Scareymonster Blog on Design and Digital Marketing

Pencil project - Red Indian Man

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Mon, 20 Oct 2014 20:02:00 +0000

This drawing is of an old Red Indian pic that I found on the internet. I used about 6 different pencil weights for this piece. Approx time to create 1 month.

A few dusty drawings

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 15:50:00 +0000

I found some old sketches in a very old and dusty portfolio of mine, hell I thought I'd just share and throw them up here on my somewhat outdated blog.

Anyway, something special about just using a simple pencil instead of Photoshop etc.

Scarey M

How to turn a coffee bean into the leader of an alien horde of unspeakable power

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Sun, 06 May 2012 18:17:00 +0000

Back in 2009 I was looking for an idea to create a type of alien character for the Blake's 7 Audio Adventures - Series 2. Inspiration can arrive in the smallest of ways, this time I was in Starbucks one day and it arrived in the form of a single little coffee bean. Below I have tried to stitch together some sketches of how the idea came about and a sample illustration of a CD cover for the series.

Many thanks to B7 Media for use of their logo and authorisation to publish the artwork

How good is an Android phone for photography

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:17:00 +0000

I recently tested out my Android phone to see good the photography can be.

I live in a town in Scotland called Linlithgow where we are lucky to have some beautiful landscapes. I took some pictures with the phone of Linlithgow Palace where Mary Queen of Scots as born.

Hope you like them, pictures where taken at 9am in the morning, later Summer

D

The Linlithgow Peel with a G1 Android Camera Phone

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:02:00 +0000

I started recently to take some pictures as test of the quality of my G1 android phone. I live in a small town called Linlithgow in Scotland, which posses a beautiful palace and loch where Mary Queen of Scots was born some 600 years ago.

Around the foot of the Palace is a Loch. You can walk around the loch area (2.3 miles), of which I took the following pictures of at about 9 in the morning in late summer.

Hope you like them.

A Design on Sports

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:50:00 +0000

These are some example images from a project I worked on a while back for the sports retail industry. The 'The Medal Collection, Golf Balls' was for the company Dunnes Stores of Ireland. The brief was to develop a classic identity that could be used across of number of golf related products. To my surprise, the client invested circa £45,000 in golf goods branded with this design based on a powerpoint presentation of the designs. Nice!

The second image was for a company who wanted to develop a range of bottles for different sports. They had already developed the product, which was promoted in Computer Arts Magazine in 04.

We took their designs, reshaped and built a unified branding across the various sports.

scareymonster@googlemail.com

My Designs for Blake's 7 Audio Adventures

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:45:00 +0000

I just want to throw in some nostalgia for any of you 70's kids whose children
love the new 'Doctor Who' but you LOVED 'Blake's 7' and like me get strange,
puzzled looks from them.

Here is one of my latest designs for the revived Blake's 7 - which with B7 Media I have been
working on for nearly 4 years now - If you want to find out more about it please
visit the following site, that I did for B7 as well as the designs.

We had a few 1a.m.'s with this project but good fun all the same.

Fans love it, which is the main thing.

www.b7media.com

Have Fun!

Scareymonster

The Context to Performance Reporting in Government

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:41:00 +0000

Reporting on performance across the government sector has traditionally been an internal process of providing static indicator reports of current state against baselines and targets to senior managers and elected officials. In parallel, there has been an external process of providing reports and data to a central government agency and an auditing body. Content of performance reports has often been driven by the reporting specifications of the central agency – as such the content and style of reports reflects the needs of this audience but rarely those of others.

However in recent years the situation is changing fast. There are increasing pressures on government bodies worldwide to demonstrate the effective use of public resources. There has been a widespread emergence of performance and results-based management approaches with renewed emphasis on results-oriented business planning, accountability and performance reporting. Agencies are now seeing the benefits of implementing these performance management practices.

How have these developments impacted on performance reporting? Internal reporting is becoming more sophisticated with the use of hierarchical scorecards to present a balanced view of performance tailored to different stakeholders. Visual markers and traffic-light colouring are often used to highlight underachievement and exceptions. Externally, public agencies are being actively encouraged to make their performance reports available to a wider citizen community. There are many challenges to this process not least how to present information to users in a way that is engaging, relevant, understandable and useful in the context of expectations that are rapidly becoming more sophisticated.

The context within UK government is covered in more detail at the following page, please visit for further details > Peformance Reporting and Mapping

Article Keywords - performance reporting, performance mapping, performance map, performance dashboards, performance analysis tool, statistical data presentation, statistics visualization, performance measuring, performance indicator reporting, data presentation methods, interactive reporting, performance mapping tools, development statistics software, performance mapping charts, area profiling

ARTICLE SOURCE - http://www.instantatlas.wordpress.com

Swine Flu H1N1 Atlases published with InstantAtlas

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Wednesday, 06 May 2009

In this post we preview the first templates created with the new InstantAtlas V6 Single Map template, the first V6 template to be released. These include atlases created by the Pan American Health Organization and the Ministry of Health, Chile on the spread of Swineflu H1N1.

