Making boring interesting
- 1. Max Goldman “ How have people (not just brands) have taken the seemingly dull and made it interesting, exciting, emotional, fun, interactive” ~or~ “ We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint”
- 2. Summary Data visualisation is certainly the ‘done thing’ – but as the faintly preposterous US Army Afghanistan diagram shows, it has it’s limits. Data visualisation is a ‘macro’ view – zooming out and attempting to explain the whole. This deck mainly explores the opposite approach, zooming in and finding the interesting, surprising and moving in the details of a thing. There’s a speech, a book, a play, a film, a website, and even some ads. And, plently of miscellania that might still be useful.
- 3. We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint (The US Army has complained at the excessive data crunching expected of it in Afghanistan) “ When we understand that slide, we’ll have won the war.” - Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan
- 4. ... not to suggest that data visualisation is always a burden. Ito World recently used the Department Of Transport’s traffic-frequency maps (eye-wateringly dull and confusing, below). They created something ...
- 5. ... that provides real insight from the statistics, to people who don’t happen to work for the Department of Transport. So, well visualised data can democratise its content.
- 6. Tim Berners-Lee talks about the importance of putting freely avaliable data (from government and other sources) to good use. This starts with displaying it properly, which is essential if you want to share it. Because of sites like informationisbeautiful, the power of displaying a large amount of information in an attractive and simple way is ever more apparent. But as the first slide shows, simply displaying information (however well organised) is not always what is needed, or helpful. Long before fashionable visualisation blogs, people found many ways of making dry, complicated, esoteric or even irrelevant information interesting, simple, and indeed beautiful. From the below, it seems all you need is: relevance, fun, beauty, humour, and (last but not least), an appearence somewhere on Maslow’s hierarchy.
- 7. Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce (TED 2004) A masterful speech. Gladwell turns a laughably ‘boring’ subject – the history of the manufacture of spaghetti sauce in post-war America – into a soaring epic. He finds this miniscule, insignificant strand running through modern American history and uses it beautifully as a hook to explore human culture. In 20 minutes he weaves through capitalism, consumerism, industry, aspiration, branding, psychology, neuroscience, and statistics. In short, he uses spaghetti sauce to explain the predicament of modern Western man. He has made the boring interesting.
- 8. Cod By Mark Kurlansky The writer Mark Kurlansky pulled off a similar trick wi th his critically acclaimed biography of Atlantic cod. He used fish to explain 1000 years of human history and exploration, from the Vikings to the Americans. He found in the decline of their po p ulation an omen of the environmental destruction of our planet, and a powerful symbol of the betryal of our ancestors past and futur e.
- 9. The collapse of Enron in 2002 was a scandal (a scandal that only bankers and accountants could hope to understand). Playwright Lucy Prebble has achieved the seemingly impossible in making a compelling story out of mark-to-market accounting and energy trading. Of course, it’s not really that surprising. Enron’s rise and fall has all the elements of a Greek tragedy – hubris, greed, power, corruption, decadence, and folly. These human elements are brought out in speech, dance, and chorus, and put on stage. They make Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room gripping drama. A lesson to anyone making the boring, interesting.
- 10. It doesn’t have to be so highbrow. James Cameron managed to turn a very dull lesson in environmentalism into the highest grossing film of all time. This wasn’t because of it’s extrordinary budget and aesthetic – plenty of high-gloss blockbusters have fallen by the wayside. Instead, I’d argue that the universality of it’s story and the startling simplicity of its characterisation (this is not a criticism) made it appealing in virtually any language or culture.
- 11. How to make kitchen design make you smile http://www.thekitchen.ikea.co.uk/domestic-policy/election.html
- 12. WCRS’ Awareness Test for TFL http://www.youtube.com/user/dothetest#p/u/4/Ahg6qcgoay4 Explaining selective vision in a brilliant, entertaining, and engaging way. You can’t argue with 10.5 million views.
- 13. The classic Strada advert tackles a dry subject with wit, style and enthusiasm. It was an amazing way tell consumers about how the product was made, and used that to suggest it’s reliability and advanced design. The advert was so entertaining, that British people seem to have completely forgiven Fiat for making one of the least reliable or advanced cars even sold in Britain. You’re now also likely to have The Barber of Seville running through your head. Sorry.
- 14. And now the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met Office, on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, at 0405 utc on Tuesday 27 April 2010 for the period 0600 utc Tuesday 27 April to 0600 utc W ednesday 28 April 2010. T h ere are warnings of gales in Trafalgar Shannon Rockall Malin Hebrides and Southeast Iceland. The area forecasts for the next 24 hours. Viking. Northerly 4 or 5, veering southerl y or southe a sterly, 5 to 7 m oderate or rough. Ra i n, fog patches. Moderate or good, occas i o n ally very poor. Nor t h Utsir e South Utsi r e. Northerly or northw est erly 4 or 5, becom ing? variable 3, then southeasterly 5 to 7 later. Moderate or rough. Rain, fog patches. moderate or good, occasionally very poor. Forties. West 3 or 4, backing south or southwest 4 or 5, occasionally 6 later. slight, occasionally moderate. Occasional rain, fog patches. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor. Cromarty Forth. South or southeast 3 or 4, increasing 5 or 6. Slight. Occasional rain. moderate or good, occasionally poor. Tyne Dogger Fisher. Westerly backing southerly 4 or 5, occasionally 6 in east. Fisher. Slight, occasionally moderate in Fisher. Mainly fair. Moderate or good, occasionally poor. To a certain breed of English person, the Shipping Forecast couldn’t be more interesting (and that breed isn’t ‘fishermen’). The shipping forecast is heard when people are drifting off to sleep, at their most vulnerable and comtemplative. The shipping forecast is English, exotic, and rhythmic. It is calming and familiar. It is club, an ‘Institution’, a shibboleth. For some, it has profound national importance and personal resonance. That it is a list of poorly explained, irrelevant information hardly comes into it.