The goal with infographics (information graphics) utilization is to take a cluttered amount of data and present it in an understandable, organized, and aesthetically appealing form.

Infographics take data and meshes it with design in hopes of making something easier to understand for the viewer. They’re much more common than you think and most of us see it everyday. When we check the weather, it is usually displayed in a table with clouds, sunshine, rain, snow, etc. — well, that is an infographic representation of data in regards to weather.

When looking at an infographic design, you could ask it a multitude amount of questions with only one visual interpretation of data. For example, when you’re looking at a weather forecast you can get answers to many questions:

• What’s the weather like tomorrow?
• What’s the high? The low?
• What are the chances of rain throughout the week?
• How strong are the winds going to be?
• And so forth…

With web technologies getting more and more advanced, infographics have evolved from static images to interactive web applications. The basic form can be shown in a weather forecast as well. You can set parameters such as: 10 day, 7 day, 3 day, and hourly forecasts.

Interactive infographics are a great innovation because it allows the designer/programmer of the infographic to incorporate more data into a single design; however, it does take much longer to create. Unlike static image infographics, an interactive infographic requires not only design but also programming and a little more brainstorming. It must programmatically work and be designed to be aesthetically appealing — it can’t have any hiccups with loading designs and data.

With dawn of a new information age, Data will only grow larger and difficult to manage. With so much data floating around, using Inforgraphics as the first step will allow data to make sense.

This is a major update from Adobe’s CS4, released in Fall, 2008. Since CS4, Adobe has aquired a few companies and beefed up their design and development tools. If you are a marketing or design company with development or design staff, be prepared to get requests for the CS5 packages. They range from $2599.00 for the CS5 Master Collection ($899 to upgrade) to $1299.00 for the cheapest, Design Standard package ($499 to upgrade), which only includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, and Acrobat 9 Pro along with the usual Adobe Bridge and Device Central.

There are a lot of videos circulating the internet right now on new features for Photoshop. Most notably, masking is made much easier, color picking, and cloning are also improved. Besides the usual program advancements, Adobe has aquired some new patents and companies. They have introduced some very exciting web and mobile advancements setting it above CS4. The two most exciting advancements appear to be a connectivity and development feature which allows Flash developers to create apps for the iPhone and iPad. Also included is an online marketing suite which should improve workflow from website design, development, and finally web marketing. In addition, they are finally supporting 64 bit computing which should enhance and speed up workflow. We’ll put the new software through it’s paces then we’ll update you and let you know if it’s worth the hype and expense.

After a recent trip to New York City, I was impressed with a poster ad campaign running from Diesel Jeans. Rather than explain their simple phrase, “Be Stupid.” I’ll just link you to a promotional video for the campaign. It’s impressively witty without coming off as [too] gimmicky. They’ve been heavily marketing the campaign and it’s paying off. The ads are entertaining and witty and they’re getting a lot of social media feedback. So if you’re a fan of stupid companies and you have stupid replies to stupid content, you can befriend them and share in the stupidity. Now let’s all be stupid together.

While most industries are trying to figure out what Social Media can do for them, the automotive industry has been involved in social media as early as 2001 (possibly even earlier). In fact most manufacturers were involved whether they liked it or not. The reason for the forced involvement had to do with car enthusiasts who had passion for specific automotive models and brands. Using “car love” as the common bond, millions of visitors would join various “closed communities” (bulletin boards) and engage in conversation with each other across the world. This opened the communication doors between the manufacturer and the owner. This also provided an opportunity for people like me to start a “closed community” and provide enthusiasts with something that they couldn’t find anywhere else. Hence the start of EvolutionM.net.

Unfortunately social media at that time was looked at as a negative because companies weren’t ready to hear what the customer had to say, especially if it were negative about their product. Even to this day, a few automotive manufacturers are still reluctant to utilize social media to its fullest, cough..Toyota…cough.

Even with the exposure to social media for nearly a decade, I feel the Automotive industry still has a way to go to fully embrace what the online community has to offer. A great example of lack of use is in product development. All you have to do is pick up the latest issue of Road & Track to see my point. The majority of cars that come out seem to miss the mark with the intended customer, however, if you look closely there are a few that seem to get it. GM is a great example of a company embracing more social interactions online with their blogging efforts. The end result, their Camaro for the first time in 16 years has outsold the Mustang. A company which was once in bankruptcy is slowly pulling themselves out.

So what’s my point? I have two:

1. Social Media is a long term marketing solution to help improve a company’s product and brand by interacting with the intended customers. It is NOT a short term sales solution. If it is treated as such, the ROI for your efforts will be ridiculously bad. Even with more than a decade of interaction, the Automotive Industry is still trying to tackle Social Media
2. Social Media is NOT a one-size-fits-all channel and every company needs to develop its own identity online. Having a custom tailored strategy for your company’s social media campaign is vital for success.

Every company needs feedback from their customer to become better. Open the lines of communication and embrace Social Media in a way that fits your company’s personality. If done correctly, your company will be here to stay for the long haul.