Information Graphics: is Information an Art?

Direct Link to the video: BBC Newsnight: Information Graphics
Via @dMultimedia - Blog dMultimedia

This BBC broadcast from August 9, 2010, looks into the art of making information beautiful, and poses the question: How do you make statistics look interesting? The writer and designer David McCandless replies:

..."you just need to apply the rules of visual design to information"...

Is information an art? And how does this affect the nature and evolution of science and knowledge?

The art historian Judith Wechsler engaged in interdisciplinary studies exploring some of this at MIT, and edited a book: On Aesthetics in Science, which we found very useful and informative when teaching epistemology of science. We were looking for creative original sources to approach the generation and processing of information, and how this triggered certain effects in social communication working with an interdisciplinary team in the late '80's. Encountering this book was mind blowing, as are many of the clips we encounter today.

The dawning of the internet and tools that enabled social learning and networking in business environments in the '90s, brought the means and resources that the University did not have at the time: processors, personal computers and of course, the net. Today you don't need to be sitting in a University nor working with a major corporation, to be able to acquire the means to develop your own learning paths of inquiry, and personal development. It's a matter of personal interest and professional responsibility.

What you may need is scaffolding, and coaching to recognize where you stand, and how to be able to learn and design your information and knowledge domains, how to distinguish what is relevant and what is useful to you, for your projects and teams.

Are you aware of the impact that a medium and a format can have, informing the interactional design in different settings? Likewise, your interactional design informs your chances to sustain successful communications, when engaging in conversation and negotiating or "sharing" information with others.

..."images are a powerful global language packed with emotional power"...

..."However even a bar chart can be misleading, if taken completely at face value"...

Are you aware?

Where good ideas come from

(a book by Steven Johnson)

With this new book, Steven Johnson re-connects with his previous bestseller: "Everything Bad is Good for You" and the more recent: "The Invention of Air" which we liked so much, and posted about quite a bit here and there.

We also love the way Riverhead Books is sharing this ...amazing visualization.

A Brief History of Data Storage

The video below shows a progression of data storage (capacity) in terms of traditional formats such as texts and documents that can be organized into newspaper print editions, magazines, books and documents and libraries that can contain printed text and image files.

It not only illustrates changes in the design and dimensions of the information storage medium, it also gives good hints of the evolution we've seen (and will continue to see) in data portability aspects. By data portability we mean different things: "open standards" and/or "the possibility for people to reuse their data across interoperable applications." You can find many interesting projects on the internet, involving different market players and organizations, regarding data formats, policies and such.

We hope they may extend the clip in ulterior versions and mashups might show up later. We tend to say that the internet has changed many things and yes it has, but it's not the only thing changing our approach to and activities with information and knowledge.

Watch it on YouTube and read the credits and info generously provided by ihsabawagode.

Social Media ROI

... notice the credit for the music at the end and the reference to iTunes... other than the fact that I don't particularly like hamburgers... it seems to me it's pretty cool (I'd recommend you use pause a lot, to follow the text, check on the data... it does go too fast! - they could improve that with just a twitch).

Direct link to the Socialnomics09 channel in YouTube - This was posted on Nov. 12, 2009.

Brazilian project

Take a good look and listen... serious business and a beautiful place, fun people and great things to actually "do" in a design mix of settings and buildings, with plenty of water inlets, lots of green and a lake. Main structures seem to be already in place together with the promise of transport integration, which shows quite daunting on the clip. The place is a spectacular combination of sites: clusters of hills, the nearby sea and water spaces, ... the complexity of how to integrate the different nearby scenarios through and around the hills makes it much more challenging and fun.

Unbeatable discourse: the olympics and para-olympics mix, the stadiums, the transport plan, "a place to live your passion" with the Corcovado Christ as an oversight ... "a Brazilian celebration" ... " to inspire a continent"... this was not just about a city.

While the London clip of the previous contest was also tops, we also recognized that the show offered as an advance last year in China, was rather dis-connected to the sophistication of the flowing strings of dancers and athletes selling the promise of a multi-dimensional city in Singapore. The reality check and actual performance of the British in China brought to life a double-decker bus (do they still run?) a gang of average people dancing, a football star and a pop singer. The question now is, what will eventually take place when the curtains are drawn in 2012? We hope they re-connect again with what they'd shown before in order to become a winner.

A lot of what you see on the Brazilian clip is already there and just as beautiful as it shows... the issue might be with the coordination and the overall security, but they've already proved with the Rod Steward and Rolling Stones concerts drawing crowds of circa 3.5m (1994) and 1m (2006) respectively at the Copacabana beach, that they can do this and ... a lot more.

On social networks and information

Social Networks as Information Filters

View more documents from Lee Bryant.

Presentation via @leebryant ... quote from the Headshift Blog: go there to read-learn more!

"The affordances of social web allow us to build a new relationship with each other and with information. New forms of media consumption and architecture of participation hold important implications for information management:" via #RebootBritain event ongoing flows on the web :)

The Computer HIstory Museum

Amazing trip through time and evolving "Thinking Tools" visiting The Computer History Museum, courtesy of Rocktboom: daily internet culture Blog and YouTube Channel.

Ellie Roundtree from Rocketboom visits the Computer History Museum.

What a wonderful museum... See the Exhibit:

Internet History to learn more about the transformation and timeline of what we now know as "the internet", which became part of the infrastructure we can't go without. So much so, that we now take the internet and access to web content, to be a human right. Author Nicholas Carr explored a historical analogy with electrical utilities replacing in-house generators in his book: The Big Switch. Rewiring the world, from Edison to Google. (We read excerpts of it in class with adult English students and they loved the stories it brings forth).

Pity that Carr prefers to support Encyclopaedia Britannica, by hitting on Wikipedia and cricizing the quality of volunteer Web 2.0 information, and the blogosphere... Reading the Wikipedia page on Nicholas Carr, it informs that Carr became a member of the Editorial Board of Advisors of Encycloaedia Britannica in 2008. In any case, his critique was dealt with constructively by Wikipedia's leaders, and has therefore contributed to some quality improvements. Proof that: debating different perspectives in civilized ways can pave the way to new findings and improvements.

Wikipedia also leads us to another interesting debate, that of Nicholas Carr and author Yochai Benkler: well... more like a bet really. So far blogging has proved not to be "a fad", quoting The Guardian: "So the wager is half-on. Bookmark Carr's site for 2011. If, of course, blogging proves not just to be a fad." 2011 is not too far away. What do you think about this: will peer production processes or will price-incentivized systems... lead the majority of the contents on the web? in any case... "does it matter"?

Letting it Shine Behind the Scene...

Honda Insight - Let It Shine from Honda on Vimeo.

*Edited on April 30 to add link to transcript*

Really nice work... watch the making of it. Awesome, amazingly inspiring...

"The Insight is sort of Honda's latest hybrid, it's really good looking, it's fun to drive..."
"it's going to be the most affordable hybrid on the market"
"they invest in the belief that people are fundamentally good"

Furthermore... I love the way Vimeo has facilitated embedding options, and .. well... it just rocks!

Honda Insight - The Making of "Let it Shine”