Forums

• Last week in the forums

  October 17, 2010 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Add Comment

  In case you're on the market for a data sciencey type job, there were a number of them posted to the forums this past week, along with some other schtuff.

  SEM infographics freelance — Working is picking up and I need help covering all my client requests for SEM infographics...

  Designer needed for animated cartogram — I am a financial publisher in need of a designer to create a cartogram of world GDP growth by nation...

  Data Visualization and Charting Business Manager — Bloomberg is looking for a passionate, experienced individual to join the Charts, Technical Analysis and Graphics Business...

  Data Visualization Genius — Young, fast-growing digital media startup seeks data visualization or UI expert...

  Interaction Designer — Do you believe, in a freshman-year kind of way, that design just might save the world?

  P.S. I changed the "Finding a Job" forum to "Job Board" since that's basically what it's used for. Are you an employer looking for a qualified data person? Post it to the board. It's free.

• From the FlowingData Forums [July 3-17]

  July 17, 2009 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (2)

  Visualize This: Obesity Rates by State

  This segment of Visualize This is all about obesity rates in America. The data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

  In 2008, every state in the US, except for one had an obesity rate greater than 20%. In 1994, there were zero. Here is the data for 2008. You can find data from 1985 to 2008 from the CDC site. Share your visualizations in this forum thread.

  Thanks to all those who participated in the last Visualize This with Rambo kill counts. A little bit of Tableau, some R, and dare I say, Powerpoint. Be sure to check those out in the forums.

  Interesting Threads

  • Edward Tufte is Talking at the Met - I know many of of you will be interested in this one. Tufte is giving a talk at the Met in NYC on classic drawings. Your ticket comes free with admission.
  • Help a Graduate Student Out - Do you collect data about yourself? Take this survey on personal informatics.
  • Mapping H1N1 Virus: Pattern of Spread Over Time - Do you have any suggestions on how to improve this graphic? Some put in their two cents while others provided their own work with the data.
  • Diseasome, Explore the Human Disease Network - A smooth network graph online to present scientific work.

• From the FlowingData Forums [June 10-16]

  June 17, 2009 to Forums, Visualize This  •  Share on Twitter  •  Add Comment

  Visualize This (and win)

  This round of Visualize This is a fun one. We've got the Rambo kill chart, which shows well, a breakdown of kills in each of the four Rambo movies. It's surprisingly detailed with several cuts of the dataset like number of bad guys killed by Rambo with his shirt on and off, number of good guys killed by bad guys, number of people killed per minute, and several others.

  The problem is that the data is just in a table. Surely we can do better than that. Can you visualize this?

  Person with the best viz gets a copy of Darrell Huff's classic How to Lie with Statistics. Get your entry in by July 1. One entry per person.

  Cool Threads

  • Visual Ideological History of the US Supreme Court: Alex Lundry visualizes the last seven decades of ideologies of US Supreme Court judges. Interact through the years and split the data in several ways.
  • Visualizing Biological Data: VisualMOA is an information browser for the Microbial Online Analysis database. Is it useful without subject knowledge?
  • Processing vs. Flash: Both are heavily used for visualization on the Web, but both have their pros and cons. Processing is good for coding beginners. Flash loads quicker using vectors. Which one should you use?
  • Mapping SPAM and Sensornet Attackers: Using some heat mapping and Circos, Ben, a visualization beginner, is looking for some input.

• Ask Me Anything About Data Visualization (in the forums)

  June 9, 2009 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Add Comment

  Do you have some data on your hands and don't know what to do with it? Are you wondering what the best way to graph a dataset might be? Want some input on stuff you made?

  If you do, I encourage you to post your questions and requests to the FlowingData forums. I get a lot questions via email, but from now on, I'll only answer questions posted there.

  It's not that I don't enjoy all of your emails. I really do. Rather, there's two reasons why I'm making the shift. The first is that it occurred to me that others might be able to learn from my responses, so if someone has a similar question to yours later on, they might be able to find an answer.

  The second reason is that sometimes I don't know the answer (or don't have time to reply). If you ask your question in the forums though, others might be able to help too. I like those odds.

  Share Your Links

  Finally, if you find any interesting data goodies from around the Web, please do post them to the forums. Or if you've just released one of your own projects, you can put it there too. In fact, the forums would be a better place to do it than emailing me. I'm so flooded with email these days (aren't we all?) that it's been hard to keep up.

  Sign Up Now

  Go ahead and register in the forums now if you haven't done that already. It's free, it's easy, and will only take a few seconds.

  Go on now, I'll wait for you...

  Done? Cool. See, I told you it was easy.

• A Few More Days Left for Visualize This

  February 6, 2009 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Add Comment

  A quick reminder - there are about 5 days left for Visualize This: Piracy Edition. You know, something to do since you're not really working today anyways :).

• Visualize This: Piracy for Oscar-nominated Movies

  January 29, 2009 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (4)

  The first Visualize This for poverty rate in America was a very good start to something I hope to continue here on FlowingData. There were a lot of good entries and plenty of interesting discussion on what worked and what didn't. Some used existing tools while others went custom; some used a combination of both. There were entries that went for emotion and others that were built for pattern-finding. My pick for best is Luca Masud's take on things with D.C. as focal point.
  Continue Reading

• Last Day to Put in Your Entry for Visualize This – Vote Now

  January 26, 2009 to Forums, Visualization  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (1)

  A quick reminder: tomorrow is the last day to put in your entry for the first edition of Visualize This. There have been a lot of interesting visualization entries so far, so even if you're not planning on making a graphic, make sure you put in your two cents for which one you think is best.

