“Visual Action Software and The Hive Group today announce that they have completed the merger of the two companies, following approval by their boards of directors and shareholders.  The combined company integrates industry-leading enterprise-strength treemap technology with strategic expertise in Big Data visualization.”

“Jim Bartoo, CEO of The Hive Group, added, 'We simply won’t allow Honeycomb Thin to serve as a functionally-limited "mobile version" of Honeycomb.  We’re very conscious of our customers’ needs; and know that organizations turn to The Hive Group when building functionally-deep, operationally-relevant treemap applications.'”

“The purpose of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association is to bring together the highest-ranking officer from every eligible metropolitan fire department to share information on issues of common interest, drawing upon available knowledge, varied experiences, and innovative practices in order to enhance Metropolitan Fire Chiefs’ role in fire protection and all-hazards initiatives.”

“So, how do we present gigantic volumes of data in a manner that the human brain understands, or even more importantly, recognizes as important?  That’s where treemaps excel.  And they’re being used to visualize some of the largest real-world datasets. ... Imagine monitoring your smart grid infrastructure visually and in real-time, quickly identifying anomalies in the system. ... This visualization strategy, when incorporated into operations, ties together monitoring, measuring and decision-making on everything from geospatial to order entry information.  In other words, it’s a real-time, interactive view into your entire operation.”


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“Jay Srinivasan is responsible for business analytics and global reporting at Sitel (www.sitel.com), and manages a company-wide Honeycomb deployment for global performance analysis.  'To us, the big difference with The Hive Group is they listen to enterprises such as Sitel and incorporate our business needs into their product road map,' commented Mr. Srinivasan.”

“But how do manufacturers quantify the value of data visualization tools?...Nailing down the return on investment (ROI) for a data visualization initiative is difficult...'a lot of dataviz companies engage in an endless pursuit of adding more and more visuals, attempting to create the image that they have a comprehensive set of offerings,' Jim Bartoo, CEO of The Hive Group, told Tech Trends Journal.”


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“At its core, data visualization is based on a strikingly simple proposition -- it’s easier to see connections, relationships, and trends when they’re graphically displayed than it is to stare at a bunch of numbers...Jim Bartoo, CEO of The Hive Group, which makes data visualization products used in manufacturing, told Tech Trends Journal that...”


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“One of the current challenges in communicating about clinical trials is the difficulty in expressing the data available about clinical studies in a way that’s readable and easily accessible to patients...As powerful as treemap visualizations are, they are critically dependent on the availability of the underlying data.  The Hive Group has built this application on the substantial work of the Lilly COI team, to demonstrate what’s possible when a user- friendly API is combined with a powerful visual representation and analysis; the two things bring life and meaning to the data.”

“Eli Lilly's Clinical Open Innovation Team collaborated with The Hive Group...the power of open access can be seen in this dynamic treemap.” -- NYU Bluestone Center for Clinical Research


Click here to view the Eli Lilly Clinical Trials API Example.

“Honeycomb Studio advances data discovery to a new level, offering a flexible managed environment for administering large-scale deployments of treemap applications.  The latest release introduces major new options for accessing data, accommodates diverse user populations and needs, and tailors new design flows around the creation and management of the data objects that underlie Honeycomb applications.”

“The QuadExplorer dashboard is a powerful tool for visualizing details on program spending, impacts and cost effectiveness ... programs are grouped and visually represented by block size and color based on program attributes.”

All universities, colleges, and other higher ed organizations who license a Honeycomb Departmental License Bundle between now and November 30 December 20, will receive a free academic site license—allowing all enrolled students and faculty members to benefit from The Hive Group’s treemap analytics offerings.

Through this program, the same Honeycomb software deployed by commercial organizations for operational and financial performance analysis, is now available for students and faculty at no cost in support of their academic work.  These site licenses support academic, non-commercial use only, and include Honeycomb Rich, Honeycomb Studio, and our cloud-based HiveOnDemand offering.

Please contact The Hive Group directly for more information.

“The theme of this year’s conference is Communicating Vision.  Vision is one of the most important channels for communicating information, encompassing all aspects of data visualization, information design, and best graphical practices, in all forms of print and electronic media.”