The West Midlands Regional Observatory have also been doing work with InstantAtlas V6. We showcase two of their new applications, one looking at the cultural economy of the region, the other at excess winter deaths. The latter presents work completed in partnership with Sandwell Primary Care Trust.

The month's Spotlight is cast on Performance Reporting and Analysis. We have selected three recent client examples using InstantAtlas present performance reports on key indicators and trends. In conjunction with this focus we are launching a new Resource Pack around Performance Reporting and Mapping of key indicators.

Finally we take a look at a new set of Data & Report Packs to support UK customers of InstantAtlas Server delivering a Local Information System or Data Observatory. These packs reflect interest from customers in streamlining data management tasks.

Featured Application

WMRO | New InstantAtlas Reports

West Midlands Regional Observatory

"InstantAtlas enables us to present data geographically in interactive maps to make it more accessible to our users. It helps to compare and contrast different areas within the region to determine which issues are affecting those areas the most. In particular, we have found InstantAtlas to be a useful tool in helping us to highlight key regional issues and challenges emerging from our State of the Region work, which is publicly available via our website. Other regional partners have also found the tool to be very useful. We are now starting to use Version 6 of InstantAtlas which offers some significant enhancements in areas like performance (we can now display LSOA level data for the whole region) and usability."

Naomi Winchurch, Researcher WMRO

Cultural Economy Atlas
Based on NEW V6 Single Map Template

Sandwell Primary Care Trust and the West Midlands Public Health Observatory (WMPHO) have jointly been addressing the area of excess winter deaths to inform the reducing excess winter deaths programme, an NHS West Midlands Investing for Health project. WMPHO provided the data on excess winter deaths.

The Investing for Health project also examines the relationship between excess winter deaths and fuel poverty. We helped to share this information by presenting data on excess winter deaths and the fuel poverty indicator through interactive maps. You can use the maps to view the data geographically.

View the atlases:

Excess winter deaths index and number of excess winter deaths PCT | Local Authority

Fuel poverty indicator at LSOA

Based on NEW V6 Single Map Template

Swineflu H1N1 | Outbreak Maps

Swine flu H1N1 Atlases

Following the latest pandemic outbreak of H1N1 flu from Mexico and into North America, organizations have been keen to harness InstantAtlas to get the outbreak data out quickly around the world to agency and public audiences. Some of the examples on the special presentation page make use of our new InstantAtlas Version 6 Single Map template.

View Special Presentation

Client Spotlight | Performance Reporting examples

NHS Community Health Profiles

The Association of Public Health Observatories was commissioned by the Department of Health in 2005 to produce Health Profiles. Health Profiles provide a snapshot of health for each local council in England using key health indicators, which enables comparison locally, regionally and over time.

View Report

Norfolk Performance Scorecard

This Instant Atlas report was created to demonstrate how you can present and track a defined set of Performance Indicators (PIs) at a small area (Ward) level. It is an example of an interactive dashboard or scorecard. Two areas can be compared to review current state against target. It can be used to present performance at a much more localised level to enable communities to understand priorities and, potentially, get involved in setting targets.

View Report

Yorkshire Futures: Monitoring Progress in the Region

This report was developed to complement the annual Progress in the Region report created by the Regional Observatory. It provides an interactive picture to explore inter- and intra-regional performance patterns and trends.

View Report

InstantAtlas Resource Packs

NEW - Performance Reporting and Mapping

The value of utilising geography in performance management and reporting is becoming widely recognised. Incorporating geography into performance allows you to:-

1. Understand geographic levels of variation and inequality particularly where there are targets to 'narrow the gap';

2. Rapidly benchmark areas of interest with geographic and statistical neighbors;

3. Identify 'problem hotspots' and target policy and practical interventions more effectively;

4. Make performance reports more relevant and useful to area-based managers and elected officials by delivering performance profile reports using their own geographies; and

5. Meet the rising expectations of your citizen audience by making reports more personalised and useful to citizens.

For more information on the use of InstantAtlas for Performance Reporting see our online Resource Pack

Classroom Training in InstantAtlas

Due to high demand from our customers InstantAtlas are now offering a new and comprehensive classroom based training package. These will be more cost-effective than on-site training. IA Classroom training courses are hosted in our Edinburgh office.

For further details please contact Sophie Lloyd

Latest Product News

InstantAtlas V6 | NEW Single Map Template

The new 6.0 version of the Single Map Template is now available.

This new release delivers significant improvements in performance, presentation, style and functionality. V6 is written to take advantage of Adobe's Flex technology for developing Rich Internet Applications (or RIAs).

To find out more about V6 and when the other V6 templates will be available please contact support.

InstantAtlas Server | NEW Data and Report Packs

CLICK TO VIEW PACK OVERVIEW PDF

OCSI (www.ocsi.co.uk) We are launching a set of Data and Report Packs in partnership with OCSI to support nationally published statistical data, in response to interest from customers in streamlining data management tasks.

