Last Friday I had a good opportunity to see how visualizations can really help business. It was so powerful moment. What kind of patterns, relations emerged and I can only imagine what kind of decisions/actions can be made. And this is really beneficial for business to be more successful!
Yes, it usually takes some time - to get to know systems, data, data relations, often we may need data warehouse to produce understandable models for end-users self-service, but when we don't get tired and reach to the step, where we can start really discovering data - then its all forth it. And then we can do all sort of analyzes. I have to say that nowadays we have more and more demand that we can start discovering and creating analyzes quicker and quicker and definitely the tools support that, but we have to know the business and data and that might take some time.
I love visualizations :) It is really true "One picture says more than a thousand words". What is important when creating visualizations? Most important, you have to know the business!!! - otherwise you may make assumptions which are not true at all. You have to play with data to see what lies beneath. And also think through how to present it in a most effective way. In these steps I think You have to let yourself loose - to really be creative. To be like a child, to look with open eyes. And also not to forget that the user must understand - the solution must be easy to use. I think this is sometimes quite hard to accomplish.
People are interesting creatures - through pictures we really can "see" more. And it amazes me what all lies in the data. Ho much is actually to discover yet.