Stefania Guerra's profile

threeP - Data Visualization and Corporate Identity

Stefania Guerra
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threeP
Visualizing corporate identity through data
 
Introduction
 
Organizations always feel the need to communicate their identity, the values developed and consolidated over time that helped model the distinctive competence and the know-how of the group. To do so they chose different tools, from printing paper to emotional videos, through public events; in the digital age the chance to tell these values have multiplied, and ther’s an even more poignant need to present this complex information plain and simple, so as to be easily distributed and assimilated. In this context communication design plays an important role as sector of study and tool in the process of communication and dissemination.
threeP initially investigates the methods of identity communication by the organizations, with a focus on the university environment, because its evolution has led to the production and collection of databases with huge amounts of data. It then explores the possibility of a combination of various types of communication tools such as the exhibition shows (tool little used by organization to communicate their image, but of great potential) and visual representation of data, a communication designer skill which act to reduce the complexity, produce and bring transparency and clarity in understanding a complex phenomenon.
 
Through the recognition of the state of the art and the analysis of case studies of visualizations in space, I designed a way that provide organizations and universities a picture of how the group is perceived by the public. The predominant aspect concerns the possibility of linking three points of view, the digital one that the user can easily access through the network and the enormous amount of information provided, the social one learned through the analysis of the image transmitted by national newspapers, and the internal one based on informations that the organization itself collects and provides. These three aspects provide a minimal but complete representation of the identity of the organization. For this purpose, two approaches of research have been used, one based on the analysis of the presence of information in the network by using digital methods, and so using the network as a tool, and the other based on the analysis of the information available in the archives of newspapers or collected directly by the organization. The approach was applied to the near reality of Politecnico di Milano.

threeP is a process that aim to make the corporate identity of an organization easily understood, despite its complexity, starting from an unusual point of view for this kind of communication, that is to say data.
threeP becomes real in a series of visualizations for the three povs, designed as interactive and thought to be placed in an exhibition environment, in order to get the user to learn and physically interact with the issue.
Case Study: Politecnico di Milano
DIGITAL IDENTITY
 
"Governments tend to link to other governmental sites only, non-governmental sites tend to link to a variety of sites, occasionally including critics. Corporate websites tend not to link. Academic and educational sites show links with partners and initiatives.
In some sense, hyperlinks show an everyday politics of association." (digitalmethods.net)
 
Part 1. The first step was to map the online discourse about Politecnico di Milano, answering the following questions: who is talking about it? Where does the discourse take place? Is it a strategic move or is real interest?
 
The Protocol
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
The Visual Model
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Those who just mention Polimi are floating around the network, while those actually linking Polimi websites have a direct link
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Part 2. The second step of analysis consisted in understanding who is associated to Polimi, by exploring the external links contained in the offical pages of Polimi.
 
The Protocol
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
The Visual Model
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Nodes are web links, the central ones are sources linked to target. Some share the same target.
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
SOCIAL IDENTITY
 
"Newspapers and press hold the second place in the media ranking for information in Italy." (Censis, 2011)
 
Social identity is how the organization is perceived from outside, the citizens' perception of Polimi, its reputation, starting from what is the public opinion.
 
The Protocol
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
The Visual Model
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
INTERNAL IDENTITY
 
One of the recent strongest point for a University's image is internationality.  Professors missions,
students cultural exchanges, research partnerships and most of all alumni.
 
One of the most relevant aspect that shapes the internal identity of a university is internationality. Thus alumni movements have been analyzed in this final point of view.
 
The Protocol
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
The Visual Model
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Each dot is a person, characterized by type of degree, year of graduation, city of work.
Navigating through the timeline the map populates of alumni, based on the year of graduation.
Findings: an interactive experience
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Intro
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Digital Identity - overview
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Digital Identity - filter on who talks about Polimi but is not linked back
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Digital Identity - Filter on Polimi web links
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Digital Identity - Hover on a node, its connections highlighted
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Digital Identity - Geolocation
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Social Identity - Overview
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Social Identity - Multiple entities search
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Social Identity - Places geolocation
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Internal Identity - Overview
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Internal Identity - Filter on design alumni
identity communication corporate image map link network citation entity social reputation infovis infographic data visualization Data
Internal Identity - Alumni expansion through time
ThreeP has provided a very interesting opportunity to experiment with data visualization within a context, the analysis of corporate image, where the use of visual languages is still poorly investigated. The achievements reached so far can be considered as a basis for further developments and analysis (for example using social media, and text mining) with the awereness that communication design can play an important role within the development of new corporate identity monitoring tools, based on digital and visual environments.
 

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M.Sc Thesis - Master in Communication Design at Politecnico di Milano.
@Density Design Lab 
Supervisor: Paolo Ciuccarelli
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Award: Premio AICUN per tesi di laurea 2015 - Special mention
 
threeP - Data Visualization and Corporate Identity
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Stefania Guerra's profile

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Stefania Guerra's profile
Milan, Italy

threeP - Data Visualization and Corporate Identity

threeP is a process that aim to make the corporate identity of an organization easily understood, despite its complexity, starting from an unusua Read More

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