2. Why can’t companies track
shipments in real-time?
TimeLapse aims to provide a one-stop logis-
tics dashboard that displays the movement
of goods in real-time on a geographical
interface. Features include:
- Data tracking on an iPad, desktop or televi-
sion without limitations on concurrent users.
- Beautiful and intuitive reporting
- Efficiency comparisons (cost, time and CO2)
of current shipments to historical data
- Carbon footprint tracking
- Minimal setup and ability to bolt onto
legacy ERP systems
4. hint.fm/wind
hint.fm/wind, created
by members of Google’s
“Big Picture” visualization
research group, depicts
real-time wind current
across the United States
over a zoomable map.
Data comes from the
National Digital Forecast
Database.
5. geoloqi
Geoloqi makes it simple to implement full-featured tracking systems with minimal time and effort.
With tools for enterprise, government and mobile developers add advanced geolocation functionality
to apps and devices. Most importantly, geoloqi can be deployed for large scale applications.
6. quantifiedself
Aaron Pareki, one of the founders of
Geoloqi, has has also been tracking
his location every 6 seconds for the
last four years and created some
amazing visualizations to better
understand his movement.
(Bottom Left) What makes this map
special (is that there is no underly-
ing geospatial data. The lines you
see above are Aaron’s actual travel
paths from his GPS data. Using this
information you can easily see the
well traveled roadways by find-
ing the thicker lines. You can even
quickly pick out freeways and inter-
states due to their high speed.
(Top right) A really interesting
interactive website that visualizes
Aaron’s running routes along with
his heart rate.
7. mapbox
MapBox lets you design fast and
beautiful interactive maps and
share them on the web and mo-
bile devices. MapBox is the whole
package for making maps, from
the worldwide street-level base-
map MapBox Streets - powered
by OpenStreetMap - to the open
source map design studio TileMill
for making custom maps with any
data set, to its cloud publishing
platform built on Node.js.
MapBox gives users extreme design
control built on technology that
can scale for the highest perfor-
mance environments. The Mapbox
team works with several open
source projects to develop innova-
tive tools for publishing maps on
the web. We work primarily in javas-
cript, using Node.js for application
development.
8. Coyote Logistics
The shipping and logisitics system boasted by
Coyote Logistics is the first to integrate applied
probability in ways that will help predict and
avoid problems before they happen. In addition,
Coyote places heavy emphasis on technological
innovation and mobile reporting.
Coyote is the fastest growing transportation &
logistics service provider in North America. Jeff
Silver, CEO, received the Ernst & Young Entrepre-
neur Of The Year® 2011 Midwest Award in the
Private Equity category. Coyote’s rapid growth
shows that data visualization of shipment and
tracking is important to customers.
9. Opower
Opower is a new customer engagement platform for the utility industry. It helps people use energy more efficiently
and ultimately save money on their energy bills through the use of individualized energy reports.
Drawing from Robert Cialdini’s studies on behaviorial influence, researchers at Opower concluded that people are
most likely to conserve when presented with information about their peers exhibiting the desired behavior. Cialdini
proved that descriptive social normative messages consistently beat messages focused on environmental, societal, or
financial benefits. For example, in a hotel towel reuse study, guests who were asked to help save the environment by
reusing their towels were significantly less likely to comply than those who were told that they should join the 75% of
fellow guests who are reusing their towels.
10. Market Research
Conclusions based upon survey results and face-to-face conversations
Results have indicated that current users of ERP systems are
dissatisfied with their experience. Key findings:
1. Reporting aspects and feedback of the ERP information
isn’t as accessible as would be desired
2. Implementation of ERP systems has been described as
“overly complex”
3. Minimal training is favored
4. Current users desire an easier integration process more
than particular system features
5. Despite costly implementations, Enterprise Application
experts and IT professionals strongly believe that companies
are better off after ERP implementation is finished than before
6. The inability to track goods in real-time is a problem
not currently addressed by leading ERP logistics systems
7. Current enterprise-levels solutions are not suitable for
midsized companies given cost vs. payoff