With nationally published data - we are (1) adding intelligence to the data through creation of rates, ranks and suitable comparators; (2) enhancing supplier metadata where necessary; and (3) most significantly we are including a range of outputs (Profile Reports and Data Views) built by OCSI which you can then customise if you wish.

Further details of these new Data and Report Packs are available in our Pack Overview (see left to download). Detailed specifications of the packs are available on request - contact John at john.maslen@geowise.co.uk.

Seminars & Conferences

Where to see InstantAtlas

BURISA 2009 Annual Conference

"Location, location, location - Whither Geographical Information"

14th May 2009 - Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, UK

This year's BURISA Conference is the ideal opportunity to catch up with progress and issues in geographical information, demystify the jargon and look ahead to future developments.

URISA's Second GIS in Public Health Conference

June 5-8, 2009 - Providence, Rhode Island, US

The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) is hosting the second specialty conference to explore the many uses of GIS for public health access, processes, and decision-making. – Click here for Further details of the Conference

North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)

2009 Annual Conference - June 13-19, 2009 San Diego, California, US

This year's conference, "Charting the Course to a New World in Cancer Surveillance" will highlight new directions in cancer surveillance with current and future technologies in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, as well as innovations in bioinformatics and genetics as these impact the cancer data collection

InstantAtlas will be demonstrated at these conferences, if you wish to be given a demo at the event email us at marketing@geowise.co.uk

Local Information System Resource Pack from InstantAtlas

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:47:00 +0000

GeoWise has been compiling a set of freely available resources to support those with an interest in understanding and implementing a Local Information System or Data Observatory. Our experience comes from more than 30 implementations of InstantAtlas Server, our off-the-shelf solution for LIS and Data Observatories, across local government and NHS organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.

You may already have seen some of these resources but we thought it would be easier to access them through a comprehensive digest. The online videos below are now available in a more accessible format to make them easier to view.

The LIS Resource Pack should be of value to two audiences:

Those in the early stage of their thinking about management of local intelligence, more evidence-driven processes, and partnership-based data exchange.
Those who have set up some form of LIS but are looking to improve data management processes and better integrate with other corporate processes.

The Resource Pack includes direct links to all of our LIS related online seminars and LIS documents. The two most recent seminars include a comprehensive review of the Norfolk Data Observatory and an overview of the development and launch of BHLIS (Brighton & Hove Local Information Service) for the Brighton & Hove Strategic Partnership. The Resource Pack also includes links to relevant documents, reports and web sites.

For furthere details on LIS please vist http://www.instantatlas.com/lis

InstantAtlas - Free Trial

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 15:28:00 +0000

You can order a free 30 day fully functional evaluation version of InstantAtlas desktop. Two options are supported - both are available in the UK and internationally. The evaluation version is currently only available in an English language version.

Option 1 | Complete Form Below and Download the Free Trial Online

Option 2 | Request CD Version of Free Trial by Post - CLICK HERE

Presenting Statistics On Web Sites

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:27:00 +0000

Develop best practice for presenting statistics on the Web | InstantAtlas Presentation

Presenting Statistics On Web Sites

View more presentations from scareymonster.

InstantAtlas E-bulletin

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:02:00 +0000

In this posting we feature the C4EO Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services web site and their recently published Progress Maps, which aim to assist users to understand "what works": evidence that has been shown to improve outcomes for children and families.

The Spotlight is cast on international Socio-economic Development, we have selected three recent client examples from Europe, where InstantAtlas has been used to present and report on key economic indicators and trends.

We have updated the Local Information System Resource Pack (at www.instantatlas.com/lis) with some new documents, in particular a supplementary report to the generic LIS business case report from North East Lincolnshire. This provides additional business case material collated from customers and links to material that has been published since the North East Lincolnshire report was written.

I hope you find this posting of great interest.

David Carey

Marketing Manager

david.carey@geowise.co.uk

Featured Application

C4EO - Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services

The Progress Map is an interactive web-based tool. It aims to help professionals access and apply the "what works" evidence that C4EO has collected, which has been shown to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families

The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People's Services (C4EO) has used InstantAtlas as a core component of the interactive, web-based tools it is developing to help professionals access and apply the 'what works' evidence collected by the Centre to improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

Using InstantAtlas (with excellent technical support from Geowise) has allowed us to develop and launch complex, interactive tools in a very short period of time. Though it is still early days, feedback so far has been overwhelming positive.

Jez MacDonald | Web Development Manager | Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE)

The CEO4 Progress Map is available from http://www.c4eo.org.uk/Progress_Maps

Client Spotlight – Socio-economic Development

Observatory, Álava, Spain

The Observatorio Social de Álava was created as a tool for sharing information on the activities of social services in the historic territory.

View Report

Statistical Office of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein, Germany

The new online maps for Schleswig-Holstein make it possible for different audiences to gain a quick overview of the structure and trends in each district.

