Ecosynergy Group Ltd (egl)

Infographics - the opium of data visualisation addicts...

2012-02-25T19:26:00.000-08:00

This excellent infographics example (and others) provided by the Visual Literacy Organisation:

Click on the table itself or on: Different techniques used to convey information to see the visualisation in action. Awesome idea!

This San Francisco State University Class blog of infographics advises: "If you can avoid it, don’t use a bar chart, a line chart or a pie chart. This infographic of visualization styles is a great resource to help determine a good visual to use for your data. The different styles are grouped together by the type do data they are trying to communicate and in the interactive version, an example is shown as you mouse over each style." (REF: http://digitalnewsgathering.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/10-tips-for-designing-infographics/)

Who's out there talking?

2012-02-04T22:36:00.001-08:00

What can your house do for you?

2012-02-02T00:59:00.000-08:00

How soon can I move in - that's all I wonder!

When will our environment collate and serve us the data that matters to us?

From Openarch on Vimeo.

Give up or persevere - how do you decide?

2012-01-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

Why do certain projects fly from the start and others don't? How do you know when to give up a project or that you need to persevere and overcome obstacles? More information about Jonathan Scott's research at: www.waikatolink.co.nz/researchers

This post is written in response to Peter Kerr's article about Dorenda Britten on Daily Bacon.

Storytelling media - Gerbner as a storyteller

2012-01-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

Dr. George Gerbner, founder of cultivation theory shares art works and moving image to rewind time and retrace the fascinating development of storytelling... and how media companies have used its characteristics to achieve their goals.

At-risk youth: What stories will inspire them?

2012-01-19T16:36:00.000-08:00

Research showcased in the 2011 New Zealand Diversity Research Overview of Race Relations. This report is New Zealand's contribution to the UN Human Rights Convention.

Engaging multi-cultural at-risk youth in transition to tertiary education and the workplace.

Annick Janson,

Associate Researcher, Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research, Victoria University of Wellington and Ecosynergy Group Ltd, Hamilton.

This research documents the factors that increase secondary school drop out rates. The research team surveyed and interviewed 25 youth educators and carried in-depth interviews with 25 young role models to analyse the coping mechanism effective against early risk factors.

Role models were New Zealanders of European/Pākehā, Māori, dual heritage and mixed ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds nominated for their achievements by a reference group of educators and youth workers. In interviews about their life choices and career pathways they related how the coped with early challenges and the lessons they learnt in the process. These role models would not normally interact with at-risk youth. They are only at the onset of their careers, hence not in the limelight.

Thematic analysis of the stories uncovered elements from three topics: strengthening identity through personal growth, Enablement through interpersonal development and Post-secondary transition mechanisms.

Narratives expand on how these young people coped with the stresses that characterise teenage years, peer group and educational environment in ways that allowed them to turn obstacles into strengths. Stories include for instance transforming tendencies towards obesity into sports championship or becoming resilient to negative peer pressure by developing a supporting alternative peer network. Obstacles are explained as inevitable parts of one’s pathway with descriptions of turning points (“you can get back on the waka at anytime if you find yourself straying away from your path.”)

The compendium of stories from these future transformational leaders forms a series of unique and inspirational audio-visual materials available to youth educators. View a trailer from these interviews below:

An interactive resource was developed with activities reinforcing the story themes. Youth workers will use this resource to help derail risk factors and increase youth involvement in educational and community-based extracurricular activities. The long-term aim is to support at-risk secondary students in developing goals that inspire them to shape personal opportunities in transition from secondary education.

The project is run in partnership with AIESEC New Zealand and in collaboration with 40 schools and youth development organisations throughout New Zealand. The project is funded by the Todd foundation.

Reference URL for this post - http://tinyurl.com/rolemodelexcerpts

Start up snapshot research

2012-01-12T16:11:00.000-08:00

Phil Gainley (Aston Business School) produced the results of his UK startup survey in a visual which one can understand at a glance (http://founderspeak.com)

What's in a role model story?

2011-12-31T09:27:00.000-08:00

Our project "Engaging at-risk youth through effective transitional role models" collates interviews of young positive people who have overcome some difficulty to get onto the pathway that will eventually help them achieve their dream...

One ouf our research questions was "What elements of a role model story can be enrolled to put together a narrative powerful enough to move at risk youth?". Following on the footsteps of researchers who have studied the underlying structure of myths and change stories (Campbell and Denning for instance) we interviewed role models and produced stories such as Staverton's (Tony) below:

Despite the long years of study and hard work Tony knows he’s in the right place. He admits his first year of study, was difficult, and at times, stressful. But perseverance has paid off and he’s now a practicing medical doctor in Auckland. Tony is working to see more Pacific people in the health profession. “Pasifika children need to realise they can be whatever they want, but only they can do it and make that choice. You don’t have to prove to anyone else but yourself. At the end of the day it’s up to you.

More about Tony in this Career Choice article and on the CareersNZ website.

