The networking was great. During the conference, I had the opportunity to talk with Tableau Zen Master Ramon Martinez, who is so kind and helpful! I hung out with the incredible Anya A'Hearn and I'm hoping that her design sense rubs off on me! I met Peter Gilks in person instead of twitter, and I'm hoping he/Slalom will be kind enough to let me post my MS viz to Viz for a Cause when it's done. In addition to the always charismatic Tableau employees, I was in a conversation with Jock McKinlay(!!), who is extremely bright and talented. And though not there in person, Matt Francis never slept and was tweeting away to the point that he is responsible for me making a connection with Regina Nuzzo, a freelance journalist and stats professor. We spoke about the Rubber Duck concept that Matt recently blogged about. Oh, and I can't forget the very smart and funny Dan Murray! We had a great conversation and he looks good in a women's turquoise scarf! Having a conference that small really allows for some genuine connections and that's the best way to build great networks.
Alberto was Insightful
Short Stories
- Make comparisons big enough but not too big
- People remember things in context
- Have a soul...connect by making people feel
- Communicating requires connecting
The next short story came from Jock McKinlay of Tableau. Jock talked about Data Sushi, which is to make visualizations beautiful on the outside and have raw data on the inside. Jock gave a few reasons why we should have data sushi and a few excuses not to.
Reasons
| Excuses1. There's cooked data! 2. Lots of work goes into making data usable, so there might be a tendency not to share. 3. It's just hard technically to share. |
Last up in the short stories line up was Giorgia Lupi in a talk called Beautiful Reasons. I'm sensing a bit of a theme...connection! The biggest takeaway from her was that you can generate attention and emotional connection, if done well. The example they used to support this assertion was from a visualization they were commissioned to develop. Click on the image to read more about the visualization!
Aron was Engaging
Now, this made me feel pretty good. Why? Because on this specific point, we've done that with our a couple of our analytics. We have a narrative analyses that accompanies our charts and because we know people still like to print or don't have time to get all interactive, we have the static chart with a link to the interactive one for those who want to explore...so we're trying to meet the needs of two types of readers in the one document.