Graph Guru Pillows

'People who can read Venn diagrams...'

"Any questions?"

Three steps to turn around the economy.

Information vs. confusion

'On the left, this year's reading scores. On the right, the same data digitally enhanced.'

Statistics: "Here's the sales graph...which way around would you like it?"

But under a different accounting convention ...

"I'm going to bombard you with graphs until you agree with me."

"Now this chart should clear up any confusion you have with the report."

'In an effort to make this sales meeting more pleasant, I have taken the liberty of rotating our sales graph counter clockwise a full ninety degrees,'

"As you can see here, there were a few downticks, followed by a few upticks, finishing off with some antics."

"Well, we know it's WAY down there, but it may be beyond the range of our equipment."

Concert goers form a line to see The Mathematics.

'And right here they merged...'

Profits "...I suppose we could try and improve the product."

Real data visualization specialists are 100% committed to their profession.

'As you can see here, there were a few downticks, followed by a few upticks, finishing off with some antics.'

He then drew a number of smaller pie charts behind the bigger chart. That helped to put it into perspective.

'Making a profit was a lot easier before so many countries abandoned socialism and started competing!'

'As you can see the market forecast is quite loopy in the next quarter.'

Sales chart plummets into employees head.

Customer Complaints - "Thank you, Thompson, for collecting the statistics."

"At least we are consistently inconsistent."

'Okay, here's an abandoned storage locker with some random data that may or may not be useful. We'll start the bidding at $50...'

"I'm going to bombard you with graphs until you agree with me."

'You certainly have a way with no words.'

"This is where things started getting really weird."

"...and this one deals with the accuracy of the others."

'I think we could understand this better if it were a pie chart.'

'It's a chart of office morale. This is where you went on vacation.'

Why graphs are confusing

'As you can see here our downward trend exceeded even the expectations of the people who make our graphs.'

"It was an amazing half hour."

'I've noticed a correlation between your boundlessly optimistic projections and your tendency to go off your meds.'

The Last Powerpoint