Spotlight: Cole Nussbaumer
If there’s anything we love at VisualCue, it’s passionate people. People with drive, determination and a cause are just more interesting to be around than people who sort of float through life.
At VisualCue, we’re passionate about a cause. We believe data should be transparent: anyone should be able to use it to make better decisions.
And what’s the biggest thing standing in the way of that cause? Confusing, outdated dashboards and spreadsheets that only a few people can understand.
Well, we were thrilled to find out that we were not the only ones interested in this cause. This week we’re spotlighting one of our favorite data visualization heroes: Cole Nussbaumer.
And the Oscar goes to... Data
If you’re anything like us, you watched the Oscar presentation last Sunday. And if you’re really like us it got you thinking about what kind of data visualizations have grown up around such an amazing institution over the years.
So we went out looking, and we were not disappointed! We shouldn’t have been surprised though: of course Hollywood’s biggest night would give us some of it’s best data visualizations.
Humanity's Digital Heartbeat
Think about what a heartbeat is for a second. It never stops (until the day it does, but for more data on that check out last week’s post), it’s the constant background hum to everything we do.
Social media can be a lot like a heartbeat for the entire planet. It’s always on and if for some reason it ever did stop you’d feel very real fear that the world had ended. It’s the constant background noise we’ve all become so accustomed to: every second we send out 6,000 Tweets. Every minute, we upload 300 hours of video to Youtube. Every day over 58,000,000 photos are uploaded to Instagram. That’s a lot of data.
And of course wherever there’s data there are amazing ways to look at it.
It's a jungle out there
We’ve mentioned before about how much data we, as a species, seem to be collecting these days. There’s data out there for just about everything you can imagine from Mozart to movies.
This week we were back on one of our favorite sites, FlowingData.com, and got caught up in all of the data surrounding a topic that, while decidedly macabre, is nevertheless on everyone’s mind every now and then.
Lock the doors, bolt the windows and gather your courage because this week we’re looking at just what a dangerous place the world can be.
Data Cities
Here’s an interesting fact for you: most of the world’s population lives in cities and will continue to do so in to the future.
According to Reuters, “In 2010, a total of 80.7 percent of Americans lived in urban areas, up from 79 percent in 2000. Conversely, 19.3 percent of the U.S. population lived in rural areas in 2010, down from 21 percent in 2000.”
That makes it incredibly likely that you are reading this article right now from one of those wonderful, crowded, bustling cities. As such, this week we are proud to present a data visualization tribute to city folk!
Celebrating Mozart... with Data
On January 27th, 2016 we celebrated Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 260th birthday. Widely considered to be the world’s greatest musical treasure, we spent the day listening to his beautiful symphonies while we worked.
Something about listening to classical music makes any activity appear beautiful, noble and portentous.
So we decided to celebrate Mozart’s birthday with a special Friday data visualization special focused on music!
Becoming Data Literate
Here’s a question for you- when did you learn to read and write? Odds are it was one of the first things you remember learning, and that makes sense: learning to read and write is foundational for all other knowledge you acquired.
Literacy. We usually think of it as the ability to read and write, but in reality the term is much broader than that. Beverly Moss, in her work “Literacy Across Communities” writes “There is still much discussion and disagreement on definitions of literacy…” and further notes that, despite the many disagreements, the field has landed on a definition which “links literacy to a complex web or network of social practices.”
Essentially, our definition of literacy is expanding, and to that list we would like to add what we believe is the most important kind of literacy anyone can have in the modern world. Data literacy.
60 Years of Snowy Weather
As of Thursday afternoon the top news story on our feeds around the VisualCue office is the impending blizzard about to hit Washington, D.C. We sincerely hope everyone involved stays safe, warm, and experiences no more than a weekend of forced relaxation due to staying indoors.
To help make that weekend a reality we thought we’d do our part and provide some interesting data visualizations for those stuck inside this weekend to browse.
Gaming with Data
It’s a fact of the modern world that data has seeped into nearly every aspect of our lives. That’s what the Internet of Things and big data is all about, millions of devices all broadcasting data just waiting to be analyzed.
Need proof? As we were talking about our weekend plans the VisualCrew decided that most of us were going to spend it exploring our favorite digital worlds in video games. As it turns out data and the visualization thereof have become a part of our favorite pastime!
Making time for data
We love New Year’s. Just something about getting a fresh, clean start gets us optimistic.
And at VisualCue, how do we celebrate anything? With data visualizations!
To help you make the most out of every minute of the new year we’ve gathered the best visualizations from around the Internet to help you get inspired.