Click here for IEEE IPCC 2012 Conference website

“'You cannot overstate The Hive Group’s responsiveness to the needs of their customers or their commitment to continual improvement of the treemap interface.  Every release they again demonstrate their dedication to crafting treemaps into an indispensable decision-making tool, not just a collection of pretty pictures,' said Peg McMahon, Capacity and Performance Management at Sprint Nextel.”

“HCIL's 29th Annual Symposium will highlight the cutting-edge research being conducted in the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland.”

One of The Hive Group’s public interest applications, “Most Powerful and Deadliest Earthquakes since 1900,” is featured on Dynamic Diagrams' Information Design Watch:  “This application is a rich data-mining tool...allows multiple stories to be discovered, in non-dramatic fashion.”

“The federal government's primary agricultural and food policy legislation comprises hundreds of programs, which extend well beyond cows, corn and cotton to everything from food stamps and an array of environmental and public health safeguards.  ‘The totality is overwhelming. Nobody can grasp it,’ said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. ... For people not lucky enough to have enrolled in Nestle's Farm Bill-focused course at NYU this fall, ...to help decipher the massive legislation...an interactive online application created by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for a Livable Future...”

“The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF) has deployed an innovative application–using technology from The Hive Group–that allows visual analysis of United States agricultural policy...The Farm Bill Budget Visualizer, available at www.jhu.edu/farmbillvisualizer, represents a powerful new mechanism by which specific expenditure categories may be analyzed, compared, researched, and monitored over time.”

“'The Hive Group’s Honeycomb software represents an important opportunity to leverage visual analysis as an operational tool.  The Hive Group is known for customer responsiveness; and with Honeycomb 5.9, they continue to introduce functionality that meets the ever-broadening ways that organizations use their software,' said Melissa Looney, Manager of Market Intelligence at CFA Institute.”

“In an uncharted world of boundless data, information designers are our new navigators.  ...treemapping...uses interlocking rectangles to represent complicated data sets.  The rectangles are sized and colored to convey different kinds of information, like revenue or geographic region, says Jim Bartoo, the chief executive of The Hive Group, a software company that uses treemapping to help companies and government agencies monitor operational data.  When executives or plant managers see the nested rectangles grouped together, ...they should be able to immediately spot anomalies or trends.  ...'It’s the ability of the human brain to pick out size and color' that makes treemapping so intuitive, Mr. Bartoo says.”

“When things go wrong, the first problem is to identify faulty instrumentation and poorly performing loops...this can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack...The cause of poor loop performance is often due to cycling, response speeds, valves sticking, inappropriate proportional band, over/under tuned loop, controller design, interaction with other loops, defective instrumentation and hysteresis.  The problem is identifying which one, and this requires investigation.”

Northrop Grumman’s Layered ISR Architecture Analysis Offering provides “decision makers quantitative and scalable assessments” and features Honeycomb to “parse data...and filter for cost, effectiveness, and CONOPS.”

Click here for Air & Space Conference website
Click here for Northrop Grumman brochure

“The Hive Group, already recognized for its world class treemapping environments, now offers a broadened visual experience through a series of new interfaces and capabilities:  Live Geospatial Integration...Linear Progression Interface...Integrated Spreadsheet Interface...Data Source Updates...What-If Analysis...Custom Information Panels...”

The Hive Group congratulates Ben Shneiderman as he is honored by the University of Maryland on his recent election to the National Academies: “...for his work on software development, human-computer interaction and computer visualization.”

The Hive Group’s Honeycomb software is used to render a visual representation of commonly used passwords:  “Some 32 million passwords were stolen from a US-based social networking site, and the data, which made its way into the public domain, gave researchers an opportunity to examine with what type of words we secure - or attempt to secure - our closest digital secrets.”

“HiveOnDemand is a first-of-its-kind web-based treemapping service that brings the power of treemaps to those who need a simple, yet effective solution for visualizing their data...Within seconds, a user can connect to data; and a treemap is instantly generated, automatically configured, and ready to use.  The Hive Group has designed the service to be easy to use for anyone—specifically focusing on the most likely...”

“The problem is figuring out how to organize and display the data in a useful and informative way, instead of forcing people to sift through heaps of mind-numbing spreadsheets…[The] Hive Group…uses [treemaps] to help corporations display a variety of data, such as stock prices or computer systems.”

