I am very excited — no, I am thrilled to be speaking at this year’s SXSW Interactive!
South By, as the cool kids call it, is one of the biggest festivals and features five packed days of presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, networking events and special programs showcasing the best new digital works, video games and innovative ideas the international community has to offer.
Invited by the good folks at JESS3, I will join Adam Bly of Visualizing.org, Eric Friedman of Foursquare and our moderator Robin Richards on the panel entitled Social Media Data Visualization: Mapping the World’s Conversations. Together, we will explore the significance of visualization in relation to the expanding reach and uses of social media as not just tellers of social media stories, but part of larger communications strategies. The panel takes place on Saturday March 12, 3:30pm at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX.
As individuals and companies across the world rely more and more heavily on social media, data visualization has become sine qua non in not only displaying analytics and metrics, but also in understanding macro and micro trends by platform, network and individual. This panel will explore information design, data visualization, relationship mapping and statistics — and how they all fit together to create compelling infographics, data visualizations and dynamic dashboards in hot pursuit of the holy grail of information design: make it more digestible and more human.
The four of us will share insights, discuss measurements of success & qualities and propose strategies on how to implement these in the day to day work. My focus lies on how we as practitioners can ensure integrity, underline relevance and maintain clarity in form & function while striving for impact and immersion. Ideally, we will have different views on these points and therefore a vivid discussion can emerge. At this point I want to wish Robin, the moderator of this panel, the best of luck and to thank him for making this possible.
A short word about my fellow panelists:
Adam Bly is the founder and CEO of Seed Media Group, an integrated media and technology company committed to helping advance science and its potential to improve the state of the world. He has lectured at the World Economic Forum, The Museum of Modern Art, Harvard, MIT, The Royal Society on the future of science and its role in society.
Eric Friedman is Director of Client Services at Foursquare. Eric was formerly the analyst at Union Square Ventures, a VC firm focussed on early stage technology companies. Eric has combined his entrepreneurial interests and experience in product management, finance, IT, marketing, and account management in his work.
Robin Richards is Art Director of JESS3, where he is responsible for overseeing their infographic output, while also working on data visualizations across web and mobile platforms. His work has been featured on Techcrunch, Flowing Data, Fast Company, Gizmodo, BBC, Guardian, Alltop, and Information Is Beautiful.
Needless to say that I look forward to this event — and the date is approaching very fast. If you happen to be at South By please let me know, I would love to meet up with you and have a chat.