View Report

Blackpool Council, United Kingdom

This Instant Atlas display was created to show viewers custom ranges rather than dividing the data into equal intervals or quantiles for the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2007 and its seven domains of deprivation. –

Read on

View Report

InstantAtlas Resource Packs

Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)

InstantAtlas is now well-established in the United States and United Kingdom and used by state health departments, regional and local public health authorities. It is ideal for presenting data values and trends in a spatial context to internal and external audiences. e.g. demographic data, epidemiological statistics, health indicators.

InstantAtlas serves equally well as a tool for monitoring performance of health resources and presenting survey results. Departments of Health in ten US States are implementing this software.

We have included some recent BRFSS examples on our website some of which are live operational applications, others are demonstration samples to show the power and flexibility of InstantAtlas

For further details visit our BRFSS Examples

Crime Mapping – Amethyst Project

The Amethyst Project is part of the crime reduction partnership in Cornwall. The Cornwall Crime Explorer is aimed at a non-expert end-user audience across the local partnership and external citizens. It illustrates a number of good practice concepts including easily understandable categorical classes, use of recognised colour shading and extensive descriptive metadata notes.

The atlas is based on the Performance Analysis Template in stand-alone mode with statistics being published quarterly by crime analysts using Excel. It offers a cross-cutting view of a range of indicators, in this case crime types, with the flexibility to view trends in a pop-up line graph.

Read the New Amethyst Case Study

Business Benefits for LIS Development

N E Lincolnshire Data Observatory Report (PDF)

Seminars & Conferences

Where to see InstantAtlas

"Location, location, location - Whither Geographical Information"

14th May 2009 - Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London, UK

This year's BURISA Conference is the ideal opportunity to catch up with progress and issues in geographical information, demystify the jargon and look ahead to future developments.

URISA's Second GIS in Public Health Conference

June 5-8, 2009 - Providence, Rhode Island, US

North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR)

2009 Annual Conference - June 13-19, 2009 San Diego, California, US

InstantAtlas will be demonstrated at these conferences, if you wish to be given a demo at the event email us at marketing@geowise.co.uk

InstantAtlas E-Bulletin on GLA, Geo-demographics and Crime Mapping

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:31:00 +0000

In this posting we review worked carried out by the Greater London Authority (GLA) who recently published their annual London Borough Stat-Pack as interactive maps using InstantAtlas. We take a look at new implementations of InstantAtlas for analysing and mapping crime statistics with South Yorkshire Police and Thames Valley Police, who have both adopted InstantAtlas as an affordable public crime mapping solution.

With increasing interest in social marketing and geo-demographics we present some recent work done in partnership with the Norfolk Data Observatory on their Lifestyle profile reports based on the CACI Acorn data product.

Visit our online LIS Resource Pack to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. We have collected all current LIS resources and added two new webinars in December by Norfolk County Council and Brighton and Hove Council.

David Carey
Marketing Manager
david.carey@geowise.co.uk

Featured Applications

Greater London Authority

The Greater London Authority (GLA) recently took advantage of its relationship with SASPAC, the UK Census analysis software specialists, to publish their annual 'London Borough Stat-pack' report as interactive maps.

The Stat-pack is produced by Data Management & Analysis Group (DMAG) and provides a wide range of borough level data across different themes as a leaflet and accompanying CD.

Gareth Piggott of DMAG says "We found the software easy to use, and the fact that we were able to customise the template gave us the freedom to present it exactly how we wanted it. InstantAtlas met the requirements for the project exactly and we intend using it again for web-based projects this year."

For more information visit:

http://www.saspac.org/StatPack09/

UK Crime Mapping

South Yorkshire Police and Thames Valley Police have both adopted InstantAtlas as an affordable public crime mapping solution to make a range of area-based crime statistics available through their web site in a visual and interactive manner. This also meets their obligations defined by UK Central Government - the Home Office - to make performance-related data on recorded crime for specific crime types available through interactive, online maps for the first time.

In line with Home Office guidance, the statistics have been selected to make them as easy to understand as possible. The report layout has been designed to allow users to get a cross-cutting view on the status of recorded crime across key crime types for any area of interest.

The values have been classified into a standard set of categorical classes relating the level of crime in any one area with that in the police authority area as a whole. These classes are also graded using a widely recognised convention (for example A to E in the case of South Yorkshire).

In parallel with our work with Police Forces, GeoWise has been working closely with Amethyst (www.amethyst.gov.uk), the CDRP for Cornwall, to update their online crime reporting capability. Their new atlas - see http://www.amethyst.gov.uk/crime.htm - is aimed at a wide range of users including staff within the local partnership and also those coming to the site externally.

All these crime reports are based on the InstantAtlas Performance Analysis template with minor enhancements, for example to add a postcode search function.

There are a range of UK and international examples of crime related work available through the Public Safety theme of the showcase section of the InstantAtlas web site.

Geo-demographics and Customer Insight

As part of the LARIA event on Social Marketing & Segmentation (see below) we did some work with the Norfolk Data Observatory team to enhance their presentation of geo-demographics. This included some enhancements to their Lifestyle profile reports based on the CACI Acorn data product. These reports are available for all their geographies (see example for Norwich Childrens Service Cluster area).

