I'm a big fan of well-done presentations, like many of those found at TED Talks, and I find that one characteristic of those presentations is good data. So often we see the simple bar graph or pie chart, but take a look at the way Hans Rosling combines so many elements of information into one chart here:
As NPR's Planet Money noted a while back, Rosling is a public health guy who helped create a Gapminder, a tool that lets you turn data into stories.
Even though this presentation is about global economic development and public-health improvements--more non-profit or government-related spaces--imagine the same kind visualization with business data, combining sales, geography, time, the economy, market share, competitors and more. You could discover a lot about the trends in the marketplace that could really affect business decision-making. Nowadays we have ever-increasing amounts of data; it is how we use it that makes the most difference.
