Death rates of various diseases visualised

Well I think the graphic below offers an insight into how unbelievably over the top the hype and hysteria surrounding swine flu has been. I have personally become very, very sick (not of any type of flu) of the whole thing and wish the newspapers, news channels and general public would stop giving it so much coverage.

Take a little look at the graph below and make your own minds up about what you want to be afraid of. (You may need to click on it to make it a reasonable size for viewing)

Job hunting in a recession

Here is a presentation from the presentation/career guru Mr. Rowan Manahan on how to hunt for jobs in a recession. Well worth a look!

Job-hunting in a tight market

View more presentations from Rowan Manahan.

Arnie on jealousy

Cheating with charts

Great post at the Duarte Blog (found here) about how people cheat with the charts to make information fit with their version of events.

By simply manipulating the length and height of axis units you can tell what look like very different stories. As Duarte describe it:

"The flexible grid: One of the easiest ways to give more or less movement to the trend of a curve is to expand or contract the horizontal or vertical axis of the chart. The chart below shows a correctly scaled trend and six ways the visual image changes by expanding or contracting the grid layout."

Slideshare competition - How did I get on?

Well the 2009 Slideshare competition is coming to an end, the public vote is now over and the control is now in the hands of the very qualified judges (including one Mr. Guy Kawasaki - who as you might know is a good friend of mine that is to say I met him once).

So how did my presentations do in the public voting I hear you ask with baited breath... well Let me tell you...

Out of the 3,000 entries I had presentations that placed @ 9th, 60th, 94th, 153rd and 167th (all in the top 5.5% for you stats people out there).

I am pretty happy with how I got on although I do realise that the public voting didn't always reflect the quality of the presentations so I will leave it to the judges to decide if any of mine were actually any good!

If you voted for me, thank you, if not... damn you :-)

Steve Jobs: Back in action (for now)

Well Steve Jobs is officially back in action with Apple and he took to the stage this week to launch a few new (but very minor) products.

I am happy to see Steve back on stage again, but I must say that he still doesn't look, or sound, like a particularly well man which makes me a little sad.

Below are two pics of Steve, at the top is one of when he was healthy (albeit a tad overweight), below this we have Steve Jobs in Sept 2009, I think he looks very very frail and if I was an Apple shareholder I might be getting a tad worried.

Images from the road 6

At the edge of Niagara Falls

A gutsy pitch

I read an interesting piece in the great book “The Definitive business pitch” regarding a rather unorthodox and gutsy pitch given to British Rail management in the 1980’s.

The managements at British Rail were holding a day of pitches to try and identify the best marketing agency for their requirements. At the end of the day the final agency hadn’t shown up for their slot...

After 10 minutes had gone by and there were no sign of the presenters the management present decided that enough was enough and started to get out of their seats in somewhat of a “huff”.

It was at that moment that the agency team – who had been waiting outside – strolled into the room... “We know how your customers feel” and by this stage so too did the management: left waiting, with no information and staff who seem uninterested.

Gutsy

Aer Lingus - Debt tripled in 1st half 2009

From RTE business news:
"Management at Aer Lingus say the outlook for the airline is highly uncertain following publication of the latest financial results.

The company has also said it can no longer afford to pay what was described as 'legacy-style' pay rates to staff.

Losses at the airline have tripled to €93m in the first half of the year."

Perhaps Aer Lingus should call it a day and stop keeping up the illusion that they can turn the airline afloat... what's that noise? I think I hear Michael O'Leary knocking at the door...

Images from the road 5

Chicago

The Alternative Big Mac Index

The Economist magazine recently produced what it calls "the alternative Big Mac index" , it details how long the average worker, weighted across 14 industries, must work in order to afford the price of a Big Mac at local prices.

Interesting stuff, I wouldn't fancy working for 6 days like the average worker in Nairobi. Does that mean Big Macs are essentially fine cuisine there?

