A while ago, I complained about the state of visualization on the web. To improve things, I am co-organizing a workshop at VisWeek in October to discuss the status quo, potential problems, and to find new ways to get visualization people to make their mark online. Whether you have a blog or website, don’t have a blog or website, plan on starting one, are afraid of starting one, or think this whole web thing is just a fad – we want to hear from you!
I have enlisted the help of two colleagues: Nathan Yau, who runs FlowingData; and Andrew Vande Moere of infosthetics fame. We will provide some experiences and pointers to resources. But the main story will, of course, be the participants.
We are looking for one-page position statements where you tell us your experiences, provide ideas, or simply raise questions. These are meant to be the starting points for the discussion at the workshop, so we do not expect you to have everything figured out – quite the opposite, actually.
Blogging in academia is still a problem. How much do you want to talk about your current research? How do you even start a blog and don’t get frustrated when nobody reads it for the first few months? How do you find the time to do it? What is the value of getting the word out about your research? Will it hurt or help your tenure case?
If you have these or other questions, submit a position statement! If you have ideas or solutions, submit one! This promises to be a highly interesting and engaging workshop, and we hope to spur a wave of new visualization websites.
Go to the Workshop Page for more details and the submission form.
Aaron says
July 2, 2009 at 10:12 amSounds like a great workshop and conference. On a separate but related topic, I’m looking for proposals from any readers who want to get paid to produce a series of high quality information graphics with a dynamic non-profit organization. We’re looking for serious work from graphics professionals and we’re willing to pay appropriately. Any questions, see our RFP at the link above, or our ad on Flowing Data, or email me at washington@eastwestcenter.org.
Carlos Scheidegger says
July 14, 2009 at 12:33 pmI certainly want to attend – don’t know if I’ll be able to write anything, given that I have a 100+ page document looming over my head right now :)
However, I tried to send only username+email+website (according to the instructions, this is the way to signal intent to attend, right?), and I got an error saying I really should have sent a .pdf file. I figure you can look at the server logs and see that, but from the registrant perspective, it looks like the request simply didn’t go through.
Robert Kosara says
July 15, 2009 at 6:51 amYeah, that was a mistake (it was also inconsistent in the description). It’s fixed now.