I help people design the best visual supports for streamlined conversations and decision-making. That’s just what New Client needed. HeĀ called to say āI need to look great at this meeting.ā And by the time he got to that meeting, he looked great *and* he presented his qualitative and quantitative data…
Blog
My New Favorite Graph Type: Overlapping Bars
Why have I fallen in love with this graph type? I think its because its such a great way to visualize the comparison between two things, when one is inherently a part of the other. In recent client projects, I’ve used these to show actual v. budgeted amounts. Or individual…
Marketing Yourself as a Public Speaker
After years of making my way as a public speaker, 40 podcast episodes interviewing other public speakers, and a groundswell of people asking me how to grow their public speaking business, how about we chat for a few about what marketing strategies work and what don’t? What Works Before you…
Book Club with Alberto, Andy, and Jorge
So far this year we’ve seen a ton of great books on data visualization published! What an awesome time! I got together with Alberto Cairo, Jorge Camoes, and Andy Kirk to talk about our books and the writing process in general. Not sure which of the latest…
How Middle School Math Pays Off
Dear Mrs. Georgeās students, Awhile ago I met your teacher at a wedding reception. Her bestie married my father. As one does when engaging in small talk, she asked me what I do for a living. Me: I teach people how to present data. Ever seen a really terrible PowerPoint?…
Guest Post: 6 Fab Formatting Tips for Surveys
Note from Stephanie: I asked Sheila to write this post because I still get tons of questions from readers about how to take the design I recommend for data visualization and apply it to survey design. I’m not a survey expert, but Sheila is! Hi! Iām SheilaĀ B. Robinson, a…
Design of an Award Winning Report
So long as we are going to write reports, we might as well make them heavy on the visuals and do everything in our power to make the report easy to navigate, especially in a mobile reading culture. There are lots of ways to do this but one of my…
Automatically Updating Graphs in Word or PowerPoint
I have so much money in the bank Iām going to give away my number one reporting time saving secret (HAHAHAHAH not at all! Iām giving it away because I love you and I want to make your life easier). This is how you link Excel to your other reporting…
The Problem with Dashboards (And A Solution)
Folks, Iāve been discussing dashboards forever. Iāve consulted with dozens and dozens of clients on dashboards. And through all of that experience, Iāve discovered that dashboards kind of suck. Donāt get me wrong, I understand the need for a succinct complication of performance on key indicators. It sure beats a…
How Dataviz Can Unintentionally Perpetuate Inequality Part 2
Last time Vidhya and IĀ posted on this topic, we addressed how the use of color to visualizeĀ individuals can do more harm than good. This time Vidhya joins me again to talk about poverty and opportunity. Organizations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area community identified and started tracking indicators…