The holiday craziness is well behind us, but before we get too far into 2012 I want to highlight some of last year’s best work from Dachis Group’s Information Design Team. The projects include apps, maps, videos, and more.

The truth is that we do a lot of amazing, internally-focused work that can’t be shown publicly — this is just a taste of the stuff that’s not super top secret. And you’ll notice that the work here might not always look like what you’d expect to see. That’s because we believe that it’s not just clarity and good design that helps people understand data and other complex information — you also need good old-fashioned storytelling. It pulls people in and helps them connect and care.

With that said I present to you a few highlights from 2011…

The Economist: World in Figures 2011 mobile app

The World in Figures iPhone app puts essential data and unexpected knowledge in your pocket, with statistics on more than 190 countries around the world. Based on The Economist‘s annual book, Pocket World in Figures,” the app lets you view and compare world statistics on topics from transport to tourism and commodities to cinema. You can access important socioeconomic data from anywhere or just let your mind wander with trivia about innovation, debt, and divorce rates.

Iowa, Did You Know?

This was our third collaboration (the others are here and here) with Dr. Scott McLeod, who wanted us to create a video that would get the 2,000 attendees talking at the 2011 School Administrators of Iowa conference. The purpose was to highlight the struggles that Iowa schools face keeping up in today’s global environment. The video emphasizes the magnitude of the challenge, the need for Iowans to support the changes that schools must make if their learners are to be career-, college-, and citizenship-ready, and the imperative to do this quickly.

Kronos: Women in the Workforce

Another in a series of powerful video collaborations with Kronos, the workforce management company. The video was created in honor of International Women’s Day (the 8th of March) and the purpose was to provide a look at some of the incredible contributions that women have made over the years, and to celebrate their impact on today’s workforce. This was the first time one of our videos was connected to specific day, which drove more immediate views.

IHG: Business Reputation and Responsibility

BRR is the legal and risk management part of InterContinental Hotels Group. They asked us to create an entertaining intro video to help employees better understand who they are and how they champion IHG’s reputation, brands, guests, and employees. Despite the serious subject (and the department’s name), the playful spy theme and soundtrack helps present the team as fun and approachable way. This release followed a previous video that highlighted IHG’s efforts to be environmentally responsible.

Data Quality Campaign: Data is Power

This video was created for The Data Quality Campaign (DQC), a national, collaborative effort to encourage and support state policymakers to improve the availability and use of high-quality education data to improve student achievement.

Last week Headshift and Adaptivist hosted this year’s first Confluence User Group. The organisations attending were as varied as the topics discussed. There was a lot of interest around the strategic use of Confluence (especially along enterprise legacy systems), user adoption, community management but also more technical topics like clustering, plugin development and others. Most organisations have been using Confluence for more than a year now. Some of them have gone through the initial excitement stage and are now in the process of establishing Confluence as a valuable business tool.

We covered a lot of the topics described above in presentations, case studies, panels and Q&A sessions.

Get in touch if you like to discuss any Confluence related challenges or are looking at taking a broader approach to achieving your business objectives using social tools.

Below you can find slides from three presentations that were given in the business track of the event: