Ben took our show on the road yesterday, speaking about live data visualization at the Webtrends Engage conference in New Orleans. I really like the format that the presentations were in: twice as wide as a normal slide deck and right behind the speakers, so Ben could stride the boards, point at interface elements, walk over to the project description, and so forth.
Image by justinogarrity
One of these days I’d really like to try this out; I find that if I can walk around on stage I sound alot more excited, wave my hands etc. If I’m stuck behind a podium I tend to drone a bit. In this regard I’ve been of course watching Hans Rosling’s videos closely, where he bluescreens visualizations behind him — although he seems to have shifted to talking out of a little window lately instead, which seems like a shame.
Also, Sha is in LA today, speaking at a ‘next generation content’ event put on by our friends at Contagious Magazine (whose December 2008 writeup of the studio is the most thorough yet). Sha’s also teaching a workshop called Neocartography: An Introduction to Interactive Mapping in Flash, and I’m delighted to see him stepping out and representing the studio in the ways that he is.