Building a company in Silicon Valley is a different kind of ball game. What’s mentioned most often is that people take more risks, it is OK to fail, and talking to competition is business as usual. But not all differences are clear right off the bat, some are harder to articulate. We did our best and put together a list of six such hidden from the naked eye differences that stood out the most in our opinion. If you’ve recently moved, or contemplating a move to the Valley, these should definitely help you hit the ground running. 

Next episode

It’s been 14 months since we’ve begun development. During these months we learnt and discovered new ideas. We grew together as a team. We endured difficulties and prevailed upon challenges. Now we are about to do something we always dreamed of. At the end of this week we’ll begin our journey to California. We are going to spend 6 months working right under the steep hills of San Francisco. Out of everything we’ve ever done, this is probably the most daring one so far. We quit our jobs, rented out our apartments and pulled out our savings. There are no safeguards, no safety nets to fall onto, not even a plan B. What will be the outcome, only time will tell. Deep down in our hearts we feel that this is the right thing to do. Let the next episode begin. 

Disagreements are good

When working on a project in a team, especially in the early stages when so many things have yet to be decided, odds are there will be differences in opinions among your team members. That can easily escalate into frustrating arguments. Teams break up because of these seemingly trivial differences. But there is an interesting side effect. We discovered that our best ideas came from our initial disagreements with each other. I am not sure how exactly that came about but it could be that disagreeing forced us to think harder and dwell on the problems for a little longer. It forced us to be more creative. In retrospect it’s clear that every single one of the best and most innovative solutions that we developed as a team came as a result of us initially disagreeing! So now when we are disagreeing about something we say “hey! this is great! we are on the right track!” instead of getting angry with each other. Of course, it never is easy to be told “hey your idea is crap” by one of your teammates, but the bottom line is it’s way better to hear it from your CTO than your users. 

— Piotr

Last week we were featured in the Volkskrant. Wouter Keuning wrote a very insightful piece about the Dutch startup environment, check it out. 

(The tower in the background of Piotr’s photo is of Westerkerk, the nearby church where Rembrandt is buried!)

In summary, leveraging visual means and visualization techniques can help collaboratory users discover complex relationships and interactions hidden in the collaborative space, facilitate communication and interaction for a better utilization of aggregated software, hardware, and human resources, and ultimately propel knowledge discovery.

— Isenberg et al. (2011). “Collaborative visualization: Definition, challenges, and research agenda”, Information Visualization,10(4)

New look on social media

Over the last couple of weeks we got around updating our social media sites. Since we are a visualization company, it would only make sense to show who we are, rather than just talk about it. But when I mentioned this to our lead designer Miyuki back in January I had no idea how blown away I would be by the results. It’s interesting because the visuals capture the typical Dutch landscape, our direct environment. In many ways we are a product of our environment and so it serves as a powerful metaphor for who we are. Like any art form, visualization is not an easy craft, but the impact it can have as a communication medium is worth its weight in gold. OK, enough talking, check it out for yourself—links are in the sidebar to the right. 

— Piotr

University Pilots launched

After more than two months of intensive preparations we launched a pilot version of CooCoolu at Tilburg University and Erasmus University. Exciting! 

How to build effective visualisations?

The goal of visualisation is to provide the viewer with a qualitative understanding of information contents. This isn’t an easy task. But fortunately there are established design rules and principles that you can use to make your visualisations more effective. Here is an outline of the few simple techniques:

1. Rule of thumb: people can hold, on average, maximum four chunks of perceptual data—try to stick to max. 4 major elements in your visualisation.

2. Leverage gestalt laws of perception: proximity, similarity, connectedness, continuity are powerful visual cues that can instantly convey complex meaning. In a most basic way you can do the following:

• Colour–code related concepts
• Keep related concepts in close proximity
• Connect related concepts with arrows
• Create patterns with uniform colours and font size
• Create cause–and–effect relationships with varied colours and font size

3. Upper right label position: a standard practice in cartography is to place labels above and to the right of the object they describe. Viewers are familiar with this design practice and instantly recognise this relationship, allowing you to leverage this effect in your work.

4. Data-ink ratio: strive to convey maximum information with minimum content. The visualisation should be uncluttered and all graphical elements used should have a clear purpose.

5. Add a short description: to be effective visualisations require a simple description telling the viewer what they should be looking for. Think about it as a short narrative that leads the viewer step–by–step through the graphic.

Based on: Selected human factor issues in information visualizaton (2009); Update on infographics in American newspapers (2000); The Effectiveness of Sidebar Graphics (1992); Exploring how and why people use visualizations in casual contexts (2012).

Learning is a social and collective outcome achieved through seamless conversations, shared practices, and networks of social connections.

— Brown & Duguid, 1991

Thought we’d highlight a few things beforehand:) Enjoy good health this Christmas!