One thing for sure, information has revolutionized the world in every possible way and that's one reason why GOOD and IBM have joined hands together to bring us Figures of Progress.
Figures of Progress is an online community that explores the different ways how information has changed the world and highlights how the leaders today have a better understanding of their audience.
Figures of Progress shares amazing stories about the power of data and how the leaders are finding innovative ways to use it in their respective fields, through videos, story profiles and infographics.
"We are extremely excited to showcase how leaders in businesses, cities and non-profits are using data to best align their specific objectives with society's needs and drive progress" said Ben Goldhirsh, CEO, GOOD Worldwide. "GOOD has always recognized the power of numbers and we look forward to watching how our community continues to use data to improve their work and their impact."
Read on to know more about Figures of Progress with Jay Ku, Head of Corporate Partnerships for GOOD/Figures of Progress.
1. What is Figures of Progress and how did the idea of creating the website evolve?
Figures of Progress was created out of the idea that there is little intrinsic value in data. Rather, it is only as valuable as the individual who understands it and uses it to learn and do. As such, we launched Figures of Progress in partnership with IBM in order to take a closer look at the innovative leaders who not only utilize data to better serve their customers and constituents but who are also utilizing the latest technologies to understand, decipher and draw powerful insights that would otherwise remain hidden.
The site itself is a multi-layered microsite that shares creative content to inform GOOD readers and enable them to join the conversation and creatively ideate new solutions driven by key facts and insights. Content includes a weekly series profiling 20 cross-sector executives who are making industry-altering decisions based on data, understanding rather than predicting the needs of customers and/or communities. In addition, we also produce and feature original infographics and videos that dynamically engage readers and provide them assets to share with their personal and professional networks.
2. How does GOOD collect the material on the site (i.e. profiles, videos, etc.)? How does it add to the driving focus of the site?
We have been quite selective in the leaders we choose in order to ensure they meet our criteria as a Figure of Progress and as someone who can challenge our community with an opportunity to submit creative ideas tied to key data points. After we do research to ensure we are picking leaders who are making an effective step to align with the mission of the program, we do outreach to ensure the leaders are as interested in sharing their story and point of view as we are. We send each the same five interview questions in order to provide a consistent framework to showcase their unique viewpoints, approaches and results.
So far, we’ve profiled Rachel Sterne, Chief Digital Officer of New York, who has been exalted in Vogue for transforming New York’s communication and social presence; Adam Brotman, Chief Digital Officer of Starbucks, who was profiled in a Fast Company feature as one of the 100 most creative people in business in 2012 for his work in partnering with Square; and Jennifer Pahlka, Founder of Code for America who was profiled in Huffington Post’s 2011 Game Changers and lauded for her TED Talk on Coding a Better Government.
What’s great about the list is that these leaders wanted the opportunity to share first-hand that adaptation to a tech-focused era was necessary in creating true change in the market.
Featuring these leaders supports the broader mission of the new good.is in that our site is a platform for Learns and Dos – meaning that we aim to educate our community on key issues and then enable them to take an action that will drive progress in that topic. Figures of Progress seeks to inspire our community of thought leaders through these example individuals and then provide opportunities for our members to ideate their own solutions from data.
3. How did you go about designing the look/feel for the site? What was the context, inspiration, etc?
After much ideation, our Art Directors chose to focus the creative around connectivity. By highlighting these incredible figures from various companies, cities and organizations, we realize just how much data plays a role in our businesses, communities, and lives, and that ultimately, data has become essential to connecting with each other.
With connectivity in mind, they researched basic visuals of connecting, like network maps and even data points on a graph, which led to extracting simple geometric, polygonal shapes that are created naturally out of those connected points. For the profiles, we were actually looking at the work of some amazing artists who specialized in polygonal illustration, but through that research found an iPad app called Poly that allows users to draw shapes using points to create geometric images. So we ended up taking those illustrations in-house and drawing the leader profiles on our own!
4. What is the sort of feedback that you are getting from your community of readers? What have been some of the biggest compliments that you have received since the site went live?
The response to Figures of Progress has been tremendous. Since launching a few months ago, we’ve surpassed 1,000,000 unique visitors and continue to gain traction. The Response Box – our crowd-sourcing idea platform – has seen great engagement with our members submitting dozens of creative ideas for each leader. Figures of Progress has also received great coverage in key media outlets such as Forbes, MediaPost, and CNBC. In addition, a community of thought leaders and innovative companies have provided great feedback and promotion, including: Airbnb, DonorsChoose and ZDNet.
Our community also sees Figures of Progress as a compelling platform for anyone who loves data, including Quora users. Our CTO subscribes to the topic "data" on Quora and saw positive mention of Figures of Progress on a question asking for the community's input on the best blogs about data: "Love the Guardian's site http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog The Numbers Guy is a classic. Also enjoying IBM's data blog Figures of Progress http://www.good.is/figuresofprogress".
5. How are you promoting this site? We must say, the high quality content itself will draw in repeat visitors. What is your take on word-of-mouth promotion versus promotion using social media channels?
We are promoting our site via traditional PR channels as well as social media platforms. We’re also featuring Figures of Progress prominently across GOOD’s network, which has a vibrant, connected community that constantly shares interesting content with one another. Word-of-mouth and social media are essentially the same to us. When discussing interesting content with friends, you’re generally broadcasting that to your social media networks. Our main focus is to ensure that the content is the highest quality and provides insight into data and technology innovation for our readers so that they will find it worth sharing.
6. If you could peek inside the studio/ toolbox/ mind of any designer/ artist/ craftsperson/ entrepreneur/ motivational speaker, whose would it be and why?
We’re pretty happy with the inspiration that those figures featured so far on Figures of Progress have provided. The insight we’ve been able to get from the likes of Starbucks, Airbnb and Code for America has been invaluable, and it’s great that these imaginative and creative leaders are sharing their thoughts with us.
7. What are the future plans for Figures of Progress? Do you plan to increase the scope/categories of your articles? Any new features in the pipeline?
We’ll be continuing with our Leader Profiles in the coming weeks, with some very interesting and inspiring community and business leaders being highlighted. We’re especially excited about the high number of civic figures who have generously shared their thoughts on leadership, data and technology, including Jay Nath (Chief Innovation Officer of San Francisco), Sterne, and Governor Martin O’Malley (Maryland). The Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, will be sharing his insights, as will other prominent business leaders.
Our featured launch video on how basketball is using data to change the sport was so well received that we’ll have another video series with IBM coming soon in January. The video series will be similar to the basketball video but focusing on companies that will benefit from data analysis to transform their organizations.
We’ll also have another infographic to showcase how data is changing the way we conduct our lives, similar to our popular interactive infographic that was used to show the changing ways we are shopping and how brands are addressing these new digital habits of consumers.
8. Have you been able to actually measure any practical improvements in peoples lives as a result of the content that you have created on the website since it is based on the premise of “Figures Of Progress”? Any tips for our readers to make their life “Good”?
We hope that we’re providing value to visitors to our site and showcasing how important data and technology is in our communities. We believe in the power of understanding data, not for data’s sake, but to apply it to transform your business or community. Technology innovation can only come from thoughtful analysis and a passion to make a different, whether it’s in the marketplace or your local community, and we are putting a spotlight on those people in business and civic organizations who are doing this, in an effort to inspire others who read their stories.
Thank you Jay for taking out the time and doing this interview with us. We'd like to wish you and your team the very best for the future.
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