NEAT

This is Brian typing words at you. 

The three of us often find ourselves listening to interesting people or participating in conversations about the future of bla bla bla. In an effort to share some of the mental spoils of those encounters with all of you, I present the momma bird/baby bird approach wherein we regurgitate tiny bits of half-digested knowledge worms back to our readers. 

Precious, isn’t it? 

Last night I attended Visually’s Data Visualization meetup at Trulia in downtown SF. Scott Murray, assistant professor of design at USF, spoke about interactive visualizations and Mike Jeter, creative director of I Shot Him, spoke about animation, storytelling and women shooting their husbands. 

Here come the wormy bits!

• Murray spoke at length about process, calling 2013 “the year of process.” Specifically, he encouraged people in burgeoning fields (like data viz) to open up and share their process more so collective tides can rise.
• You may have seen the NY Times’ amazing 512 Paths To The White House graphic last November. If stuff like that makes you tingle with excitement a little bit, other sites worth monitoring would be Chartsnthings (blog of data sketches from NYT graphics dept.), Visualizing Data, Flowing Data, The Guardian’s Data Blog,  and National Infographic which shares charts, graphics, maps and all sorts of other visual goodies from National Geographic. 
• Check out the animation put together by I Shot Him and Visually on Mexican drug cartels. Jeter spoke at length about the power of well-told stories, specifically in their ability to reach an audience in a way that advocates often struggle to achieve on their own. Animation (comedy, art, you name it) inspires people to share and spread a message in ways that data alone cannot. 
• Further proof: something as boring as updated SF parking regulations can still be made cheery and pleasurable to learn about. 
• Lastly, loved Jeter’s visual depiction of how advocates/clients typically communicate what it is they want to say and the role of good story tellers to straighten that out and make a clear connection between the advocate/client and the audience. (Trouble uploading the pic I took, but will post it later)

Special thanks to the great people at Visually for playing host. I didn’t list them above as a resource for great graphical goodness, but obviously, that’s what they’re all about. Be their friend.