Boris Gorelik on the biggest missed opportunity in data visualization

Boris Gorelik recently joined us to present on The Biggest Missed Opportunity in Data Visualization based on his recent talk at the NDR conference. Boris was a data scientist at Automattic, is now a data science consultant, and blogs regularly on data visualization and productivity

Some of highlights (along with a handy timestamp) include:

  1. Keep the “main thing” the main thing of your presentation (1:03). Most people don’t do this, but it doesn’t have to be this way!
  2. There are formal ways to learn a domain skill, but learning how to communicate effectively to an audience of non-experts is hard. (9:00)
  3. The “main thing” in presentations is often obscured by information of no relevance to the audience. (15:57)
  4. Use the audience’s natural tendency to read text to make the titles in your graph and slides count (16:90). Daniel Kahneman’s work on slow vs. fast thinking comes in here.
  5. Focus on answering the audience’s “so what” question. (21:00)
  6. In title slides and captions, focus on writing the conclusion. (23:50)
  7. Don’t be afraid of the risk of giving your professional opinion on a conclusion (35:00) — you should have some skin in the game

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