app purchase. This purchase may be a digital collectible, premium feature, or game enhancement.

This strategy turns a free app into a revenue generator. Did you know that Apple takes a 15% to 30% cut of the sales? Elon Musk says that is ten times too high. Providing the App Store to let people download apps makes billions for Apple. More importantly, the data collected from app use is extremely valuable and allows Apple to track individuals across multiple devices. 

5. Privacy Moats

Apple thwarted Meta by cutting off access to iPhone user data by using the trend toward privacy concerns as an excuse. In May 2021, Apple added the App Tracking Transparency feature to the iPhone, allowing users to opt-out of advertising tracking.

Before this change, advertisers could track iPhone users across applications. Now, users can turn off this ability. They did this in droves.

Meta complained that the new policy cost them $10 billion in annual revenues. Moreover, the user data is still available to Apple, just not to others. Apple is expanding its mobile advertising efforts, which may partially explain this policy change.

Under the guise of protecting users’ privacy, Apple created a privacy moat. Apple retains its exclusive access to iPhone user data, giving Apple a significant competitive advantage.

5 Weirdest Decisions Made by Football Clubs

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History is filled with head-scratching decisions. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the bizarre world of football.

While players make poor moves on a regular basis, they can quickly make up for these mistakes with a timely goal or a clutch tackle. Management isn’t so lucky. A terrible decision can set a club back years — and it may even lead to relegation or financial ruin.

Ready for a good chuckle or a major eye roll? Keep reading to learn about the strangest decisions made by supposedly talented club executives. 

Frank de Boer Hired by Crystal Palace

On the job at Inter Milan for only 85 days, Frank de Boer had the club in last place in both Serie A and the UEFA Europa League when he was sacked. Curiously, Crystal Palace decided de Boer was the right man for the job. 

He was gone less than three months later — after leading Crystal Palace to four losses in four games and without a single goal scored. These results were — quite frankly — very predictable given de Boer’s recent track record.

Steve Kean Appointed as Manager of Blackburn Rovers

Without any credentials to his name, Steve Kean was appointed the manager of Rovers in 2010. Unfortunately, it’s possible that Kean landed the job through dubious measures. Kean’s agent was an influential figure within the new ownership group, which almost certainly gave Kean a significant leg up over the competition. After two subpar seasons and a relegation, Kean was shown the door at Rovers.

Southampton Sign Ali Dia

In 1996, a man posing as football icon George Weah convinced Southampton manager Graeme Souness to sign his cousin. Souness took the bait and offered the man a contract despite having never seen him play in person.

Against all odds as well as good sense, the man found his way into a match and managed to stay on the pitch for more than fifty minutes. The man was quickly exposed as a fraud and released from his contract with the team. 

Tottenham Sack Jose Mourinho before EFL Cup Final

Consecutive North London derby victories — as well as a brief stint atop the Premier League — gave Spurs and Jose Mourinho all the momentum heading into 2021.

After hitting a rough patch that saw the club knocked out of both the FA Cup and Europa League, Spurs ownership decided to show Mourinho the door after less than 18 months on the job. This lack of patience was only exasperated by the fact that he was sacked just days before Spurs were set to play Manchester City in the EFL Cup Final. Predictably, Spurs dropped the match 1-0.

Juventus and Barcelona Swapping Arthur Melo for Miralem Pjanic

After greatly exaggerating the value of their respective players, Barcelona and Juventus swapped Melo for Pjanic in a move that some journalists — and even the Prosecutor’s Office of the Italian Football Federation — suspect was illegal. Neither player made a splash with their new club, with Pjanic appearing in only 19 games for Barcelona, while Melo has quietly existed on the Juventus roster.

Not all football decisions make sense to passionate fans, but therein lies the fun of the game: you never know what to expect. Whether foolish, unethical, or simply bizarre, these twists and turns keep us watching. 

How to Revolutionise Your Small Business With Data

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Big data has become a popular buzzword for businesses today. Digital ecosystems make it possible for businesses to incorporate enormous amounts of data about their customers and sales. This data can then be used to revolutionize the business and build the organization like never before.

If you want to help your business reach its maximum potential, incorporating business data is an excellent way to achieve that goal. Here are a few key ways that you can incorporate data to power your business. 

Improve your understanding of what customers look for before buying

Data can help you understand what customers want to see before they decide to move forward with a purchase. For example, you might find that people prefer certain types of content, such as short videos. They might also land on your page by researching particular keywords. Data will help you better follow what customers want to see throughout their buyers’ journeys, so you are more equipped to answer those needs.

