Blog

Fastcompany posted an article today discussing President Obama’s appointment of data and visualization whiz, Edward Tufte, to the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel, the group that keeps the Stimulus’ Accountability and Transparency Board accountable for their actions. As Fast Company notes, “infographics could sway politics mightily, given their unsurpassed power to convey messages that people remember.” Tufte, an author, lecturer and information design know-it-all has been hired to visualize the progress of the $787 billion stimulus program enacted by President Obama in 2009.

For those in the social media world, and more specifically, those involved in data visualization, this may be a crucial event for the industry as a whole. The appointment of Tufte by the President further legitimizes the “infographic” as a useful tool for displaying and conveying information, and as the gatekeeper of data integrity in visualization, he is a great fit for the job. Hopefully Tufte’s work will help to reveal the concrete facts behind the stimulus plan, where the money is being channeled and the overall impact it is having on our economy. For Tufte’s own statement on the appointment, check here.

2 Comments

Star Wars can apparently be a metaphor for just about anything, even fast food. With McDonalds representing the allies and all second-tier burger joints being the rebels, this graphic, found on weathersealed.com, displays in true galactic fashion the distribution of fast food restaurants across the U.S. The black void is the area controlled by McDonalds, while the color spots represent one of the seven competing chains. With knowledge of the allies’ alarming burger penetration across the country, the rebel tactics appear to be all about increasing density, thus controlling a specific territory. The best example of concentrated resistance is Sonic Burger which apparently has 900 stores in Texas alone.

As quoted on weathersealed.com,

“Each individual restaurant location [on this map] has equal power. The entity that controls each point casts the most aggregate burger force upon it, as calculated by the inverse-square law – kind of like a chart outlining the gravitational wells of galactic star clusters, but in an alternate, fast food universe.”

This graphic is a beautiful rendering of what can be done with a subject, a little math, and a story to which it relates.

via weathersealed.com

3 Comments