I’ve written a couple of times about how people with a computer-orientated job can improve their ability to talk to people in the ‘real world’. Â (I’m not quite sure what the real world is, but you need to work in it, so I’m told). Â A big idea for me is that being a Geek isn’t a bad thing: the world needs geeks. Â What is a bad thing however, is not being able to understand them.
Generally speaking, I believe the responsibility for being understood lies with both parties but more with the ‘speaker’ than the ‘hearer’ (that could be writer/reader etc too, of course) and all too often I find myself sitting through a presentation which talks about how hard it was to do X, Y and Z. Â Unless I’m also interested in learning how to do X, Y and Z I don’t care. Â I just want to see the end results.
Cue a BBC programme (broadcast in the UK at 20:00 on BBC4, on Thursday 13th Jan, 2011). I’ve never met the presenter, but I bet I’d like him… Â Take a look at this short extract to see how he takes a huge amount of technical data and presents it in a way that’s visually engaging, easily understandable to anyone and, well, frankly, just fun! Â :)
As Punch (of Punch and Judy fame) would say “That’s the way to do it!”
(For some reason I can’t understand, you might need to reload this page to get the video to show. Sorry!)
What Hans Rosling does here is pretty cool. Â As an ex-researcher doing this kind of thing in Universities for two and a half decades I can make a very educated guess at the sheer amount of research time that went into this – hundreds of hours, for example, will have been spent just on getting hold of, validating and ‘cleaning’ the data… but do you care, gentle reader? Â No, you don’t. Â And nore should you – this is all about presenting the data in a great way. Â Not, I’m sure, the only way to present that data, but nevertheless a great way.
Did it work? Â Well judging by the amount of buzz online about it this morning, very much so! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wgq0l/buzz)
So what is it that Hans Rosling did? He stripped away everything except what the audience needed to know.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing that Simon. I love the way Hans Rosling presents data. His TED talks have always inspired me to find different ways to present complex data to my audiences.
I simply adore Roslin. The thing is tough: He actually specializes in finding meaning in data and communicating this to the public. He does this in the field of public health, but nonetheless his skill set is one that should at least partially be the defining quality of any presenter.
Even if you don’t have such a vast data set to draw upon you should take his example when it comes to conceptualising your message, before presenting it. Only when you start with a core concept and ponder long and hard about how to best represent it in a medium other than speech does your presentation become a representation of what you are meaning to say. You don’t have to design a whole new visualisation tool (as Rosling did) each time. But for heavens sake, don’t let the form of your presentation be dictated by the conventions of your slideware.