We also created an interactive geo-demographic profile allowing users to explore multiple areas (see screenshot and live example) and rapidly understand the likely composition of the resident population. We then used this profile atlas to help create a simple map based report, which classifies of all wards into a custom set of 6 classes based on Acorn Categories.

Product News

NEW InstantAtlas 6

InstantAtlas 6 for Desktop and Server is due for imminent release. To give you a taste of what is to come we have provide a list of some of the new key features for both applications.

New Desktop 6 Features include (not confirmed):-

* Improved Performance: Will load faster and can handle more data

* Improved handling of decimal points

* User Controlled Layer transparency

* Ability to switch base layers within one atlas

* Support for custom class breaks

* Colour coded data table

* Improved chart labels

New Server 6 Features include (not confirmed):-

* Completely re-written in Microsoft .NET.

* Support for storing data in remote databases

* Complete Multi-language support

* New improved user interface

* Support for calculated ratios from existing indicators

* Improved profiles including display as PDF

* New Server Publisher module allowing streaming of vector data from ArcGIS Server

If you would like to be alerted of the new release dates please email me at marketing @geowise.co.uk and I will send you a notification.

www.instantatlas.com

InstantAtlas – Ebulletin News

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:08:00 +0000

In this posting we feature the recently released National Health Episode Statistics (HES) e-Atlas produced by the Association of Public health Observatories (APHO). HES data are widely used and this new resources should make the data more accessible.

We also present a slightly different use of InstantAtlas as a part of the new MapYourName web site. Visit www.mapyourname.com to see the distribution of your name.

Finally visit our new online LIS Resource Pack to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. We have collected all current LIS resources and added two new webinars in December by Norfolk County Council and Brighton and Hove Council.

I hope you find post of great interest.

David Carey
Marketing Manager
david.carey@geowise.co.uk

Featured Applications

National Health Episode Statistics & e-Atlas (APHO)

Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) are record level patient data collected by the Department of Health from every NHS hospital in England and Wales. HES data provides a comprehensive picture of inpatient care that can support public health analysis, planning and resource allocation, benchmarking, clinical audit, monitoring and performance management and research.*

Presenting HES data using InstantAtlas makes the data more accessible. As Steve Morgan, Senior Public Health Analyst at SEPHO says: " "I've demonstrated the software to a number of senior public health specialists and received a great deal of positive feedback – complex data previously once displayed in tedious two dimensional spreadsheets and charts is now transformed in an exciting and more meaningful manner"

The new HES e-Atlas produced by SEPHO on behalf of APHO shows HES data between 2003/4 – 2006/07 in a single map template (by Local Authorities).

It is available at: National HES e-Atlas
*Source and for more information on HES data

Map Your Name

Whatever your name there will be a place in the world it is most common. That place may be a continent, sometimes a country but very often a very specific region or even city or town whose location can be marked on a map.

The purpose of http://www.mapyourname.com is to make it easy for people to learn where this location is.

For the 60,000 most common family names Mapyourname will show their spread not just at country level but right down to the level of individual regions. From these maps most of you should be able to pinpoint the ancestral heartland of your name, and your friends' and colleagues' names, the place where your distant blood relations live, the location of your genetic home.

You can also map the areas where the 26,000 personal names are most common.

Visit mapyourname today and see where your name orginates

Mapyourname.com | Powered by InstantAtlas

Product News

NEW - Local Information Systems (Resource Pack)

Throughout 2008 GeoWise has been producing resources to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. Our experience comes from more than 30 implementations of InstantAtlas Server, our off-the-shelf solution for LIS and data observatories, across local government and NHS organisations in England, Scotland and Wales.

Visit our Resource Pack for further details – www.instantatlas.com/lis

InstantAtlas Training Courses

'very well presented, small enough 'chunks' to take it in but large enough to get something from.....'

Maddy Knott

Public Health Information & Knowledge Manager Portsmouth City Teaching PCT

'I found the training excellent. I thought the training was very clear...'

Jim Hawkins

Deputy Public Health Information & Knowledge Manager

Portsmouth City tPCT

InstantAtlas Training Courses now available

GeoWise offers two InstantAtlas Desktop Training Programmes:-

InstantAtlas Desktop FOUNDATION Course

InstantAtlas Desktop ADVANCED Course NEW

InstantAtlas CLASSROOM Training Courses – NEW – contact Sales for Details

Learn how to: -

Publish InstantAtlas dynamic reports for different geographies
Add and refresh the indicator data
Apply personalised designs
Distribute the reports.
These courses are available either on site at your premises, at our Edinburgh Offices or via WebEx (an online presentation and training tool).

Contact InstantAtlas Sales for more details.