Gallup Management Journal: Why entrepreneurs make more money than innovators

2011-12-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

Great article!

Read about it here

The research behind the impact of positive role modeling

2011-11-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

Niki Harré is a senior psychology professor at Auckland University – she’s just released a new book called ‘Psychology for a Better World‘. There’s a link to a great 25-minute radio interview with Niki by Kim Hill on Radio NZ National. It talks about the power of positive role modeling.

Visualising European and others' debt... maybe more than we wanted to know?

2011-11-19T15:58:00.001-08:00

Click here

What can we learn from a tiny incubating nation?

2011-11-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

Private, Structured deals and Royalties instead of Equity! See the latest Idealog article

It's all about partnerships!!

2011-11-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to the MARVIN and MISHME crews for their partnership with Microsoft Education!!!

See more about using technology to change teaching and learning on our egl-Microsoft blog. It shows the projects we carried out with Microsoft New Zealand Partners in Learning as their Research Directors.

Import your angel investors amongst your old friends/expats!

2011-11-07T11:00:00.000-08:00

From Unlimited

Where do you get your strength from?

2011-10-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

This interview is part of a research project carried out with the New Zealand Dairy Womens Network and funded by DairyNZ collecting stories of dairy farmers describing their pathways... and their victories. More stories can be viewed by clicking on the Regional Workshops website.

Google maps data visualisation...

2011-10-26T20:30:00.001-07:00

Explore your world

We live in a world of 7 billion people, living in seven continents and more than 200 countries. Though family size (fertility) continues to decline in most places, our numbers are projected to rise for years to come. Click here to experiment with the dashboard that allows you to take a closer look at the world population in 2011 and beyond: Check out populations by region or country. Look at the proportion of young and old. See what various paths the future population growth may take.

Dashboard available at: http://www.7billionactions.org/data

Data visualisation ... and government opening its databases - a match in heaven!

2011-10-04T01:06:00.000-07:00

Watch this video produced by the Open Knowledge Foundation on the Open! Government Data website. This is an excellent piece of work that gathers together the perspectives of a large number of people on the nature and utility of open government data.

Reference: The article from Idealogue: "Mix and match - Bringing data to life" is highly recommended! Winner in the "Mix and Match" competition: "100 Companies" by Alex Gibson & Graham Jenson "an interactive tool that lets you say "what if" to scenarios like doubling down on agriculture, or mining the conservation estate. Definitely hits the mark on "well designed" and "insanely great"". Quote from the website: "This infographic has two main goals. The first is to help dispel some myths surrounding the ways in which New Zealand can become prosperous, and the second is to help us ask the question "What should we invest our future in?"

100 Companies based on Sir Paul Callaghan's StrategyNZ keynote and the visualisation is highly interactive, so please play around with New Zealand's Virtual Economy. We measure the prosperity of New Zealand through our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, average hours of work per week and average annual wage." More on the Wiki about the New Zealand Open Data Catalogue.

2011-09-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

New research reported from INSEAD where MBA students were offered coaching to address personal issues that may impact on their leadership. Students went through a “process of personalisation”, reporting in the study three broad outcomes: stronger self-awareness; self-management - being more equipped to manage their own feelings and behaviour; and third, revisiting their own life story. Through the year the students came to understand how their own life stories could influence their current behaviour and that consequently enabled them to avoid self-defeating habits."

It is great to see such important research carried out in INSEAD. The role that Emotional Intelligence plays in effective leadership is increasingly recognised worldwide - and indeed an important topic to address during MBA studies. Raising awareness of the quality of one's interactions in the workplace is fundamental and in line with other research, such as that about authentic leadership and that of INSEAD Manfred Kets de Vries who developed tools that leaders use to identify those qualities they need to increase their effectiveness.

More tools are needed to help leaders both identify and apply emotional knowledge whilst in the workplace as well to increase the quality of human interaction as well as enhance organisational performance.

Developing leadership online

2011-09-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

Since the launch of the New Zealand Leadership Pathway, its statistics have been steadily growing. With its latest addition of a programme for Auckland University Technology Maori and Pasifika Curriculum, the only New Zealand online leadership archive is now boasting membership from 6 New Zealand Universities. AUT, the University of Auckland, University of Waikato, Canterbury University, Lincoln University, Victoria University of Wellington. Lecturers and students enjoy the unique material offered in interviews excerpts of over 80 leaders sharing in interviews the stories and tacit knowledge (that which gives them the confidence in their actions).

Students either listen online or download clips in portable format to learn on the go. In the past 3 years alone we count over 8000 unique visits, whilst returning visits constitute a quarter of learners. Nothing like hard data...

Developing leadership around sustainability issues (tbc')

2011-09-16T04:03:00.000-07:00

Environmental issues such as environmental footprint of dairy farming, impact on land, water and air and longer term concerns need addressing. Some dairy farmers are already working hard to mitigate impact but this is not always recognised. Our research project gathered women in leadership roles in the New Zealand Dairy Sector who tackled the following:

What is your take on these issues?
What have you already done in this domain?
What do you intend doing in the future within your circles?
What is your desired outcome for the actions you plan to take?

