Canadian start-up Meemim believes that visualization and social networking can lead to better knowledge management. Meemim’s CEO Alexandre Pestov tells us how the NetChart bring these two elements together in their newly launched product.
In Canada, the country of the maple leaf and eternal politeness, there is a start-up that’s rethinking knowledge managements system for enterprises. This start-up is called
Meemim. Its goal - make information sharing and collaboration in companies more intuitive and enjoyable, and…
actually useful. To achieve that, Meemim relies on a simple truth – the human brain processes visual information better than textual information.
ZoomCharts also believes in the power of visualization – in the age of big data and information clutter data visualization is becoming indispensable. Therefore, we are glad to see that start-ups like Meemim integrate our javascript charts and graphs in their products to help people sort through the wealth of information that’s out there.
So, here’s the story how Meemim integrated the NetChart in their knowledge management system and why it was so important to have an interactive network visualization in their product from day one.
Meemim Visualization in its DNA
If Meemim were a car, it would still have that wonderful new car smell. Founded just last year, Meemim promises to save companies time and money by delivering them a collaboration platform that organizes information, so that employees can find what they need, when they need it.
In organizations information and knowledge is usually scattered. Employees have to use several systems to look up information, store it, collaborate. Meemim puts an end to that switching back and forth madness and delivers an organized, highly visual and searchable information hub that brings together intranets, content management systems, cloud storage and wikis.
“Knowledge management is a huge issue for big and small companies everywhere. Information is often locked in employees heads and, if it’s documented, it’s very difficult to find and use,” Meemim CEO Alexandre Pestov recently shared his observations with ZoomCharts. “Meemim attempts to create a platform that helps companies to simplify it for their employees - make it engaging and fun.” The benefit of such an easy-to-navigate, fun and engaging platform? Employees are inclined to use it more thus making the system more useful over time.
Meemim understood from the get-go that the way you create such a platform is, first, by de-cluttering the search results from irrelevant information and, second, by building it around visuals. As Alexandre explained, “Human brain works with images a lot faster than text. So, we designed a system in which every piece of information had an image attached to it."
With those two objectives in mind, the Canadian start-up developed a knowledge management system that is built around a social network that ensures the relevancy of the search results and looks somewhat like Pinterest – highly visual, with information organized in neat little boards.
With everything about Meemim being visual, the social network it was built around had to be visual too. That’s where ZoomCharts came in.
Visualizing Meemim’s social networks
Meemim was not taking any shortcuts – the social networking capability that underpins the system’s search engine had to be visualized. “We really wanted something visual, not just a list of people,” Alexandre recalls.
Enter
NetChart. The NetChart developed by ZoomCharts is a highly interactive HTML5 chart that is just made for visualizing networks, connections and relationships. Alexandre remembers that Meemim team looked at several different charting options but ZoomCharts really stood out,
“The way ZoomCharts helps visualize data is not similar to anything else.”
With NetChart Meemim was able to provide users a natural visualization of their social networks within their company and the option to explore it in-depth trough drill-downs.
NetChart is, as are all other ZoomCharts’ javascript charts and graphs, highly interactive and clickable. It allows Meemim’s users to discover the connections within their networks – who’s working with who and what kind of information have others created and want to share.
“The NetChart added a lot of value to Meemim. Although, it’s the same information you could find in textual form, NetChart makes it a lot more interactive and engaging. The whole idea of Meemim is to make knowledge management engaging. ZoomCharts helped us a lot.”
Yes, clicking and drilling-down on the NetChart really is engaging and…strangely satisfying - try it out yourself.
Opportunities taken and still to be explored
“When we designed the product we wanted it to be engaging right from the beginning, and that’s why we selected ZoomCharts,” Meemim’s CEO comments having ZoomCharts embedded in the product from day one. Being a brand new product, Meemim is still being adjusted but the developers have already received positive feedback about the overall platform and the charts – users love the visual approach and interactivity. Meemim believes that the NetChart ads to the “wow” factor of the product and appreciates the way ZoomCharts seamlessly compliments their product.
It’s not just the final product users that find the NetChart a pleasure to work with, it’s also the product developers! Alexandre noted that what he most appreciated about ZoomCharts’ HTLM5 chart was the ease of use and developing, interaction capabilities, flexibility and the modern look.
Indeed, ZoomCharts is dedicated to delivering world class data visualization all the while ensuring that the pure javascript charts and graphs are intuitive to use, quick to start and easy to integrate (rich API library!). Businesses of all sizes and from different industries can benefit. Alexandre agrees that everyone can gain from data visualization, “Human brain works with colors and shapes. Replacing text with visuals where appropriate makes systems more “human”.”
So, what’s next for Meemim? The first version of the product is launched but the work to improve it continues. Alexandre believes that the system could be made even more engaging in the future, and ZoomCharts may come in handy again. Well, we can’t wait to see what Meemim will come up with next and what role ZoomCharts will play in it!
We hope that Meemim’s story got you thinking about all those social networks and webs of information in your own business that could use some visualizing. Check out our HTML5 graphs and charts gallery to get additional inspiration and get in touch with ZoomCharts to find out just how can we help you visualize your data!