I’ve been making a lot of changes in my life of late, much unforeseen but still on my own choice and terms, not forced upon me. Some things just seem to be in the air for me to suddenly get into this mode and set off a bunch of reactions. This is the second of three posts documenting it all, to keep the posts somewhat reasonably short.
An Interactive Analysis Suite for Google COVID-19 Mobility Data
I recently completed an interactive analysis suite for Google’s COVID-19 mobility data, to let me (and others) do all kinds of comparisons one simply cannot get close to with those static Google mobility data reports! Unfortunately, you will have to go to the Tableau public site, the platform on which I built it, to see and use it because I cannot embed webpages with JavaScript in the WordPress platform this blog is built on.
The Tableau “viz” analysis suite lets you do things like compare for any time period for which Google gave daily data, and even between two time periods. You can also compare any number of countries, regions, even US counties, with data filters. You can compare habits over the days of the week, or see what mobility behaviors people changed (or didn’t, on individual days in a range days). There are “fair expectations” set for each metric based on average to slightly above performance shown to be attainable over a 6 week period, to give further context to the numbers. There is a population filter to compare countries in select ranges of populations. Finally, there are ranks so you don’t have to memorize any numbers in comparing performance in different places and/or over different times. Lots of stuff you can do all kinds of analytics with, draw conclusions about (though be careful on assumptions), and such!
The Tableau viz will be updated roughly once a week, when Google puts out the latest data set. It doesn’t seem they’ll be too consistent with when they do that, but only varying between Thursday and Friday so far. In that Tableau viz is:
- A table of content tab (at top of view) outlining what is in each tab;
- A map of the world showing how countries compare for each of the 6 metrics;
- Continental maps showing regional breakdowns in each country on the continent (where there is data);
- Even a US county breakdown map;
- Graphs showing ranks of countries and regions (US counties were too spotty with incomplete data for me to care and give it its own comparison dashboard);
- Graphs showing select regions against others, allowing comparisons between countries and smaller regions like states and provinces, for example;
- Graphs showing results over time;
- Bundled sets of charts in logical order to produce what would be a good briefing report, without text that someone could write for their region/s if they wanted to; and
- Lots more!
Please click on the link if you want to test out the analytical suite I built. It’s free! No ads or anything! 🙂
Thanks!
Customizable Daily Activities Tracker on Google Sheets
I recently created a daily activities tracker on Google Sheets for myself, to track my activities I want to do more or less of, as well as balance some relating to my many interests. Anything I make for myself digitally, I take the time to create a version others can customize to use for themselves, and this is no different.
Customizable Daily Activities Tracker on Google Sheets
With the Google Sheets document in the link, if you’d like to use it, you should make a copy for yourself before using. On the Android platform, that’s under the Share and Export choice in the main menu for managing the document. I’m not sure where it is for iPhones.
I’m not an expert in Google Sheets so I’m not sure if you can use this document via the Google Sheets app, without a Gmail account. Perhaps someone can tell me. However, you can use the document offline so you don’t need data to always use it.
Setup and usage instructions are in the document in the Setup & Instructions tab.
The tracker will ask you when you want to start tracking, so this isn’t a “New Year’s” document that will become useless if you find it too late. The tracker will track how often you do some things (on % of days) and/or how much you do it (average amount or frequency), with the latter pending on how you set up things. It’s all explained in the document.
There is a summary report page you can then screen capture to file, or share.
If you use it, please let me know if you have questions or suggestions. I may not be the greatest tech support, but I hope I’ve designed well enough I don’t have to be. 🙂
Happy New Decade!
Got Google Home Assistant!
I just got the Google Home Assistant yesterday and will be blogging about my experiences with it in the next little while. This won’t be a review as much as a discussion of some of its features, challenges and other issues that can arise from interacting with it. The last will be the most interesting, in my opinion, like if one will start talking to others like that, or change psychologically in constantly barking orders, or even gentle requests, to something that responds in a female voice. I’ll leave all the tech stuff to tech reviewers. I care more about humanity… at least at the moment. LOL
Offer People to Unfriend or Unfollow You on Facebook and Other Social Media
Yesterday, I posted about cleaning up your Facebook and other social media “friends” list. Of course, potential consequences come with this because people will be “people” to take things personally that they have no reasonable cause to do so. That potential awkward moment or situation, immediately or in the future, in person or online, is enough for some people to avoid removing people from their social media friends or following list. So I have an idea to counter that while still allowing you to parse down your friends or followers list.
Digital Citizen 