Know how to build better email campaigns

Email can play a critical role in staying engaged with your target customers. For every dollar you spend, you can expect an average ROI of $44, which can make it an excellent investment. However, you do not want to waste money when drafting emails. Tracking data regarding what people open, the types of links they click, and how you can best engage your audience can help you build more effective marketing campaigns. You can use the data to better segment your email lists and then send out emails precisely targeted toward their interests.

Improve your customer service

When you employ data to guide your customer service, you can improve the customer experience. Data allows you to track customer profiles and how they use your product or service. You can also track common questions or concerns and then use this information to boost your ability to serve customers. You can better anticipate why people might need to contact you and know how you will solve the problem for them immediately.

Avoid repeating the same mistakes

Businesses make mistakes sometimes in their marketing or what they offer customers. Data allows you to track how people respond to everything you do so that you can avoid making the same mistakes twice. You might discover that no one seems to appreciate your latest ad. If you redesign your website, you might realize that customers become less likely to click on your CTA or respond to your offers. Only data will tell you if you made a mistake and that you need to fix it. 

Improve your forecasting

Forecasting can also play a critical role in business. It uses information from the past, combined with information about current conditions, to make a prediction about what will happen to the business moving forward. Proper forecasting can help you better plan for business growth. You will be able to anticipate the times of the year when you might see more sales and how different products rise and fall throughout the year. You can also anticipate how your business finances might evolve over time, which will help you better manage your accounts.

Depending upon your type of business, you might turn to popular business tools like HubSpot, EngageBay, or Pipedrive to help you with business forecasting and collecting business analytics.

Getting started on data for your business

If you are ready to dive into the potential for data to revolutionize your business, plan on getting started with Google Analytics. This free source of data can help you track visitors around your site. Google also offers free training courses to help you learn how to use the program so that you can set up the charts and monitor them in a way that works for you.

To put the data to work for you, you want to delve a bit into the study of analytics so you can see how to use comparisons like Year over Year or Month over Month. It will also help you learn how to interpret data and use it for your business.  

To help you further learn all about the potential for data and your business, you can take advantage of courses offered through MOOC platforms, like Coursera.

Data can be a powerful tool for your business. If you have not already incorporated big data into your business forecasting, see how you can use this insight to improve your business performance.

5 Footballers Who Gave The Most Entertaining Post-Match Interviews

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The post-match interview feels like a dreaded chore to some footballers, but others find it as exhilarating as any athletic pursuit. Some of the world’s best players use this platform as a chance to show off their distinctive personalities. From self-deprecating humor to dry wit and sarcasm, these five players are even more entertaining to watch after they leave the field:

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

This slick striking Swede always has something on his mind after a match — whether it’s disdain for the referees, his opponents — or sometimes, even his teammates.

One notable Zlatan moment saw the gregarious Manchester United star prodding teammate Paul Pogba over his hesitancy to pass the ball Ibrahimovic’s way. Pogba took it all in stride and was eventually forced to pass one thing Zlatana’s way: his Premier League Man of the Match award.

David Luiz

Former Chelsea and Arsenal star David Luiz can make even the most boring post-match interview entertaining. One particular conference found Luiz trapped between Frank Lampard and Fernando Torres. As the two droned on in a sleep-inducing tone, Luiz tried his best to bring some lightheartedness to the proceedings through non-verbal expressions. After nearly three minutes, Luiz was finally allowed to speak, with his only words being an exuberant “Come on Chelsea!” as he threw his arms around his teammates.

Mohammad Anas

During a very heartfelt and sincere acceptance of his Man of the Match Award, Free State Stars striker Mohammad Anas had an unfortunate slip of the tongue. While thanking his fans, Anas also thanked “my wife, and my girlfriend.” Anas quickly attempted to correct himself, but at that point he had already gone viral throughout the world. Thankfully, his speaking error didn’t lead to a red card at home, as Anas is still happily married.

Erling Haaland

Sometimes an interview is made more entertaining by what isn’t said. Case in point: Erling Haaland — the Manchester City striker who refuses to elaborate when asked inane questions about what makes him great. Ironically, when the striker finally did speak up during his first Premier League post-match interview, he let slip some profanity that quickly got him reprimanded by the interviewer (but that fans enjoyed nonetheless).

Michail Antonio

Sky Sports couldn’t help themselves from exposing the planned celebration of West Ham forward Michail Antonio after he set the club’s Premier League scoring mark. When the interviewers showed Antonio stashing a cardboard cutout of himself in the crowd, the gig was up — and Antonio had no choice but to have a laugh about the whole thing.

