I recently attended Edward Tufte's one-day course "
Presenting Data and Information." I recommend it for anyone with a strong interest in producing or consuming complex, information-rich graphics, articles or other presentations. (If the $380 cost is an obstacle, one could also consider just purchasing
some or all of the four books that come with the course; Tufte's excellent presentation drew heavily on the books.) For me, I believe the course will be helpful in various activities, including my
magazine job, this blog and the
book I am working on. In any case, the course has definitely sharpened my eye for noticing when info is being presented in a misleading, uninteresting or otherwise bad way. Here via Quartz is an example of a not-very-informative chart, produced by no less an entity than Apple. Quartz's analysis is
here.
Me: For resting on one's laurels, and obscuring one's lack of recent progress, a focus on a cumulative number will work for a while. (Of course, if things are really bad, that will become noticeable as the curve approaches flatness.)
By the way, one thing I didn't particularly expect was Tufte's enthusiasm for the work of Richard Feynman, especially his famous
Feynman diagrams. But in looking into that further, I find that I worked on a
Michael Shermer column at Scientific American years ago (either fact checking it or copy editing it--can't remember) that involved Tufte, Feynman and the latter's
diagram-illustrated van. As a further aside, I'm pleased to see that this TV movie is coming out: "
The Challenger Disaster" (originally "Feynman and the Challenger").
