GEEmap - visualising Geelong's entrepreneurial ecosystem

The Approach

• Literature Review: Has this been done before?
• Pillar criteria: Define criteria for an organisation to be associated with one of the pillars
• Gather data: Gather organisation data, assess against criteria
• Visualise data: Identify options for visualisation, and select optimal approach, then implement

Literature review

• Accessible markets: The availability of, and ability to identify, reach
  and sell to a market or market segment
• Talent and skills: The availability of, and ability to attract and retain highly skilled people
  with the right mindset for entepreneurial activity
• Finance and funding: Availability of, and ability to access grants, venture capital, angel investment etc.
• Networks and engagement: Richness and vibrancy of networks and relationships in the ecosystem
• Civic: Degree to which government policies and frames foster or inhibit entrepreneurialism
• Support: Availability of, and ability to access legal, financial, real estate and related services
• Learning: Availability of, and ability to access entrepreneurial education and skills development and tech transfer processes
• Regional culture: The region's attitude and inclination towards entrepreneurial activity
• Facilities: Availability, and ability to access real estate, internet, transportation etc.

Survey administered to 33 organisations

Node-Link mapping in JSON

Several alternatives explored for visualisation

Packed
circles

Concentric
circles

Clustered
circles

Sticky
force
directed

Sticky
force
directed
(v2)

Getting closer

Final Visualisation

https://geemap.com.au/map

Challenges Encountered

• Representing size of organisations: No acceptable way to classify 'size' of organisation (staff, $turnover etc)
• Getting the force of the graph right: "Too forceful" and the visualisation is distracting, "too little force" and the nodes (pillars) don't repel each other enough
• Text wrapping in SVG / d3.js: Lack of granular control in wrapping lines of text - complex functions required for wrapping
• Interactivity design in SVG: The circles are 'mouseover' elements, but are obstructed by the text labels, which are not mouseover elements. Wow. Much workaround. Many swear.

Future Directions

• Change over time: When a new organisation is added to the database, the JSON is updated into a new file.
  This can then be visualised to show Δ over time
• Different levels of visualisation: As the number of organisations increase, the visualisation becomes cluttered
• Representing different organisation attributes: Such as size, which cohorts it services, service offering etc.

Questions warmly welcomed :-)

Thank you :-)