Ende April ist normalerweise See-Conference-Zeit. Morgen geht es los mit der SEE #7, aber ich bin diesmal nicht dabei und werde deshalb keine Geschichten von Stararchitekt Joshua-Prince Ramus mitbringen. Auch nicht von Professor Andrew Vande Moere, der übrigens auch wieder auf der See ist, wie schon die letzten Jahre.

Die Talks sind aber auch diesmal dankenswerterweise alle online zu sehen. Go visualize!

Als Ergänzung hier eine Liste der besten Visualisierungsblogs, heute veröffentlicht von flowingdata, ohne Präsentationscoach Michael Gerharz hätte ich es vermutlich verpasst.

Danke, Netz.

Geschichten aus dem Netz und übers Präsentieren bringe ich dann im Mai von einer anderen Konferenz mit. Und Ihnen allen ein schönes Wochenende, falls es nicht schon angefangen hat. Man kann ja schließlich nicht immer nur übers Präsentieren nachdenken, obwohl ...

At the See #6, Brendan Dawes from magneticNorth also showed a number of older projects. In 2004 he ran the 1973 film Don’t Look Now through a simple slit-scan program written in Processing and saved the resultant frames. These results are as eerie and bewilderingly strange as to be expected from that film.

It scared the living daylight out of me when I first saw it at the age of 14 or so.

Before he introduced the slides, he asked the audience (some 850 Germans) if we knew the film.  Only one or two people raised a hand, and Mr. Dawes must have returned to the UK thinking us Germans a terribly uneducated lot.

But then we are a dubbed nation, relying on getting lost in translations. Feeding us the German film title would have achieved strikingly different results. A clear case of COIK-Syndrome. Clear only if known.

• If we had seen some original stills, we would have recognized the film.
• If we had been giving a moment or two, we also would have got it.

But being put on the spot, sitting in the dark and in a large audience, means some adrenaline is at work, and a certain fear of failing; and when under pressure we fall back easily only on things we are very familiar with.

Even though I have read Daphne du Maurier’s book several times in English, I watched the film the first (and last) time in German, and so that is the corner where I have it stored, and that was what my brain needed at that moment. A red trigger. Something to help me recognize. Something to help me choose the right drawer. Because I knew I knew. I just could not grasp it.

When Dawes began to talk about the opening sequence, when he began telling the story of a grieving Donald Sutherland, my friend and I nudged each other and whispered: Oh, he means Wenn die Gondeln Trauer tragen.

The story achieved what the processed images could not. And once we were on safe grounds, we even realized which of the frame sections must be the dream sequence. 

Presenters:

If a book or film title is very important, you might want to make sure everyone in the audience gets it. Do not rely on global pop culture alone. Everyone who has ever watched that film would have remembered one of the original stills or the film poster. It is not a film you forget easily.

Fear is a master player at memory.

 

Back from the See #6. I am happy, dead tired, and filled to the brim with all kinds of first impressions of sustainability, data, visualization. Stories.

The video stream is online now.

[Update] All videos are availabe on Vimeo now.

Talks were great, slides were very good. Cream of the crop visualization on all levels. Not one single slide crammed with text, not one speaker hanging on to his script or presenter notes.

Different speaking styles, and I have my clear favs, but all speakers were confident and at ease, passionate about their topics. All of them had something to say or show.

Visualization is story telling in the dark.

Welzer wriggled his way out of a question I asked. Bit of a shame. Joshua Prince-Ramus rocked, as I knew he would, but hearing his talk on the Wyly theater project for a second time in a slightly different version helped to make better sense of some of the more philosophical passages in his TED talk I am currently translating. Nice showcase for COIK: clear only if known. He uses agency and agenda as synonyms. Ok, now I know.

The crowd was friendly and interested. With no wlan, the back-channel noise was reduced to 3G devices, paper note books, cameras. My old EOS’s battery life was shorter than mine, which does not happen too often.

Right before me sat Miss Facebook and must have missed most of what was being said. I on the other hand know most of her FB contacts’ names now and her favorite instagram filter. This perceived privacy, like when you are picking your nose in a car or making faces in a photo booth. Someone is *always* looking over your shoulder. 

Loved the location. A church with no crosses but almost moorish painted patterns and one hell of a bright projector is a combo I can easily live with.

As last year, the discussion the next day in a small group of twenty or so, was the extra icing on the cake.

Thanks everyone!

 

Favorite lines:

We need to change the story. (Welzer)

Don’t be that guy. (Justin Manor)

Data needs poetry. (Brendan Dawes)

You mustn’t believe that data is truth. (Jeremy Stucki)

We need people who can think and argue, not people who make pretty pictures. (J. Prince-Ramus)

The sustainable elephant in the room, respectively church:

All of us.

 

In other links:

• Weave summary by Jens Franke (more and further links)
• Review by Benjamin Wiederkehr from datavisualization.ch (workshop/discussion)
• http://www.see-conference.de/program/
• Flickr Stream

See#5/2010

SEE #6 am kommenden Wochenende. Letztes Jahr Visualisierung im Zeichen des Vulkans, diesmal in einer Kirche. Bringt Kissen, Decken und W-Lan-Router. Kirchen sind hartes Brot.

2010 hat die SEE #5 erreicht, dass ich wieder übers Präsentieren blogge. Mal sehen, was dieses Jahr passiert. Gute Vorträge sind gefährlich. Sie bringen uns zum Weiterdenken.

Oder wie Andrew vande Moere auf dem Sequel Workshop sagte, als wir über die Notwendigkeit besserer Datenvisualisierung im medizinischen Bereich, besonders Diabetes, sprachen: »Sie sollten das einfach machen.«

http://see-conference.com/

Still basking in the afterglow of the input and the discussions  at the SEE #5. Going there was so much the right thing to do.

Using a quiet Wednesday morning to revisit and redo my old presentation site that seriously needed a bit of a facelift.  And some spark of life. I was never happy with ready-made templates and blog software, and this was never more than a business card anyway, but right now I want something quick and dirty and bring this back to life. That’s what good real life meetings do to you: you appreciate everything web even more so.

In the meantime, my favorite quotes (as close as I recall them) :

• The world is a reef. Dieter Brell from 3deluxe.
• I studied to become a scientist. That never happened and I became a dancer instead. Chunkymoves.
• A visualization is a persuasion in itself. We like looking at it. But when you ask people what they have taken away from it, they do not know. Andrew Vande Moere from infosthetics.
• Understanding the numbers we live by is empowerment. Me.