Template Demos (Flash)

Desktop

Server Demo

InstantAtlas Case Studies

NORFOLK DATA OBSERVATORY

Norfolk improves decisions with InstantAtlas neighbourhood data visualization

NDO uses the InstantAtlas platform to provide local intelligence through highly visual and interactive graphical reports, maps, atlases, comparisons and other analyses. >>

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Norfolk Data Observatory on IA Showcase

SHEFFIELD PCT

Sheffield PCT gets the message across with InstantAtlas

Looking for a solution to its need to communicate local health indicators more clearly, Sheffield PCT chose to review InstantAtlas, a software tool from GeoWise which enables the graphical presentation of geographic and statistical data so that regional and local patterns become easy to see and explore. >>

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Sheffield PCT on IA Showcase

DIABETES UK

Diabetes UK uses InstantAtlas to help it inform, promote and campaign

Using InstantAtlas interactive flash based reports, Diabetes UK can demonstrate easily and quite clearly that some regions are better at providing a service such as eye screening or education, than others.

HTML Link

PDF Download Link

See Diabetes UK on IA Showcase

Keywords - data visualization tools, data visualization software, disease mapping, health mapping, geomarketing, public health statistics, crime mapping, statistical analysis tools, public health observatory, community information systems, geodemographic analysis Visit the InstantAtlas - Showcase or Client List to see examples of how InstantAtlas is used

InstantAtlas | Crime Map Examples on Flickr

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:39:00 +0000

If you would like to see examples of InstantAtlas for crime mapping you can view them now on flicker.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/instantatlas/

InstantAtlas: Presentation Solutions for the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:49:00 +0000

InstantAtlas is now well-established in the United States and United Kingdom and used by state health departments, regional and local public health authorities. It is ideal for presenting data values and trends in a spatial context to internal and external audiences. e.g. demographic data, epidemiological statistics, health indicators. Its serves equally well as a tool for monitoring performance of health resources and presenting survey results. Departments of Health in ten US States are implementing this software.

Simple to implement

You can take data from a spreadsheet, add your boundary file, publish an InstantAtlas stand-alone dynamic flash report and place it on your web site. Typically, this can all be done in less than a day. You do not need any special technical knowledge. You use familiar tools.

If you currently have data query, table maker or static mapping systems in place or in development, consider this also as a valuable add-on for integration.

InstantAtlas comes with ready-to-use templates that can be customized with the Designer and Style Editors. You only buy the templates that you need to present your data.

If you have a large number of indicators to manage you can upgrade to InstantAtlas Server to improve your data management process and deliver data 'live' to dynamic reports.

GeoWise have been working in the UK and internationally for over 10 years delivering innovative, market-leading data reporting and visualization solutions for location-based statistical data. We offer off-the-shelf products designed specifically to make it easy and fast for you to deliver visual data using maps, charts, tables and area profile reports.

For further details and examples, please visit the resource page.

http://www.instantatlas.com/brfss/

InstantAtlas for crime mapping and re...

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:44:00 +0000

InstantAtlas
for crime mapping and reporting

InstantAtlas
is an inexpensive yet powerful data visualization and presentation tool.
It is being used by national, regional and local crime and policing
bodies for online
crime mapping and reporting. It enhances the value of data
by making patterns in crime
statistics easy to see and explore. No expertise in data
publishing, delivery or mapping is needed - yet the results can be stunning
and effective.

Our outputs can be linked to databases to deliver 'live
data' or they can be stand-alone and completely portable. You do not
need a database or Internet connection to deliver richly interactive
reports and dashboards. This makes them ideal to take out in the field
on a laptop, CD or memory stick. Further detail on InstantAtlas product
options is provided after the examples below.

InstantAtlas is being used at a national, regional and local level
in the following areas:

Reporting of crime statistics to external citizens
Reporting of crime statistics to internal staff and partners, for
example performance reports to management, delivery of local policing
profiles, out-of-the-box neighbourhood information systems and area
profile reporting tools
Highly interactive presentation tools to use in community workshops,
management meetings or one-to-one sessions

GeoWise have been working in the UK and internationally
for over 10 years delivering innovative, market-leading data reporting
and visualisation solutions for location-based statistical data. We
offer off-the-shelf products designed specifically to make it easy and
fast for you to deliver online crime maps, charts,
tables and area profile reports.

Crime and Community Safety Examples

We have included some recent crime reporting examples below,
some of which are live operational applications, others are demonstration
samples to show the power and flexibility of InstantAtlas.

In the UK, following its use for national crime mapping and reporting
by the Home Office, a number of UK police forces have also adopted
InstantAtlas as the optimum tactical solution for public facing crime
reporting. Examples for South Yorkshire Police and Thames
Valley Police are shown below. Some of these forces also intend
to use the tool for internal performance reporting. A number of the
local authorities, local strategic partnerships and Crime and Disorder
Reduction Partnerships have also adopted InstantAtlas to allow them
to share this type of data effectively across multiple local partners
and present it in an intuitive and understandable way - see the Cornwall
Crime Explorer example for the Amethyst crime partnership.

Internationally, this dynamic method for presenting crime statistics, crime detection rates and crime solving rates is generating a lot of interest, especially in Germany. Examples are shown below for Hessen and for Germany as a whole and well as for Massachusetts, USA and Chile.