When asked if he could stay atop the Premier League scoring table, Antonio remarked “Obviously!” Given his penchant for memorable goal celebrations, this won’t be the last time everyone has a laugh over his pitch antics.

There’s no denying that the best footballers are as comedically gifted as they are athletically capable. There’s no better opportunity to get a sense of this than with the post-match interview, which should be essential viewing for every true football fan.

The Simplest Food Is The Most Delicious? 5 Awesome Staple Foods From Around The World

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Don’t get us wrong, we wouldn’t turn down an expensive, three-course meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant – but very often the most delicious meals are actually the simplest: home cooking that is often taken for granted in its country of origin is often the most delicious, and sometimes it can be the healthiest, too. This is what we’re homing in on today: here are five staples from around the world that you should consider trying in your own diet.

Dahl

Dahl, also spelled dal, is common throughout India and made from different types of beans. It has a number of variations depending upon what region of the country a specific receipt originates from. For example, you will see more mung beans, used to make Mung dal, in the south, and more yellow split peas, used to make Chana dal, when the recipe comes from the north.

This recipe calls for the beans to be soaked overnight and simmered until the beans are tender. They are then mixed with seasonings like cumin, turmeric, ginger, chilly oil, or coriander. Healthy and delicious.

Borscht

Borscht comes to us from Eastern Europe, where it has been eaten for generations in areas like Ukraine and Poland. It combines beets, potatoes, beans, cabbage, and other staples, depending upon the precise recipe used. The nutrient-rich ingredients and delightful flavor make it a great soup to add to your rotation. 

Lentil soup

Lentil soup originates in countless cultures and regions, with traditional recipes hailing from Europe, South America, and the Middle East. This soup will generally call for any colored dehulled lentil that will disintegrate while cooking. These lentils then form the base for the soup and can be combined with a variety of other vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, onion, and various seasonings, depending upon the recipe. This is a cheap and varied soup to add to your rotation, particularly in the winter on cold evenings. 

Boiled or fried plantains

Plantains bear some resemblance to bananas, as they are in the same genus. However, unlike bananas, people consume cooked plantains. This staple is popular in West and Central Africa in addition to the Caribbean and South America along the coast.

You can enjoy this staple either fried or boiled. To fry them, simply slice the plantain into thin slices and then heat the oil in a pan and fry until they are golden. If you want to boil them, cut them slightly thicker– so you get about three pieces per plantain– and then boil until they are tender. In either recipe, season with hot sauce as desired.

Chapatis

The flatbread chapatis has a traditional region that stretches from East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula over to the Indian subcontinent. These delicious circular pieces of bread call for just finely ground wheat flour, salt, and water. The dough then forms round balls, flattened, and cooked on both sides. You can then serve it with various dishes and toppings for a complete meal.

As modern people, we have access to an incredibly rich menu of foods that come from around the world. Those interested in expanding their palates or improving their diets can look at some of these important staples from around the world to see if any of these might fit their own menus well.

Are We Headed into a Global Water Crisis? What’s Going on, and What Can Ordinary People Do About It?

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Water is something many take for granted, but the United Nations reports that more than 3.5 billion people – roughly half of the planet – are currently vulnerable to water scarcity. Worse, it projects that this number will rise to more than 5 billion people by 2050. This is due to multiple factors, such as pollution and infrastructural problems as well as overconsumption. 

The Fresh Water Problem

Obviously, water is an absolutely essential component of human health. Without access to potable water, a human can only survive for around three days at best. But fresh drinking water is only the start of the problems when it comes to meeting our ongoing water challenges.

As the global children’s charity World Vision puts it, “access to clean water changes everything; it’s a stepping-stone to development.” Where clean water is plentiful, communities don’t need to compete for rights to limited water resources. Crops and livestock get enough water to flourish. Personal hygiene and household sanitation improves. These advantages, in turn, lead to a healthier population of adults who can serve as productive workers as well as children who can readily attend school.

The Causes of the Water Crisis

There are many different contributing factors to the water crisis, many of which can be addressed through better regulations and changing procedures.

Scientists, who have studied the issue most carefully, have directly tied the effects of global warming and climate change to the water crisis. In addition to engendering extended periods of drought and other long-term harmful environmental conditions, climate change is increasing both the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and other violent weather events that can destroy water supply infrastructure.

