The PolicyViz Podcast wraps up 2024 with David Keyes, author of the new book, R for the Rest of Us: A Statistics-Free Introduction! We not only talk about how you can get started in R using David’s book, but also building data and data visualization workflows with R, RMarkdown, and Quarto. We also talk about how to create consistent visualizations through themes and functions in R to help new R users leverage its features without being intimidated by complex statistics. I hope you enjoy this episode and have a great holiday season! See you in 2025!! Keywords: data, data visualization, PolicyVi ..read more

I’ve been super excited for this episode of the podcast for a while! This week, I speak with John Medina, author of one of my favorite books on the brain—Brain Rules! John and I talk about brain science generally and also dive into some specific aspects that are particularly important to the work of any data communicator: the importance of capturing and maintaining audience attention during presentations, emotional engagement as a way to counteract boredom and stress, and how stories can be a powerful tool for enhancing audience connection and retention. You’ll learn how the brain prioritizes ..read more

In this week’s episode of the PolicyViz Podcast, I interview Rahul Bhargava from Northeastern University on the topic of data physicalization. We discuss the role of community engagement and societal impact in communicating data and including different people and communities. Our conversation touches upon teaching combined majors at Northeastern and expanding data engagement through Rahul’s participatory art methods. We explore the limitations of visual learning and advocate for including diverse voices via data sculptures and embodied experiences. Keywords: data beyond the screen: sculpting c ..read more

On this week’s episode of the podcast, we dive into the transformative work of Neighborhood Nexus, led by Tommy Pierce. This civic data intermediary is making waves in Georgia by harnessing the power of data to create a lasting social impact. Here are the highlights of our discussion on how Neighborhood Nexus is revolutionizing the nonprofit sector through data-driven strategies: Topics Discussed The Mission of Neighborhood Nexus: We explore the core objectives of the organization, which include addressing inquiries, informing programs, and fostering crucial relationships between data provide ..read more

It's the final episode of 2023! I hope you have a great holiday season and a happy new year! Gulrez is a father of three beautiful kids and works as a Data Science Leader in his day job. He has almost two decades of experience under his belt and has a knack for turning boring numbers into captivating stories. When he's not busy working, you can find him passing on his skills to the next generation in the hopes of creating a world of data literate children. A strong believer in the power of data literacy, Gulrez is on a mission to improve the way people make sense of data. He's known for delive ..read more

Welcome back to a whole new season of the PolicyViz Podcast! I'm excited to bring you a whole new exciting slate of guests this year covering a huge array of data visualization and data communication strategies, technologies, and techniques. Maureen Stone (Tableau Research) has been involved with Tableau since 2004, when she was asked to design the initial data colors for Tableau 1.5. She joined the company in late 2011 and became a founding member of the Research Team in 2012. As a member of Tableau Research, she continued her work on optimizing the use of color in visualization.  She se ..read more

Julia Silge is a data scientist and software engineer at RStudio PBC where she works on open source modeling tools. She is an author, an international keynote speaker, and a real-world practitioner focusing on data analysis and machine learning. Julia loves text analysis, making beautiful charts, and communicating about technical topics with diverse audiences.x Episode Notes https://juliasilge.com/ https://www.tidymodels.org/ https://www.tmwr.org/ https://smltar.com/ https://vetiver.rstudio.com/ Related Episodes Episode #207: Tom Mock Episode #201: Leland Wilkinson Episode #69: Hadley Wickham ..read more

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic tells stories with data. She is SWD CEO and author of the brand new book storytelling with you: plan, create, and deliver a stellar presentation and best-selling books storytelling with data: let’s practice! and storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals, which has been translated into a dozen languages, used as a textbook by more than 100 universities and serves as the course book for tens of thousands of SWD workshop participants. For more than a decade, Cole and her team have delivered interactive learning sessions sought after by d ..read more

On this week's episode, I chat with the four founding members of the new data visualization mentorship community, Elevate Your DataViz. The post Episode #213: Elevate Your DataViz Team appeared first on PolicyViz ..read more

Dr. Laura Sikola, a cognitive linguist and communications expert, visits the podcast to talk about how to be a better presenter and communicator. Laura’s work focuses on how to have better presence, telling stories, and connecting with your audiences. We talk about communication challenges like the “expert’s curse” and how developing your “executive presence” can command attention and build rapport. Keywords: data, data visualization, DrLauraSikola, CognitiveLinguist, CommunicationExpert, PresentationSkills, ITProfessionals, FinanceProfessionals, DataAnalytics, EffectiveCommunication, ExpertsC ..read more