How many VisWeek papers could the NYT write in three weeks? Last week's VisWeek finished with Amanda Cox's amazing capstone talk about the visualization work that goes on at the New York Times.
As everyone in the room was rightfully being blown away by the incredible productivity of their graphics department, Tim Leboasked: How many papers could NYT submit in 3 weeks? This same sentiment echoed in the hallways after her talk. Now, I don't know what this number is; but I know what it should be. Can Visualisation Save the World? – Lessons for Landscape Architects from Visualizing Local Climate Change. Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen. Can visualization influence people? I mean can we prove it? I just came back from a wonderful journey and experience.
I was kindly invited by the IDRC (International Development Research Center) in Ottawa to give a talk about data visualization. The IDRC is a Canadian organization that funds research projects in developing countries for development purposes (don’t say humanitarian, I’ve learned the hard way it’s a different issue). Think climate change, health and medicine, agriculture, food, etc. I will probably say more about my experience there and all the inspiring thoughts it generated in later posts, but here I want to focus on one. My talk was very much focussed on the role of information visualization as a tool for your mind.
Power-of-visual-communication.