The problem with pies

The editor of "Simple Complexity" found at http://simplecomplexity.net/ came up with a very strong argument as to why pie charts are not always the best way to go when trying to put across numbers, and are actually quite misleading at times due to the fact that our poor little brains aren't all that good at judging the areas of the various segments.

Check out the pie chart below, take a second to work out for yourself how the segments rank from highest to lowest.

It's not all that easy is it? Now check out the dot chart below and try and do the same ranking exercise.Which is easier to understand? the vast majority of people will find making sense of the numbers involved in the dot chart. Both charts show the same numbers and are as follows A = 25, C = 21, D = 18, E = 10, F = 10.

Very nice example of why some charts can be innappropriate in some situations.

For more gems head to http://simplecomplexity.net/

Inspiration from Roosevelt

Inspirational

View more presentations from Edward Fidgeon Kavanagh.

Nine A1's in the leaving

Only one student achieved 9 A1's in the leaving cert this year.

Behold the face of Ireland's (nerdy) future!

Aer Lingus numbers improve - not enough for Ryanair

The Irish Times recently published an article on increased Aer Lingus passenger numbers for July... Ryanair's Head of communications Stephan McNamara wasn't going to let this one go unchallenged.

Here is his letter to the Irish Times:

Madam, – I am contacting you in relation to the large article which appeared in your business section (“Aer Lingus passenger numbers rise 8.2 per cent”, August 11th). There was no reference to Ryanair’s passenger numbers for July, which reported growth of 19 per cent to over 6.7 million passengers.

Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, is one of only a few indigenous companies to lead its sector in Europe and it is worrying that our July passenger numbers, which were six times those of Aer Lingus and detailed our remarkable and newsworthy July growth, were overlooked by The Irish Times.

While I do not expect any editorial favour to be shown to Ryanair I request that our good news stories be given the same consideration and space in your business pages as those of other leading Irish companies or small regional airlines such as Aer Lingus. – Yours, etc,

STEPHEN McNAMARA,

Head of Communications,

Ryanair,

Dublin Airport,

Co Dublin.

Images from the road 4

Calgary Skyline, some small animals footprints in the foreground

Me & Google Earth

My Life through Google Earth

View more presentations from Edward Fidgeon kavanagh.

Another entry for the Slideshare competition

Images from the road 3

 

Ballard, Seattle

Worlds Best Presentation Contest

Well I have a small favour to ask any readers of this blog with Slideshare accounts. I am entering this years "World's best presentation competition" over at Slideshare.net and need your vote!
The presentation in question is below and if you click through to here http://www.slideshare.net/edfk/why-statistics-need-context you can give me a vote... Pleeeeease.

Thanks in advance

Why Statistics Need Context

View more presentations from Edward Fidgeon kavanagh.

Pharmacy situation getting ugly

According the the Irish Independent the Pharmacy situation is becoming a bit sinister, an article in today's paper starts "Garda protection drafted in as pharmacy row turns ugly".
It would seem disgruntled pharmacy owners have been turning up to the temporary dispensing centres and abusing the staff there... Pharmacists have obviously commenced foot shooting in earnest.

Michael O'Leary's finest quotations

Although I will aknowledge he is not everyones cup of tea I have to admit that I quite like his quite "to the point" way of speaking. Below is a presentation I put together detailing a short selection of his finest remarks.

Ryanair's Michael O'Leary in Quotes

View more presentations from edfk.

Man on Wire

Phillipe Petit walked a tightrope between the 2 WTC buildings in 1974. Pretty epic...

Irish Pharmacists - Shooting themsleves in the foot

This week roughly half of the pharmacies in Ireland are planning to stop dispensing medicine to those with medical card as a form of protest against the governments proposed cut in their fees.

To me this seems like the most ill thought out protest possible, and will result in the public having a VERY sour attitude towards their local pharmacy, and perhaps will expose the somewhat cut throat nature of the "local friendly pharmacist".

