We’re not sure whether everyone came for the spread of pies or data visualization discussions, but either way the Juice 2013 Pi Day at our Atlanta office was a good time for all. As you can see, we decided to kick off the small talk visually.
With a wide variety of backgrounds, people could find a discussion area of their choice. Here are some topics we covered.
Data Storytelling
Data Storytelling is rising up the charts of trendy data visualization topics. I shared our thinking about what the term means to us (something we’d started with this blog post). Think of your role telling data stories like you are a safari guide. You can lead your audience around to see the most interesting sights in the park, but be willing to go off the planned course as the interests of your audience dictate. We pulled some lessons from Pixar’s rules for storytelling, discussed the importance of influencing both your primary audience as well as their audience, and connected these elements of data storytelling to how we designed Slice.
Meanwhile, next door...
Information Design Trends
We had an informal open discussion on trends we’ve seen and what they mean going forward. What are the challenges of responsive design to visualization; particularly as it relates to reporting vs. exploration. What does the rise of lifestyle data mean for the future, and for your privacy? There were generational differences in comfort with tracking with our younger attendees preferring to turn off and drop out. Finally, who doesn’t want to talk about “BIG data”? Is Hadoop for you? What will we do with the sextillion bytes of data (one billion terabytes) humanity will generate in 2013? How will this mountain of data get transformed into something people can act on and relate to?
In between, people cast their votes on these questions. What’s your answer?
Here are some notes and resources we jotted down. Feel free to add to them: http://bit.ly/JuicePiDayTrends
Thanks to all who came, and, if you couldn’t make it, join us next year!