Home Office, UK (Live)

Amethyst Crime Partnership, Cornwall, UK (Live)

For More EXAMPLES Visit InstantAtlas Crime Mapping

Case Study Links from my Company - Geowise

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:13:00 +0000

I've listed here a few customer case studies from the company I work for - GeoWise. They will give you an idea of why the use the software that I have been marketing over the last year - InstantAtlas -

If you want to know more about the software visit www.instantatlas.com

There is also a InstantAtlas Customer Showcase that we created this year, which you can see at
http://www.instantatlas.com/solutions.xhtml

Contact me if you would like more information

InstantAtlas | Desktop Data Visualization Tools

Pre-Pixelpression Age

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 18:55:00 +0000

Just so you know, unlike like many others I have NOT forgotten the finger dexterity required for lifting a pen or a pencil, quill whatever! Photoshop doesn't provide real satisfaction I think, compared to sitting at the desk. Drawing with your tounge hanging out the right hand side of your mouth without you knowing.

Here are a couple of designs that I've always liked and wanted to share with you.

If you would like to discuss any design projects that you are working on and need some input by all means contact me on scareymonster@googlemail.com

Keeping it Tidy and Clean

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 12:02:00 +0000

Two years ago I came up with this crazy idea. Sitting in the bath someone had been in before me and left the soap [sorry the gooooo] at the sink.

'I'm not using that!' I said. 'In fact I couldn't use that I don't know if its 5 manky soaps made up into a mushy ball or something more sinister.

Then it struck me - [the idea not the soap monster goo]. I invented the 'SOAP TIDY' system. Great I thought, keep all your soap products in one place.

I set about creating a mock-up of this concept and Wollla! It's done. I even got a Design Patent for it as well from the UK Patent Office - well chuffed. Who cares if its not commercially viable - I personally don't know. Maybe one day someone will pick-up on it and drive it into your unsuspecting homes - All offers welcome. 'Bin it!!' yeah I hear you.

No matter, I decided to turn it into a site optimisation and ranking project - please visit www.soaptidy.com

Within two months it had ranked 6th on MSN for soap dispensers. I have had people wanting to stock it for their merchandising sites - IT DOES NOT EXIST!!!! but thanks anyway.

Let loose the Dogs of War, eh well Puppies at least.

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:55:00 +0000

LVM [Large Volume Mail] Campaign – As before the marketing department are once again tasked with turning Water into Wine with another data list of tripe. I’m sorry to say I have now done this exercise on a few occasions now and I’m still not confident that the Golden Rule, the physical laws of data management have been discovered to be wrong, that equation being ‘GIGO’ – Garbage In Garbage Out. Handing us over 5 million emails of the UNDEAD is about as effective as it gets, when a data provider tells you that his lists are cleansed and regularly checked. Its like the opening of a new coffee jar – when you break the seal you get that lovely aroma – Ah! This is good data, we’re onto a winner with this, sure of it, how quickly does that smell disappear.

Okay, we have the e-mail addresses in a .csv file and uploaded them to our email provider. Well at least 2 hours later we had uploaded them. Quick note here, it was the first time we had taken it upon ourselves to distribute our email campaign with our own systems. This way we could validate the quality of the data that had been provided to us by the data warehouse and just see how badly our asses were BLACKLISTED.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing – yes? I personally had taken it upon my shoulders to be the recipient of the replies from this campaign. My Outlook rules where set up to segment off all possible replies that we may receive from half an million email addresses – Yeah right. I had spent some time setting up folders for ‘Out of Office’, ‘Automated Response’, ‘Vacation’, ‘Unsubscribe’, ‘SPAM’, ‘BULK, ‘GET A LIFE’ and so on. I felt that putting in the effort here we would have control of the project and IN taking this batch approach we will find gold in them thar hills’.

Tuesday [believed to be one of the 3 best days to email for mass mailings] 10:00 am [also about the best time]. One of our online marketing executives, sitting in wet anticipation, had his jittery finger poised over the send button. ‘Wait for it...’, 9:58 am, Sweat beads starting to appear, ‘Wait for it...’, 9:59am . Okay bite bottom lip. ‘LAUNCH TORPEDO!!’. Suddenly there was a gush and a flush and they were off.

For the next ten minutes, we looked at the ceiling in still quietness, nothing seemed to be happening...

...see next entry, if its there we survived.

A Good Day to go Fishing

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:44:00 +0000

Here I'm following kind of where I left of on the last blog, in particular the Free Prize draw angle I was talking about. This week's dilemma for the marketing team was to discover how we could really trap prospect data for the sales department.

We knew like most sites that our most popular entry and exit page where the same so how could we make sure the visitors left a viable imprint from their stay. What was important for us to see was the type of traffic coming to the site from the PPC advertising we're running, was it the right type of prospects we were getting. As it was a prize draw were we not in danger of turning users into suers ‘See how I switched letters there, funny eh!’. [Anyway]

With already knowing that our website was attracting the wrong type of users, there was no point in trapping some 85% of the traffic with our incentive-based draw . We pushed key messaging all the way - 'BUSINESS USERS ONLY!! GODAMMIT GET THE HINT YOU FREAKS", we said, well not exactly like that but you get our drift.

