I'm building a course related to sales and need to define an important term: account. The requestor would like to use the concept of an umbrella that is overarching the various other terms that are types of accounts, ie) customers, competitors, prospects, and customer/competitor combo. While the umbrella graphic might show the proper relationship, it is out of context for the rest of the course. Any ideas of how to graphically represent this relationship? Thanks for your help!
Shelly, I don't think this is the right tool for my current purpose, but I'm so glad you reminded me about word clouds. I definitely want to find a use for them in my courses! Thanks for thr idea.
Great question and one I think you can do a lot with. For something like this, I'd use Design Mapping to identify all the players, objects and elements of your graphic:
You sort of have that with accounts: competitors, customers, products. But maybe design mapping each into its own map would also help.
Accounts: What are the various types of accounts? What types of visual metaphors and concepts can be used to show one or more accounts? What's the relationship between account and subject--is it a process? explanation? description? cause-effect?
Folders
notebooks
bank
check book
SalesForce database
envelope
or something more product specfific--say gum manufacturer accounts:
stick of gum with dotted lines showing how much each customer or competitor contributes or "chews up"
pack of gum with 20 sticks and highlighted with two or more different colors to show profits, losses, etc
(gum is on my desk so that's fresh in the mind)
Here are some infographics I thought might help for your project:
This is definitely on target with what I am going for. My product is batteries and I really just need to define the terms, rather than show data related to the financial contribution of the various account types. Thanks for helping me get some visual representations! I have some ideas now.
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Maybe a corny idea but... how about a word cloud in the shape of an umbrella? Tagxedo or Wordle
Shelly, I don't think this is the right tool for my current purpose, but I'm so glad you reminded me about word clouds. I definitely want to find a use for them in my courses! Thanks for thr idea.
Hi Jill,
Great question and one I think you can do a lot with. For something like this, I'd use Design Mapping to identify all the players, objects and elements of your graphic:
You sort of have that with accounts: competitors, customers, products. But maybe design mapping each into its own map would also help.
Accounts: What are the various types of accounts? What types of visual metaphors and concepts can be used to show one or more accounts? What's the relationship between account and subject--is it a process? explanation? description? cause-effect?
or something more product specfific--say gum manufacturer accounts:
(gum is on my desk so that's fresh in the mind)
Here are some infographics I thought might help for your project:
Hierarchy, "umbrella" approach:http://www.visualnews.com/2011/02/02/protests-in-egypt-marching-against-mubara-infographic-by-the-numbers/
Diagram approach: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/20/sports/football/helmet.html
Description, explanation of each account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hasumide/4594866469/sizes/l/
Timeline graphic to show evolution of your accounts: http://www.automoblog.net/2010/05/25/history-of-the-electric-car/
Hi David,
This is definitely on target with what I am going for. My product is batteries and I really just need to define the terms, rather than show data related to the financial contribution of the various account types. Thanks for helping me get some visual representations! I have some ideas now.
@Jill For batteries, you could use the cells, or layers as a way to show the "rings" of customers and competitors.
Related idea:
Or find some battery illustrations and use those as the starting point for your infographic:
Thanks, David,
You're the best. These are great ideas. Even simply learning the term 'infographics' has helped me get a better sense of how to accomplish my goal.
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