What tomorrows actions mean is the following - elderly people who need their medicine will have to travel around and find a pharmacy willing to give them their medicine "Can I have my heart medicine so I can stay alive?" - "No they are cutting the margin on that slightly so I don't want to give that to you", very sick people will not know for certain whether they can get medicine they need... I'm not sure that's how you get the public on your side.

Furthermore, pharmacies who do stay open will poach customers from the ones that are protesting, For example: "Boots Ireland has confirmed that all its pharmacies across the country will remain open for business to dispense a full pharmacy service from August 1. Boots will continue to dispense all medicine schemes to ensure customers ‘are not disadvantaged’"
... That is how you win customers and keep them.

The IPU are shooting themselves in the foot here, rather than protecting small pharmacies they are going to be driving people to the larger ones and indirectly killing off the smaller guys. Bravo IPU. Should be an interesting week

iPhone apps - overated? (Yes)

I have to say I am becoming a little sick "bright shiny object" syndrome that has struck a large portion of the marketing community regarding iPhone apps. My two favorite statistics about the apps are below.

In the US the market share (in terms of handsets) is currently at 2.4%... When you are developing apps with the intention of using them as advertising vehicles 2.4% is not a very large target to be aiming for. While I acknowledged that this share will rise, Apple will never own the entire market - you will always be aiming for a portion - rather than all - of phone users.

Now, once you have reached your 2.4% of the market, or whatever % it may be, you must now contend with the fact that the chances are that people will not use it more than once. The numbers above tell the story quite well.

With poor reach, poor usage, and questionable value-for-advertising-dollars I am not very positive about the marketing potential of iPhone apps.
(By the way I do acknowledge there are some useful fun apps out there, some, and I am talking about this from a marketing perspective)

Fox "News" - Not a fan of Amsterdam

Below is an amazingly funny video that I came across by way of "pharma gossip" blog. It was made by an Amsterdam native who was a little bit upset with how Fox "news" described his home city. According to Fox news "Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption, crime, everything is out of control, its anarchy"

The video is a witty rebuttal and proves a point by using a few key statistics.

Images from the road 2

Up Cypress Mt. - Vancouver

Assault on Canadian healthcare continued

Continuing on from yesterdays piece: http://cube1986.blogspot.com/2009/07/ridiculous-attack-on-government-run.html

I put together a nice little graph below using OECD and CIA figures on average health spend per person and average life expectancy, I realise the two are probably not perfectly related, but maybe they should include these in their pathetic little advert.

When you are spending almost double -but not getting better results than - who you are insulting... you may want to think again?

Ridiculous attack on Government run health care - take that Canada

US media is ridiculous at the best of times, but now they have been able to combine stupid adverts with a sill disliking of anything that can even slightly resemble anything close to socialism... In the firing line now: Public Health Care.

I find it greatly amusing that "patientsunitenow.com"s supposed poster child of "Bad Health care" is Canada... which boasts far better health care records than the US...

Here is the advert I am ranting about, have a look and be astonished.

Education

Irish rail - On track

I know its all the rage these days to be critical of all things state run in Ireland, especially supposed shortcomings in transport.

But I must say that I think some very impressive changes have taken place in terms of inter city transport, that cannot be ignored. Recently I took an Irish Rail train down to "the Kingdom" of Kerry, and to be honest I was rather surprised at how nice the whole experience is...
Gone are the days of the hulking orange trains with seats as comfortable as granite, now Irish Rail boast of fleet of pretty damn modern and comfortable trains which offer a pretty comfy ride.
The trains are also fairly nippy and as an added bonus the seemingly run ON TIME!

If you would like to see a contrast to this take a little trip over to the US of A and have a peek at their equivalent "Amtrak", the trains are outdated and rickety, as slow as push bikes and furthermore judging by the constant swaying and bumping of the carriages they haven't even lay the tracks down properly.

So I think we should all give Irish Rail a round of applause... I know I will *starts clapping*