liberate the UN data!
back in the day (circa 1989 or thereabouts), i accompanied my mother to a conference. it was either APHA or PAA; the organization doesn’t really matter. what matters is that while i was visiting the exhibits and booths - for all conferences have them - one in particular caught my eye. it was a group promoting clean, uniform data.* the concept excited me to no end. “you’re doomed,” my mother said, rolling her eyes.
recently she sent me a link to a presentation by hans rosling, professor of international health at the karolinska institute, and founder of gapminder. even if you couldn’t give a fig about international health and development, rosling shows an amazing, dynamic use of data the likes i’ve never seen before.
so, you data junkies, you disseminators of information via graphics, put down your slide rules. close the excel datasheet. and please, PLEASE step away from the powerpoint. instead, paste your eyes to this. and enjoy!
* according to the relevant mother, the group was the u.s. census bureau. stands to reason, although there’s more political gain to be had in manipulating data than ensuring its accuracy.
March 21st, 2007 at 3:01 pm
heh heh. btw, it was the Census Bureau.
March 21st, 2007 at 6:18 pm
It’s very cool. You can see the actual presentation at http://gapminder.org/
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Wow. That was incredible. The display of data was amazing. In a very short time, I learned a lot about the way the world has changed, is changing.
Are you familiar with Edward Tufte, by the way? He does books on displaying information. John has his books. I haven’t had much time to look at them, but they look really cool.
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:30 pm
[…] This is from a pre-test given to Swedish university students by Professor of International Health Hans Rosling of the Karolinska institute, and the answers are given in a lecture that he presented at the TED 2007 conference. Jenny of Baggage Carousel 4 offers up and discusses the video of this lecture, where you can go to get the answer to the questions. The answers are about a minute and a half into the video, but don’t stop watching there. It’s an amazing lecture, and fun to watch, and, as my friend Jenny puts it: even if you couldn’t give a fig about international health and development, rosling shows an amazing, dynamic use of data the likes i’ve never seen before. […]
March 27th, 2007 at 10:33 am
I love it. Although the suspicious PH scientist in me worries of the ease of mis-representing data when it’s presented in pretty pictures and bouncing balls… could make it hard to differentiate what is “good” data (and more importantly, good interpretation) and what is crack. Very dynamic and compelling argument for the open use of public statistics! Thanks for the great post.