As mentioned instead of relying too much on organic traffic we decided to promote the prize draw directly on Google sponsored links and since the 15th of the month we achieved 270 clicks on the ad campaign. Coupled with organic traffic, feeds etc. we achieved 431 Conversions of which 133 completed the registration process, which gave us an overall conversion rate of 3.78%. We also managed to reduce bounce rate from 93% to 88.71% and conversion rates went from 2% to a whopping 5.89% [peaking on Thursday to 7.28%] which was nice to see.

When we finally trawled the net we could see about 45% Business registrations and the rest where end-users which was to be expected - There Latin name is chancer-their-armis.

Overall as an exercise dangling free prize draws in sponsored advertisements [contextual ads] seemed to be a positive step in the right direction. As well as focusing on the web-form and select questions that we knew would flag the right opportunity, then the sales monsters would be happy and funny enough so would the MD. In terms of real goal value it equated to £77k worth of revenue with an advertising cost [including the draw item] of £400.00. On Friday one of these little fishes took a bigger bite and bought a £4k server, at £600 profit - so excellent a good days fishing.

If you would like more information on this particular approach we took then e-mail me - scareymonster@gmail.com

Victory has a 1000 fathers... The MD wants to see site conversion rates go from 0.17% to 5% in a month – How?

noreply@blogger.com (David E Carey) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:35:00 +0000

From the May 1st -13th [This year] I’ve seen the website user registrations increases – no scrap that we’ve seen them SPIKE!!. Wow!!

What did we do? Simply put we offered a prize draw to receive a free laptop – Great I think!!! We’ve got a 76% first time visitor rate and a 24% repeat. Conversions for Registrations are up – wonderful. Well not really, its the WrongTrousers Gromit !!!. I’m sitting here with 11,000 unique visitors [paid and organic] a day on my site and 95% are wrong.

Cast ye aside evil spirits you shall not receive entry to our prize draw.

However doing the maths we’ve still ended with business registrations so, we’ve calculated that over a month with a spend of between 300 - 500 pound should provide upwards of 400-500 business opted-in records.

Important Note here,  average CTR on your standard prospect database is around 1.5 - 2%.
With a new list based on registrants you are looking at 10-11% CTR from E-mail Open.

So where were we....

MD “Great we’ve found a honey trap, now my little Marketing Director I want you to make these guys phone us – FORGET CLICKS I WANT FINGERS ON DIALS!!!”

“Change of mindset here me thinks!”

On Tuesday the little marketing department issued 26,000 e-mails to a prospect list and 18,000 again on Thursday to another set. Tuesday afternoon call from the Sales Department “ Hey Marketing Guys that e-mail you did this morning well 9 companies called us, 4 ordered hardware, £1800.00 Turnover and £500 profit – Great! Especially as this is the same list we’ve been at war with for the last year with very little success – keep it coming”

Wow! The marketing team stripped naked and drank lemonade for a whole hour!! Fantastic. ‘I know what’ shouts someone ‘Let’s do the same E-Mail on Thursday guys, we had a 2% CTR, 600 + Click-through, I think we’ve found the silver bullet, the holy grail, the e-mail to end all e-mails....” Thursday afternoon – call from Sales. “Hey you marketing tosers, what’s happened to our calls, our leads, you god dam scumbags. Us sales guys wouldn’t **** on you if you were on fire. – phone goes dead.

“It was his idea....” whispered one of the marketing executives.

Ah! Drawing board beckons
This story will be updated everyday, why because in online marketing everyday is different. Watch out for our evolving discussions on E-Mail Timing, Content Quality, Data Quality and External Influences that effect the success of email campaigns.

Scareymonster

Scareymonster Blog on Design and Digital Marketing

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InstantAtlas - Free Trial

You can order a free 30 day fully functional evaluation version of InstantAtlas desktop. Two options are supported - both are available in the UK and internationally. The evaluation version is currently only available in an English language version.

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InstantAtlas E-bulletin

InstantAtlas E-Bulletin on GLA, Geo-demographics and Crime Mapping

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InstantAtlas for crime mapping and re...

Case Study Links from my Company - Geowise

Sheffield PCT gets the message across with InstantAtlas

National Centre for Health Outcomes Development gets the message across with InstantAtlas

Wales Centre for Health publishes “EuroHealthAtlas” online with InstantAtlas

Diabetes UK uses InstantAtlas to help it inform, promote and campaign

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, Profiling Stockport Live

Nottingham City Council blends InstantAtlas with ESRI to deliver community-level geographical information

London Borough of Tower Hamlets | Local Information System

Norfolk improves decisions with InstantAtlas neighbourhood data visualization

The “KnowFife Dataset” - Running on InstantAtlas

Pre-Pixelpression Age

Keeping it Tidy and Clean

Let loose the Dogs of War, eh well Puppies at least.

A Good Day to go Fishing

Victory has a 1000 fathers... The MD wants to see site conversion rates go from 0.17% to 5% in a month – How?