Seems like everyday there is someone offering up the latest infographic of the day or a new take on data visualization to wow your senses. But, not surprisingly, this Ted Talk courtesy of David McCandless is quite an amazing and inspiring display of data visualization unlike most others. Particularly impressed with the selection of data sets he works through (from media interest in violent video games, to $ figures randomly thrown out in news reports that are meaningless without context).

Well worth 15 minutes of your day. And a nice dose of inspiration for the next time you need to present absurd amounts of data in a way that won’t put everyone but you to sleep.

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.

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.

Smart use of new tech by ADIDAS and a great example of marketing as a service. Interesting that they chose to tease/launch the shoes with…a spot. But I’ll let that slide for a minute because this just looks pretty incredible. Promising sign of a brand that didn’t just turn to each other and say “let’s do some AR!”. But rather appears to have actually thought through a business objective, what their unique take as a brand might be on AR, and how their customers would actually benefit from the experience as opposed to something they see once and move on.

Will be curious to see how this plays out in execution, but impressive and ambitious effort from these initial signs. But hoping to see some of the shoe actually in action soon, not just more spots about the idea of the shoe.