Yet another great + revealing pack of planner stats from Heather LeFevre.

Particularly like the addition of a fairly robust section on freelance planners and their thoughts on the pros/cons. Gives you something to think about if you’ve tossed around the idea as I have.

Also a bit frustrating to see that the largest part of planner work, 73%, seems to be around print ads. Reading all of our collective tweets and bloggery you’d think that picture would be much different, but I suppose we’re getting there.

Definitely worth checking out the full report, as always. Thanks again for another great survey Heather.

Interesting bit of data (and visualization) from Flowtown. Guess it’s not all too surprising that Microsoft checks in at the top spot given the size of their workforce and the obvious connectivity (in fact I’d be surprised if their employees weren’t at least somewhat connected and networked).

Would be even more interesting if we were able to see this broken down by dept or function. Is it all marketing folks tweeting and trying to make sure their social profile is up to par? Or are customer service, PR, operations, sales etc also engaged and using it to drive business? Social employees is one thing, but social employees who are actually empowered and using their activity to engage customers and potential customers would say quite a bit more about the company and it’s culture.

This is a must watch. You’ve prob come across some of these stats at random, but the collective power in one place is quite stunning.

Awesome work Jesse.

I’ll resist going into any additional political commentary, and just let this speak for itself. As Fast Company rightly puts it, “sometimes a strong, simple infographic says more than words can”.

Not all pleasant, to say the least, but a good sign of where things are going.

I seem to be on an infographic kick lately, but I suppose that’s not a bad thing. Nice one here by the awesome folks at Mint, appropriately right as we head into the weekend of that Hallmark Holiday everyone either loves or hates, with little in between.

Not all of it incredibly surprising but there was one bit that I found intriguing— in the 4th graph (v-day activities), household participation in buying gift cards is almost as high as buying flowers. Really? Doesn’t exactly scream thoughtful, does it. Would be curious to see how this has trended in the past few years. Perhaps a broader sign that people are less and less willing to put as much thought into the occasion?

Awesome infographic pulled together by the always smart @msaleem showing not just how much facebook has grown but also how pervasive it has become in the daily lives of so many.

One stat tucked quietly away near the bottom of the graphic is one that I’ve always felt was overlooked by many brands and marketers— 3.5 million events created per month. Often it feels like facebook is treated as a silo that exists only online, but the potential for creating interesting experiences offline that start on facebook is tremendous. Offline and online are increasingly the same, just facets of life, so makes sense for brands to start treating them as such.