Webinar Series: Run Simple to Improve your Data Visualization Skills and Be a DataGenius

by Anita Gibbings, Director, BI Product Marketing

As Bill McDermott said at this year’s SAPPHIRE NOW, “We’re no longer in a business-to-business-to consumer market — this is a consumer to business market… the customer rules — and it’s fundamentally changing everything.” Businesses that Run Simple are both data-driven and seamless.

In order to bridge gap of the digital divide, we must learn how to drive better business decisions with data. Four top authors and thought leaders on data visualization are lined up to provide 12 free educational webinars, starting in August and running through November. It’s your chance to learn from the best minds on this topic and ask questions live. It might even help you be the next Grand Prize winner of the DataGenius contest and further your career through the connections you can make at SAPPHIRE NOW (DataGenius winners receive a free pass).

Why is SAP investing in free webinars for customers? The answer is simple. Most of our customers have invested heavily in trusted data and business intelligence. Data is your asset and you want to maximize the ease of consuming your trusted data for the decision makers banging at your door wanting instant insights, all while your IT budget remains flat. The way to maximize the return on your investment is to bring insights to every single decision maker at every level so your organization is making more profitable decisions. Learn how to Run Simple and be THE DataGenius at work!

How to Achieve This

Data doesn’t communicate itself. You need visualizations and a story to communicate. We believe that some of the top Geniuses in the data visualization space can help you do this better and move you one step closer to creating an information-driven culture.

Check out this video on how to be a Genius and a strategic partner for transforming your organization. Take the first step and encourage all of your business analysts and others in your organization that need to tell a story with data visualization, to take advantage of these free educational webinars. Create Data Geniuses throughout your organization, and they in turn will help transform data into more profitable decisions.

Below are short bios on the thought leaders that will be leading the webinars and the full schedule for all 12 webinars, with dates, times, and current registration links. New links be added to this page as they become available, so bookmark this blog and check back often. Also watch for new blogs coming up where I will provide more detail on the content of the webinars.

Register early as space is limited. Replays of the webinars will be available to those who have registered.

Data Genius Thought Leader Line-up:

David McCandless: David is a London-based author, data-journalist and information designer. His blog and best-selling books Information Is Beautiful (2009) and Knowledge is Beautiful (2014) are dedicated to visualising ideas, issues, knowledge and data – and to discovering novel patterns and stories in the seas of data swamping and surrounding us. David McCandless created an Internet of Things add-on for SAP Lumira and presented at SAPPHIRE NOW – you will find the links to the replay, the instructions for the IoT visualization and other videos here.

Follow David McCandless at @infobeautiful

Rolf Hichert: Rolf is founder of HICHERT®SUCCESS information design standards that have been adopted by SAP’s CFO office and by an increasing numbers of large multinational companies. In 2013 he transferred major parts of his intellectual property to the newly-founded, not-for-profit, International Business Communication Standards (IBCS) Association for public forum discussion, and to disseminate and further develop it under a Creative Commons license. Today Rolf serves as president of the IBCS Association. Learn more in this white paper and background in these blogs from Feb and June.

Follow Rolf Hichert at @RolfHichert

Alberto Cairo: Alberto is the author of ‘The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization’ (2012) and ‘The Truthful Art: Data, Charts and Maps for Communication’ (to be published in March 2016). In addition, he is the Knight Chair at the School of Communication and Director of the visualization program in the Computational Science department at the University of Miami, where he teaches visualization and infographics. And be sure to check out his blog.

Follow Alberto Cairo at @albertocairo

Wayne Eckerson: Wayne has been a thought leader in the business intelligence and analytics field since the early 1990s. He is author of 2 books, “The Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business (2010)” and “Secrets of Analytical Leaders: Insights from Information Insiders”. He is principal consultant of Eckerson Group, LLC, a business-technology consulting firm that helps business leaders use data and technology to drive better insights and actions. Learn more in this free white paper by Wayne and this blog post.

Follow Wayne Eckerson at @wEckerson

And follow me on Twitter at @AnitaGibbings.

Webinar schedule and links by celebrity:

All webinars will be in English unless otherwise noted.