On Friday May 29th, as part of the University of Maryland annual HCIL Symposium, The Hive Group will present a full day workshop on corporate adoption of enterprise treemapping solutions: “Treemaps: From Classroom to Boardroom…and Beyond”.

“Invented by Ben Shneiderman in the early 1990s, treemaps are becoming increasingly common. Shneiderman sits on the board of advisors of The Hive Group...major corporations and government agencies use its treemap software to track production metrics, material flow, tool status, quality issues, inventory, and preventive maintenance.”
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“Honeycomb API 2.0 empowers commercial and public sector organizations who demand a more sophisticated level of control.  The full potential of Honeycomb’s source code has been unleashed to support the development of custom treemap applications, deep product integrations, and brand new visualization technologies.”

“The Total Life Cycle Management Common Operating Picture (TLCM-COP) application provides a common view of weapons systems and equipment status, enabling USMC senior leadership to make decisions efficiently and effectively using the same information as program managers and the fleet.”

“The world's leading provider of treemap visualization software now offers more options than ever for enterprise and extranet deployments. Built around The Hive Group's core generation engine technology, Honeycomb 5.5 leverages common algorithms and functionality, while enabling diverse deployment environments. This approach addresses the unique needs of architects, suits the flexibility requirements of developers, and accommodates the security and management objectives of administrators — all while supporting the varied platforms of end users.”

Computer Business Review summarizes the newest Honeycomb™ release: “Honeycomb 5.2, the enterprise visualization suite...provide[s] a consolidated way to analyze complex information.”

“The Hive Group announces the newest release of its flagship product, Honeycomb, the enterprise visualization suite that provides a consolidated, powerful way to look at complex information. The new Honeycomb 5.2 more fully embeds into business processes, empowering users to create unique treemaps, present focused information, investigate and analyze target performance areas, and resolve problems.”

“Today's data miners know everything! Political insiders are wide-eyed over... software ... from The Hive Group. "Honeycomb" reveals hidden patterns and tendencies inside voter behavior.”

Jeremy Wagstaff of The Wall Street Journal writes, “One of the things that bugs me about our oh-so-cool information revolution is this: We show such little imagination in how we actually look at that information...There has to be a better way...One of the best is the treemap.”
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“Business analytic applications are a strong component of the success of The Hive Group’s treemaps , which have been widely used for insurance claims analysis, product sales monitoring, and oil/gas production. A major success story...”

“The U.S. Marine Corps uses a series of treemaps called the Marines Equipment Readiness Information Tool to track maintenance and readiness data for all Marine Corps equipment. . . 'Readiness is our return on investment,' says Michael Williamson, department director for studies and analysis at the Marine Corps logistics command. The system also makes it easy to analyze repair costs and maintenance rates for specific types of equipment, he says.”

Names The Hive Group as one of three innovators providing access to Amazon's data.

“CEOs need a dynamic, visual environment to help them simulate extreme conditions - to help them understand the complex interplay of the market landscape, competitive pressures and the limits of their corporation. The good news is that visualization technology is finally getting sophisticated enough to fill this need.”

“In September, Hyperion released a product called Visual Explorer along with its Essbase data analysis software. Customers can view the data using objects with different shapes and colours that change as you drag different dimensions of data into the picture. A US-based competitor, the Hive Group, focuses on tree mapping, a technique developed at the University of Maryland. Tree mapping takes a hierarchical "tree" of information and turns it on its end, displaying the most detailed pieces of data - the roots - as squares inside supersets of data that help to categorise and describe data more easily.”

“The Marine Corps Equipment Readiness Information Tool, or MERIT, is a decision support tool that integrates data from stove-piped logistics systems. It provides a graphical depiction of units' readiness, and detailed supply and maintenance information. It creates views by commodity, functional area and organization. Just as important, MERIT gives all users, from privates to generals, a common frame of reference.”

“Now the private that's entering the information late at night ... he knows his captain is going to see it, his battalion commander is going to see it.”

Amazon names Hive as one of six innovative companies using AWS to provide a better customer experience.

“One of the more novel ways to search for products on Amazon is through a search feature that isn't accessed from the Amazon site [it's a visual search interface from The Hive Group]”