Other factors contributing to the mounting water crisis include armed conflict, forced migration, corporate greed, political disenfranchisement, and the poor handling of wastewater and water waste. The problem is also precipitated by a lack of reliable water data and a lack of cooperation among natural resource experts across national lines.

How You Can Help

Any serious attempt to address the water crisis must include sweeping changes to public policy and business regulation. However, this doesn’t mean that the average person is powerless to help.

It all begins with simple awareness. People who understand the true severity of the water problem may be motivated to prioritize healthy water stewardship in their daily lives. Something as simple as taking a shorter shower can make a real difference if it becomes a permanent habit.

Other ways to practice healthy water stewardship include installing low-flow toilets, reusing graywater, and collecting rainwater for watering gardens and lawns. Of course, it is also important to ensure that you aren’t losing water to leaking pipes or other plumbing inefficiencies. People who live by the ocean can even look into desalinizing technology that can transform seawater into freshwater.

Moreover, humbly and quietly changing your own actions will contribute, however subtly, to a gradual change of awareness in your country, making it more likely for much needed regulation changes and global action to occur.

You can also consider donating to a water charity, such as WaterAid. WaterAid is a charity that has been helping address water issues for over three decades, and their website is a wealth of information on the subject, too. 

5 Fundamentals Of Data Visualization

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Big data and analytics are here. In fact, they govern the world, and ignoring that is no longer an option.

In order to keep up with the huge piles of data that you can find in every industry and profession, we all need powerful and reliable tools. More often than not, those tools are found in the realm of data visualization.

If you are going to work closely with data visualization resources, then you will want to remember the fundamentals. They can help you avoid many common mistakes and extract as much value as possible from your efforts.

Data Cognition and Perception

The fundamental purpose of data visualization is to make it easy to understand abstract data at a glance. There are countless tools available, all built on the principles of cognition and perception. Can people understand the representation, and is it leading to meaningful conclusions?

To master cognition and perception, any visualization can be analyzed by asking a few key questions:

  • Is a clear relationship on display?
  • Is the data representation accurate?
  • Can you easily compare quantities?
  • Is it obvious how the information can and should be used?

If your visualization scores an easy “yes” to each of these questions, then it is successful in terms of cognition and perception.

Design Evaluation

The next fundamental utilizes an evaluation to ensure that the visualization is accomplishing its goals while remaining an accurate and reliable display of information. With so many visual representations available, it’s difficult to distill evaluations into a single checklist, but a general set of criteria can help you build a more specific evaluation for your project: 

  • Scale: Inconsistent scaling on a graph can distort the data representation.
  • Accuracy: Always triple-check that the data is accurate in the final visual.
  • Convention: Follow visual conventions to avoid confusion.
  • Cherry picking: Never exclude data to alter the conclusions.
  • Bias: Look for signs of bias, whether intentional or not.

Depending on the visual representations, you may also need to evaluate how easy it is to read the presented information and whether or not the visualization is leading to reasonable conclusions (as the saying goes, correlation does not equal causation).

User-Centered Design

The third fundamental that we are exploring is one of the most popular philosophical orientations for data visualization.

The concept is simple. How does the end user interact with the information represented?

As an example, a visualization of user statistics for a smartphone app might be used to help developers make decisions about the next set of updates. If you’re preparing this visualization, then it’s important to remember that the developers are not the ones who ultimately use this information. The data is informing development for the sake of the end user, and data representations should remember that.

Explanation vs Exploration

When dealing with data, there are two different things that happen. During analysis, you explore data to see what it can tell you. When you present the data, you explain the findings to others.

Visualization is involved in both of these aspects. When exploring data, you can use whatever representation tools make sense to you until you find something worth sharing. For explanation, visualizations have less freedom, as they need to present clear information to your audience.

It’s easy to get stuck on explanation and forget about exploration. Manage your time and explore the data as deeply as you can before honing in on the best solutions for explanation.

Communication

The fundamentals so far provide ways to approach visualization and enhance its value. The final pillar looks at data visualization from the other direction. There are two purposes to data visualization: making sense of the data and communicating.

When focusing on communication you need only remember two things. Make clear points, and aim for your audience. With a large data set, it’s easy to draw many conclusions, but when you present information (especially to non-experts), it’s essential that you distill everything into simple and clear points.

Catering to your audience is also vital. When one nuclear physicist presents findings to a room full of other nuclear physicists, the visualizations will look very different than if they are presenting that information to a board of investors (who presumably pay for the research). Always rethink the visualization from the perspective of your audience. It’s a simple but essential step in the process.