• Visualize This: Poverty Rate By Age in America

  January 14, 2009 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (12)

  I'm going to try something new here at FlowingData in a section called Visualize This. Every two weeks I will post a dataset to the FlowingData forums for all of you to visualize. Download the data, visualize it (graph, chart, map, infographic, animation, etc), and post your work to the thread. As we've seen already, there are many ways to visualize a single dataset, and with multiple pairs of eyes, we get stories from different points of view. I will post the best visualization at the end of each cycle.

  My hope for Visualize This is that we all learn from each other as well as use the opportunity to improve our visualization technique. From experience, I've found that the only way to really learn how to visualize data is by doing. Digital photography forums follow a similar format, and I think the idea can easily carry over to visualization.

  Your Mission, If You Choose to Accept it...

  To start things off, I've posted data for poverty rate by state and age in America. With the current state of the economy and the changes that are on their way, the dataset seemed fitting. Post your work here, and let's start Visualize This on the right foot. Have fun!

  If you haven't registered yet, make sure you do that first. Also, if you have any ideas for future datasets we might want to use, go ahead and post those here.

  Are you up for the challenge?

• Are You a Freelance Data Visualization Designer/Consultant?

  January 8, 2009 to Forums, Miscellaneous  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (2)

  I frequently get requests or propositions for data visualization projects, but I almost always have to turn them down - not because they're not worth my while, but because I've made a conscious decision to try really hard to finish my PhD. To that end, I always wish there was a list or resource that I could at least refer people to for their data visualization needs. I know of a few freelancers, but I'm positive there are many others. If you do visualization freelance (that includes BI, infographics, maps, graphs, charts, etc), post to this thread in the FlowingData forums (NOT this post), and hopefully, I can get a list going that I can point potential clients to.

• From the Forums: Contests, Self-surveillance, and Attachments

  December 22, 2008 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Add Comment

  I made a few updates to the FlowingData forums last night - the main being the ability to upload attachments. You've always been able to post images, but now you don't have to link to some remote server. That means it's much easier to share visualization with everyone now. It's also where I will host all future contests and giveaways. So go register now!

  Oh, and one more thing - I added two new sections for Events and Finding a Job, so if you're looking for or want to publicize a workshop or conference; or if you're looking for work or looking for someone to work for you, that'd be the place to do it.

  From the Forums

  Tis the season for... infographics contests - Win $500 from GOOD Magazine or a free subscription to Chance Magazine [Thanks, Alberto].

  UK Wired Article Help - johno is writing a feature for UK Wired Magazine (launching this spring) on lifetracking and wants to talk to those involved with self-tracking.

  Associate in Research for Software Development - There's a data visualization position open at Duke University

  Visualization software used... - A short discussion what people use to visualize data.

• Have You Checked Out the FlowingData Forums Yet?

  October 27, 2008 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Add Comment

  I started the FlowingData forums a few months ago to give others a chance to start their own conversations or to get advice on personal projects that need some attention. I admittedly haven't done a very good job of promoting the forums, so I thought I'd give them a little bump.

  If you've got something interesting to share with the FlowingData community - post it to the forums. If you've got a question about the best way to visualize a dataset or want some honest opinions on how to improve an existing chart or graph - post it to the forums. I'll post the most interesting and useful discussions here on the blog once a month.

  So what're you waiting for? Sign up for a free account, and share with the rest of us. Stop being so greedy.

• From the Forums: Challenges, Data, Questions

  August 12, 2008 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Add Comment

  The FlowingData forums have been up for a few weeks now, and it's been fun watching it slowly grow. Thanks to those who've joined the community and a big thank you to those who have helped the community develop by posting topics, questions, and data.

  Some Recent Topics

  Visualizing Comic Book Sales - hijinx, a comic book retailer, uses data to decide how to stock his inventory. What books sellout in the first week? Which ones are sell at a slower rate, but for a longer period of time?

  The Complex Venn Diagram Problem - Venn diagrams can be useful and intuitive, but once you have a need to show more than 3 categories, things start to get messy. JulianF wonders if there are any more creative options out there.

  Do You Want My Personal Fluids (Data)? - Tim collects data about himself like no other. He offers his data for all the drinks he's consumed over the past 6 months. I'm sure someone can have some fun with that data.

  Visualize Flight Delays. Win $1,000. - Hadley posts details for Data Expo 2009. It's 20 years and 12 gigabytes of flights in the United States. Can you make sense of it all? Keep an eye out here on FlowingData as I have some fun with this dataset in the coming weeks.

  If you haven't joined yet, why not join now? It's free and ridiculously awesome.

• What Simple Rules Should You Always Follow When Designing Infographics?

  July 23, 2008 to Forums  •  Share on Twitter  •  Comments (10)

  In the FlowingData forums, Ryan asks a really good question about data design:

  What simple rules should we all follow when we present data?

  I came up with three rules of thumb a while back, but surely there are more. Context, clarity, and real data are clear winners, but what else is there? Those are really broad and can be broken down a few ways - like reducing the number of variables could contribute to clarity. If you have any ideas, please do post your ideas to the forum thread.

  Ah yes, I can hear you flipping through your Tufte books.