image courtesy of fortodgen | flickr
Inscribed above the entrance to the Pa ya Paa Gallery in Nairobi are the words,"Do not copy. Copying puts God to sleep." This maxim is a favorite of renown Kenyan artist Elimo Njau whose work emboldens the indigenous art form of Kenya. Elimo's son, Telyamori, is an innovative artist in his own right.
I worked with Tely some time back when he mapped peer influence data. As an artist, Tely could apply data filters to Excel and use them like paint brushes to create peer-to-influencer data reporting that's actionable.
Tely applied his data art form to one of my big pharma clients building a product launch speaker program in 11 markets across the U.S. The big pharma client needed to identify and recruit regional influencer clinicians to speak or attend the speaking events. To begin, Tely drew a 100-mile radius around each of the speaking venues (to meet the client's speaker attendee travel compliance). Next, he plotted the latitude and longitude perimeter coordinates for each market radius. And finally, Tely coded the zip code and profiling data to create the peer-to-influencer relationships within each market radius.
The final output was a usable web-based visual spider map and profiling database showing the top influencers within each market radius, ranked by the number of unique and multiple peer nominations received. Each influencer profile included the aggregate data of their nominating peers. True art.
Elimo is no doubt proud of his son's artistic expression, knowing that God is wide awake.
