Not sure how I missed this, but back in February the NYT provided a fantastic interactive graphic (screen shot below) showing how the proposed FY2011 Federal Budget shakes out. The rectangles in the chart show the relative size of spending for that particular category, the color indicates a percentage change from the previous year’s budget, and you can click on a smaller section to zoom in for details.

The Times continues to provide truly impressive data visualization, and this chart packs a huge amount of information into a relatively simple-to-grasp format.

Bonus Exercise 1:  Select the “Hide Mandatory Spending” option from the blue buttons at the top of the graphic.  This eliminates the entitlement programs, debt service, and the like, and leaves the “discretionary” portion of the budget visible.  There is a shocking amount of white space when you select that option. 

Bonus Exercise 2:  Let’s say you were interested in finding Small & Minority Business Assistance on this chart…  You would have to use the zoom functions, and look carefully…waaaaay over here:

The NYT has an interesting article up discussing a new study, out this week, presenting the findings of research on the long-term earnings prospects of students vis-à-vis their participation in early-childhood educational programs.  Previous studies have focused on the relative effects using test scores, and showed little long-term gains into high school using that metric, as the effects seem to fade out over time.

From the text:

“Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.

“All else equal, they were making about an extra $100 a year at age 27 for every percentile they had moved up the test-score distribution over the course of kindergarten. A student who went from average to the 60th percentile — a typical jump for a 5-year-old with a good teacher — could expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than a student who remained at the average. Over time, the effect seems to grow, too.”

I am fortunate to know  a few people (and managed to marry one) who make foundational, beneficial impacts on children, and who would definitely agree that the real measure of a teacher’s success can’t be captured solely by test scores – a major hurdle for real “Pay for Performance” initiatives, and cause for countless debates over how to measure teaching efficacy.  At least in this case, the researchers are pointing the way to adult outcomes that have real meaning and economic impact:  earnings potential.

The study findings are here.

Re-posted from AmEx's OPEN Forum -- Original Link HERE

Jul 08, 2010 -

Anyone who's ever had to form a company can sympathize with how difficult it can be to create a company name that is descriptive yet unique. 

However, some companies have gone a less-traditional route and used some pretty unique naming conventions. 

Here are some examples of interesting company names and the backstories behind them.

1. Google

The name started as a joke about the amount of information the search engine could search, or a "Googol" of information. (A googol is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros.) When founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin gave a presentation to an angel investor, they received a check made out to "Google."

2. Hotmail

Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith had the idea of checking their email via a web interface, and tried to find a name that ended in "mail." They finally settled on hotmail because it had the letters "html," referencing the HTML programming language used to help create the product.

3. Volkswagen

Volkswagen literally means "people's car." Adolf Hitler initially came up with the idea for "cars for the masses," which would be a state-sponsored "Volkswagen" program. Hitler wanted to create a more affordable car that was able to transport two adults and three children at speeds of 62 mph. He choose the car manufacturer Porsche to carry out the project, and the rest, as they say, is history.

4. Yahoo

The word "yahoo" was coined by Jonathan Swift in the the book Gulliver's Travels. The term represented a repulsive, filthy creatures that resembled humans (think: Neanderthal). Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo considered themselves yahoos, and thought the term would be appropriate for their joint venture.

5. Asus

The consumer electronic company is named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. The founders dropped the first three letters for the high position in alphabetical listings. In 1998 Asus created a spinoff company named Pegatron, using the other unused letters of Pegasus.

6. Cisco

Contrary to popular belief and theories, Cisco is simply short for San Francisco. Their logo resembles the suspension cables found on the Golden Gate bridge.

7. Canon

When Canon was founded in 1933 under the name Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory. Two years later they adopted "Canon" after the company's first camera, the Kwanon. Kwanon is the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

8. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola's name comes from the the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring in the soft drink. Eventually Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' to create a more fluid name.

9. FranklinCovey

The planning product line was named after Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Covey. The company was formed in 1997 from the combining of the two companies FranklinQuest and the Covey Leadership Center.

10. IKEA

IKEA is simply a random collection of letters, based from the first letters of founder Ingvar Kamprad's name in addition to the first letters of the names of the Swedish property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

11. Lego

Lego is a combination of the Danish phrase "leg godt," which translates to "play well." Initially the company built wooden toys, and later switched to making plastic bricks. Lego also means "I put together" in Latin, but the Lego Group claims this merely coincidence and the origin of the word is strictly Danish.

12. Reebok

Reebok is simply an alternate spelling of "rhebok," an African antelope. The company founders found the word in a South African edition of a dictionary won by the Joe Foster, son of the Reebok founder J.W. Foster.

13. Sharp

The Japanese consumer electronics company is named after its first product, an ever-sharp pencil that was created in 1915.

14. Six Apart

Six Apart's name has one of the most interesting origins. The web company's co-founders Ben and Mena Trott were born six days apart.

15. Skype

The original prototype of the company's flagship product had the name "Sky-Peer-to-Peer," which was shrunk down to Skyper, then finally Skype.

16. Verizon

Verizon is a combination of the words veritas, which is Latin for "truth," and horizon.

The world isn’t that big of a place anymore.  In economic development circles, you often hear about competing in the world marketplace, and the pressures that communities and regions face to develop capacities to think and act globally.  New Scientist published a set of maps and charts in 2009 that demonstrate just how connected we really are.  To begin, here’s a heat map showing the travel times (by land transportation) to major population centers, and the darker the color, the more remote the area.  The remainder of the charts show road, rail, water, and travel time information, presented in graphical form. 

BONUS:  Google Docs has a Heat Map gadget!