Global Empathy Study

2011-09-05T17:29:00.000-07:00

The Ecosynergy Group is interested in collaborating with the EmotionWise Group on the Global Empathy Study because of the fundamental impact of Emotional Intelligence on our activities in leadership and storytelling. The Emotion test is a reliable measure of Emotional Intelligence that does not rely on self report of leadership value - a measure that does not suffice in appraising the impact one has on others. This EQ measure will be correlated for the first time ever with a range of cognitive, emotional and biometrics data. This research can help break the vicious circle of leadership - that it is those who need the most emotional training who realise it the least! This research is foundational, paving the way for leadership development in identifying and offering targeted individual training.

Background

The science of emotional expression is now 130 years old; in the past 20 years alone, there have been over 300 scientific articles and countless books on the nature of emotional expression in the face, the voice, and in touch. We know that emotions are directly linked to our physiology, personality and perception of the world around us. We also know that certain emotions transcend cultural boundaries and are universally expressed and experienced.

More importantly, the extent to which we can recognize these signals, a skill called empathic accuracy, can have profoundly positive impacts on our social relationships, leadership abilities and satisfaction with life.

Worldwide empathy study

Despite these major breakthroughs in emotion science, emotion researchers generally only agree upon seven expressions in the face as universally recognizable. Data from our lab and dozens of other experiments suggest that there are at least 13 additional facial expressions, and over a dozen vocalizations of human emotion that transcend cultural boundaries.

Researchers, however, have yet to perform a full-scale analysis on which emotional expressions in the face and the voice can be understood in all cultures. This is largely due to the fact that emotion scientists have traditionally focused on only one type of expression modality (face, voice, touch), and that no one has launched a research program designed to synthesize all of this material into a single worldwide empathy experiment.

For more details on the Global Empathy Study and/or to take the test click here. As we progress into the study, we will update our research blog.

Taking the initiative

2011-09-04T18:43:00.000-07:00

Are the "New Rules of Marketing and PR" only for marketers? Naturally no! This is about communication ideas and concepts of today. A summary of David Meerman Scott's first edition of the book on the importance of sharing stories can be downloaded here.

David's interview of Seth Godin brings up topics such as 'taking' vs. 'be asked to take' initiative - obvious? Well not really - but so much of success is to set free from the numerous fears that plague us to just take the reigns.

Role Models for Youth at Risk - why do we need them?

2011-08-31T14:17:00.000-07:00

The Ecosynergy Group (egl) is proud to engage in a project supported by the Todd Foundation to investigate how to leverage interventions with youth at risk.

This project is the result of our collaboration with a number of organisations, including AIESEC New Zealand, Asia NZ, Raukura and other nationwide youth mentoring organisations.

The clip below introduces the topic and articulates the need to work with this population:

Source: Documentary On BIA.

Our ongoing applied research in the field of leadership has raised interest in youth educators who pointed out that stories with young role models were needed to be able to fill the mentorship gap with this audience. Our role is to find those positive role models and record their stories in ways that inspire their peers. One of our research questions addresses the structure of those powerful stories.

Our national hero - bringing health to those who can't afford it

2011-08-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

Ray Avery's list of achievements is well known - our New Zealander of the year chose to use his time to bring health to those who normally could not afford it... Helping businesses understand that there is no need to choose between doing good and doing well - we can have both.

Emotional intelligence - the Cognisess online test

2011-08-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

We are exploring exciting new collaborations with the Emotionwise team at University College Berkeley. The Cognisess emotion test developed to evaluate Emotional Intelligence is available online: take the test now and get a report on how you perform in recognising facial expressions and vocalisations!

Watch the TED talk below by Dacher Keltner about the role of emotional intelligence in human development.

Technology to engage students - including those with disabilities

2011-08-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

Statistics show that 20-30% students have diagnosed or undiagnosed learning disabilities. This presents a significant challenge to teachers who must adapt their teaching to suit a diverse range of interests and abilities. Increasing students engagement is top of mind for teachers.

This article provides examples on how technology can be integrated into activities to engage students with disabilities. Technology can also significantly reduce the need to 'manage the classroom' as students find the different venue to engage in learning. Special mention is made to engaging students on the autistic spectrum via school curriculum.

Janson, Annick (2011) Integrating curriculum into digital time, space and human dimension, AGORA 43(3), 47-49.

Winter 2011 synopsis

2011-08-15T17:27:00.001-07:00

ANZAAE 2011 Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Art Educators
Annick Janson presented a toolkit for teachers to engage students with disabilities. See conference programme and abstract.

NASDAP 2011 Conference - Back to the future
Annick Janson presented the leadership lessons that can be applied in the education context. See conference programme and abstract.

Relevant to this topic is Annick's Chapter in Leadership in the Digital Entreprise.

Material prior to winter 2011 is presented in the LINKS section on the right banner of this website.