I recently had the pleasure of attending my younger son's 4th grade class presentations about Urban Ministries of Wake County. Each trio of students used either a poster or Google Slides to share different aspects of the non-profit. (Then they…
Last week, I attended the 2024 Society for Prevention Research annual conference. My boss [gestures to myself and rolls eyes] kept me chained to the Data Soapbox exhibit table for most of the event, but I did have a chance…
Sure, US Congressional representatives used visual aids before 2019.* But visuals are California Representative Katie Porter's claim to fame. Her whiteboard is immortalized in song, apparel, memes, and candles. In perusing Katie Porter's visuals, I realized that they are great…
When I took a data visualization workshop with Edward Tufte circa 2007, he talked about the PowerPoint slide responsible for the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia. That was a case of a slide obscuring critical information, which resulted in…
I hate roller coasters. When I was a kid, I was convinced that if I rode roller coasters enough, I would eventually like them. Then, at the age of 18, on my alma mater's annual takeover of Busch Gardens, I…
In academia, and in companies with academic leanings, there are events known as Job Talks. A Job Talk is one component of job interviews for professors, researchers, and the like. In exchange for free food of varying quality, current employees…
We’re living in a virtual world, and Patti Sanchez is here to help. I received Sanchez’s book, Presenting Virtually: Communicate and Connect with Online Audiences, as a (much wanted!) Christmas gift. I had some down time in January, and what…
When I was a kid, we had this book of classic fairy tales. In the table of contents, each title and page number was accompanied by an approximate reading time. My mom typically had about an 8-minute threshold…I have wonderful…
Before I started Data Soapbox, I was a practicing researcher. I designed research studies and collected, analyzed, and reported the data. As time went on, I got more and more interested in the reporting part of my job, to the…
When I’m watching a slide presentation, no matter how distracted I am, there is one phrase that will always snap me to attention: “You probably can’t read this, but…” I put this in a category with such phrases as, “This…