FortiusOne drops the GeoCommons News Dashboard with an introductory visualization tool known as the ObamaMeter, which “[keeps] tabs on the US economy, the global economy and the stimulus through [a] visual dashboard.” Sean Gorman, founder and CEO of FortiusOne, writes on the company blog:
One map or analysis did not get the job done. They needed a collection of maps providing status on a range of indicators critical to conducting business. We decided to fuse the two concepts together into a dashboard. In this case of the demo, answering the question, “if I was the president what economic indicators would I want to see to better manage the country.”
To accomplish the task we collected 15 data sets and categorized them into the following categories: Employment, Foreclosures, Stimulus and Global Economics … When available (foreclosures and unemployment) we mapped data from November 2008 to provide an indicator of the status before Obama took office and January 2009 (or December if January was not yet available) for after he took office, and then also mapped change between the two time periods.
And, if you don’t trust the maps, you can make your own mashup! All of the above data is reportedly available in raw, exportable format. For free.
Keeping with the mantra of transparent and open data all of the maps can be exported as KML plus you can click the hyperlink to Maker and click details to get the raw data for any of the maps.
Aside from the map itself and its time-lapse nature, I like the slider bars associated with each map. Move the slider to define or refine data ranges and watch the map change. For instance, the map I generated above displays only states with a 5% and greater unemployment rate.
Cool. Looking forward to more open data (not just open source) visualization tools from Gorman’s shop and others.
