Visualizing the Blogosphere

A picture is worth a thousand words, and bloggers effortlessly create a thousand words with sometimes reckless abandon.  Bloglines, which indexes hundreds of thousands of blogs every day, has created an intriguing tool that provides an instantaneous view into the blogosphere.

Take at the Bloglines Wall of Images.  It continually updates with the last 24 images found within blogs being indexed by the service with a new set of 24 every 30 seconds or so.  In a way it provides a peek into the topics bloggers are writing about... right now.  It can be very mesmerizing, and you can click on the image to be taken to the originating blog.

Visual controls and the visual factory are core aspects of lean manufacturing.  As you stare at the Wall of Images, think about how you can provide real-time visual information to your operation.  If you're like me, you're thinking about the various streams of data and information coursing through your plant and trying to figure out how to represent critical patterns and decision points in a visual, and actionable, fashion.

Break time is over.  Now get back to work.