I listen to a lot of podcasts. They make my workouts much more enjoyable. For the most part though, I only listen to ones about sports and more general podcasts about design, technology, and working from home. However, a couple of months ago, Enrico Bertini and Moritz Stefaner started Data Stories, a podcast on visualization. Enrico is a researcher in the area and Moritz is more of a practitioner, so it’s a good contrast between the two.
Neither had experience producing podcasts before this, so it was rough around the edges at first. But each episode has been getting better. I highly recommend it.
In the most recent episode, with Andy Kirk, they discuss the most common question from people new to the field: how to get started. Go ahead and listen. It’s a good one if you’re itching to get your feet wet.
One thing I’d add (that maybe I missed as cars drove past me) is that it’s important to establish what you want to learn visualization for. The purpose will change what methods to use and what software to learn. Monitoring server load for a web service is going to be different than say, designing an atlas.
Nathan, any suggestions for other good podcasts (esp in the design and technology areas)?
I like the 5by5 podcasts, especially Build & Analyze. And of course This American Life and Radio Lab are always entertaining.
Hey Nathan,
What are some of the other podcasts you listen too? Would love to know the design and sports ones.
My favorite sports one is the B.S. Report with Bill Simmons.
Can you share which podcast you listen to that talks about working from home? Thanks
It’s a new one called Home Work: http://www.70decibels.com/homework/
I listen to their podcast since day one and they are quite interesting, not only they debate a lot of topics that are hot now on the data/infovis field, as they having a great sense of humor! I really recommend it
I didn’t think data visualization was something that needed teaching…
Really?
It depends on what data you are visualizing and for what purpose. I guess I was thinking of it in the context the way people view art. And yes, I know you can be taught to view art, but you know what I am talking about..
@Chris — Viewing visualization doesn’t take much effort (sort of the point of it), but making it does, right? That said, looking at data through visualization can benefit from teaching, too.
Thanks for the referral…I’ll add this show to my list!
Regarding others, these are two of my creative favorites:
LensWork (Brooks Jensen) http://daily.lenswork.com/podcast/
Accidental Creative (Todd Henry) http://www.accidentalcreative.com/podcasts
“The purpose will change what methods to use and what software to learn.”
If i’m particular interested in maps that involves geocoding. What software is/are recommended?
particularly*
@Jater – I often use geopy to geocode: http://code.google.com/p/geopy/
Then mapping usually comes after. R, Indiemapper, Polymaps, D3, Geocommons…
Thanks for your reply ! I relatively new to data visualization but I am really interested to learn how I can make use of it to show information on maps. Do you have any tips I could go about learning it? :)
Nathan –
Would you share your full list of podcasts you listen to? I’d enjoy trawling through them to see what I pick up. Thanks in advance!