We have talked here before concerning one of my favorite aspects of my job over the years: messaging workshops . At the time I wrote:
I absolutely love this exercise, it illuminates the disconnect between what customers, partners, media, analysts and even internal owners see as your core value proposition.
- Who are you?
- What do you stand for today?
- Tomorrow?
- How do you explain your main benefits?
For our latest workshop (sorry, can't provide a name just yet) we had a tremendous amount of data. I'm talking more than 1,500 survey responses from users, partners, executives and investors. Normally we get about a tenth of this data before a workshop; when the numbers started flowing in we were a bit concerned. Sure, it is great to have so much data, but with too much data comes the fear that we won't be able to get to the core of what people actually thought of the company and its solution. Also, we would need hundred's of hours to sort through it all properly.
As I was sifting through the data over a weekend I started to see patterns in the words that were being used by respondents. Immediately I started to create columns so to count the amount of times these words were mentioned, effectively starting to build my own tag cloud. After a few hours I sat back and said to my self, "Self, don't be a dumb-ass, there must be a way to do this automatically." An of course, there is :TagCrowd.
TagCrowd allows you to input data and create a tag cloud; this could be a URL, a file or just paste in the text to be visualized. It then gives you options for how many tags to show, ignore common words (and, the, etc), grouping of similar words (innovate, innovation, innovating) and whether you want to show the amount of times each word appears. You can then grab the HTML or take a screen grab and you have a great visual way to demonstrate data.
Throwing these tag clouds up for the client during the workshop was HIGHLY effective and led us into some terrific conversations about the company and the messaging...which of course is the goal. We took all the data, sorted it and inputted it into TagCrowd in order to create various tag clouds. Something I will certainly use more and more.
What about this blog?
<!--/*--><![CDATA[/* ><!--*/ <!-- #htmltagcloud{ font-family:\'lucida grande\',trebuchet,\'trebuchet ms\',verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; line-height:2.4em; word-spacing:normal; letter-spacing:normal; text-decoration:none; text-transform:none; text-align:justify; text-indent:0ex; background-color:#fff; margin:1em 1em 0em 1em; border:2px dotted #ddd; padding:2em}#htmltagcloud a:link{text-decoration:none}#htmltagcloud a:visited{text-decoration:none}#htmltagcloud a:hover{text-decoration:none;color:white;background-color:#05f}#htmltagcloud a:active{text-decoration:none;color:white;background-color:#03d}span.tagcloud0{font-size:1.0em;padding:0em;color:#ACC1F3;z-index:10;position:relative}span.tagcloud0 a{text-decoration:none; color:#ACC1F3}span.tagcloud1{font-size:1.4em;padding:0em;color:#ACC1F3;z-index:9;position:relative}span.tagcloud1 a{text-decoration:none;color:#ACC1F3}span.tagcloud2{font-size:1.8em;padding:0em;color:#86A0DC;z-index:8;position:relative}span.tagcloud2 a{text-decoration:none;color:#86A0DC}span.tagcloud3{font-size:2.2em;padding:0em;color:#86A0DC;z-index:7;position:relative}span.tagcloud3 a{text-decoration:none;color:#86A0DC}span.tagcloud4{font-size:2.6em;padding:0em;color:#607EC5;z-index:6;position:relative}span.tagcloud4 a{text-decoration:none;color:#607EC5}span.tagcloud5{font-size:3.0em;padding:0em;color:#607EC5;z-index:5;position:relative}span.tagcloud5 a{text-decoration:none;color:#607EC5}span.tagcloud6{font-size:3.3em;padding:0em;color:#4C6DB9;z-index:4;position:relative}span.tagcloud6 a{text-decoration:none;color:#4C6DB9}span.tagcloud7{font-size:3.6em;padding:0em;color:#395CAE;z-index:3;position:relative}span.tagcloud7 a{text-decoration:none;color:#395CAE}span.tagcloud8{font-size:3.9em;padding:0em;color:#264CA2;z-index:2;position:relative}span.tagcloud8 a{text-decoration:none;color:#264CA2}span.tagcloud9{font-size:4.2em;padding:0em;color:#133B97;z-index:1;position:relative}span.tagcloud9 a{text-decoration:none;color:#133B97}span.tagcloud10{font-size:4.5em;padding:0em;color:#002A8B;z-index:0;position:relative}span.tagcloud10 a{text-decoration:none;color:#002A8B}span.freq{font-size:10pt !important;color:#bbb}#credit{text-align:center; font-size:0.7em; color:#333; margin-bottom:0.6em; font-family:\'lucida grande\',trebuchet,\'trebuchet ms\',verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;}#credit a:link{color:#777; text-decoration:none;}#credit a:visited{color:#777; text-decoration:none;}#credit a:hover{text-decoration:none; color:white; background-color:#05f;}#credit a:active{text-decoration:underline;}// --> /*--><!]]>*/What does your tag cloud say about you? Does your web site match the way you want to talk about yourself?
-Kyle Flaherty
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