2. Top Issues Facing Company Address any high profile issues http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2004/11/weve_gone_map_c.html

3. Revenue and Profit Forecast vs actual Gross margin Important trends Compare company to rest of market Use multiple slides to break out meaningful detail www.geog.ucsb.edu/~sara/html/mapping/election/map.html

4. Key Spending Areas R&D Sales and marketing General and administration Areas of improvement Areas needing attention/caution Maps and cartograms of the 2004 US presidential election results Population Cartograms Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman University of Michigan

5. Headcount Goals Results Maps and cartograms of the 2004 US presidential election results County Population Cartograms Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman University of Michigan

6. Goals for Next Period Strategic undertakings Financial goals Other key efforts Maps and cartograms of the 2004 US presidential election results County Population Using Sliding Scale Cartograms Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman University of Michigan

7. CRITQUE Distillation: A compendium of techniques for making graphics compelling. Comparison: Many aneqdotal findings based on teh career of a famous data analyst. Notably void of presentation of summary statistics. No first-principals discussions. Strength of Premise: Analyst’s graphics often do a poor job of relating information to non-analyst audiences. Very strong. Potential Application: Very good, but not for the paint-by- numbers crowd. Impact: Very high, partially due to the charisma of the author, as well as his identification of an unplowed, critical area of investigation. Writing: OK. Would be greatly enhanced with a punchy conclusion with DO/DON’T, and a more serious scientific approach.

8. MIKE’S GOUGE ON GRAPHICS Being Effective 1.First Impressions –DELIVER a Primary Message accurately –Deal with distractions effectively 2.Digging Deeper –Axis labels, call-outs –Build to accentuate, reinforce trends & comparisons 3.Stretch Convention –But maintain integrity of the data –Exceed Excel 4.Testing and Murder Boarding