VizThink, for those who haven’t heard of it, is a global community of visual thinkers that Dave Gray and XPLANE helped to launch in 2007. The community was formed in recognition of a broad and emerging trend that offers a new path to innovation in business thinking.
VizThink is very different than other conferences in several ways — have a look at Dave’s post to find out how (and be sure to take advantage of the discount code).
We hope to see you in San Jose next month!
As posted by Tim O’Reilly over at O’Reilly Radar:
Dave Gray’s Free The Facts presentation is a must-read, must-share for anyone who cares about either science or open access.
It’s also a masterpiece of presentation economy, and a fantastic demonstration of how to make a text-heavy presentation into something magical. Reminiscent of the work of Michael Wesch. (It’s also a fascinating demonstration of the convergence of YouTube, Flickr, and Slideshare as communication and teaching tools, and a foretaste of the generational change that the New York Times hinted at a few weeks ago.
Dave is the founder and president of XPLANE:
I’m a project guy. As an artist, entrepreneur, educator and amateur philosopher, I always have a number of projects going, both personal and professional. Sometimes they go somewhere, sometimes I get bored and abandon them. One of the beauties of the internet is that even abandoned projects continue to exist and can be picked up or reenergized at any moment. Here’s the definitive list of projects that I am working on or have worked on in the past (A work in progress). The list is alphabetical because I don’t work on these projects in any kind of linear way. They are like a busy kitchen: there is always something simmering, something boiling, something set aside to cool for awhile, something in the deep freeze, and something being served. In fact I am still working on this list. If you see something with no explanation it’s because I haven’t finished writing the description yet :)
“I spent a lot of last year urging people to work on stuff that matters. This led to many questions about what that “stuff” might be. I’ve been a bit reluctant to answer those questions, because the list is different for everyone. I thought I’d do better to start the new year with some ideas about how to think about this for yourself.
First off, though, I want to make clear that “work on stuff that matters” does not mean focusing on non-profit work, “causes, or any other form of “do-goodism.” Non-profit projects often do matter a great deal, and people with tech skills can make important contributions, but it’s essential to get beyond that narrow box. I’m a strong believer in the social value of business done right. We need to build an economy in which the important things are paid for in self-sustaining ways rather than as charities to be funded out of the goodness of our hearts.
There are a number of half-unconscious litmus tests I use in my own life. I’m going to try to tease them out here, and hope that you can help me think this through in the comments.”
“What a year for corporate criminality and malfeasance!
As we compiled the Multinational Monitor list of the 10 Worst Corporations of 2008, it would have been easy to restrict the awardees to Wall Street firms.
But the rest of the corporate sector was not on good behavior during 2008 either, and we didn’t want them to escape justified scrutiny.
So, in keeping with our tradition of highlighting diverse forms of corporate wrongdoing, we included only one financial company on the 10 Worst list.
Here, presented in alphabetical order, are the 10 Worst Corporations of 2008.”
“…Jeffrey Zeldman’s Web Standards Advisor is a $49.99 extension for Adobe Dreamweaver. It includes two major interface
“Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet 2008 is a publication that’s been dropping through letter boxes over the last few days.
Russell and I thought it would be interesting to take some stuff from the internet and print it in a newspaper format. Words as well as pictures. Like a Daily Me, but slower. When we discovered that most newspaper printers will let you do a short run on their press (this was exactly the same spec as the News Of The World) we decided to have some fun.”
The XPLANE-created piece visually depicts 23 fun inauguration factoids.
XPLANE, the global information design consultancy, has created “Did You Know?: The 2009 Inauguration Edition” to visually explore 23 unique facts surrounding the 2009 inauguration of President-Elect Barack Obama, as well as past inaugural events. The one minute 30 second piece moves fast with its catchy music and wealth of interesting information. The piece can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hvXMuzCimk&fmt=18.
This video is part of an ongoing effort by XPLANE to put out timely, relevant XPLANATiONS that distill complex information in order to inform, entertain and provoke new ideas and thoughts. Previous pieces include “Did You Know 2.0” a collaboration between XPLANE, Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, “Savings & (mis)Trust”, “Did You Know: The Holiday Edition” and a print piece on how Barack Obama was able to turn down campaign finance funding.
With an innovative visual, multidisciplinary methodology, XPLANE is unique because it applies both left and right-brained approaches to develop fresh solutions to challenging communication problems. This approach accelerates understanding, which drives actions and results. Companies have hired XPLANE to motivate employees, drive sales, convince decision makers and improve processes. XPLANE won a bronze medal in 2008 at the 16th Malofiej International Infographics Awards, known as the most important and respected infographic contest in the world.
ABOUT XPLANE
Founded in 1993, XPLANE is an information design consultancy that drives better results for many of the world’s leading corporations including Microsoft, Intel, Nokia, U.S. Department of National Intelligence, U.S. Marine Corp., Nike and BP through visual thinking and design. XPLANE offers clients unique and personalized service through its employees’ diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise, including journalism, consulting, technology, marketing, training, illustration, interaction, process improvement, information design and architecture. Global XPLANE headquarters are in Portland, Ore. USA; European offices are based in Madrid, Spain and a third office is located in St. Louis, Mo. USA. For more information about XPLANE, visit www.xplane.com or call (866) 750-6467 (USA) + (34) 915 635835 (Spain).
For more information contact:
“Pretty Loaded is an archive of preloaders that preload other preloaders…which in turn reveal yet more preloaders. Copy that? It’s a tribute to a vanishing art form amid a constantly changing digital landscape. Created and curated by Big Spaceship.”
Check out this video we made for Kronos to help celebrate International Women's Day, 2011. Learn more in this xBlog post or jump over to YouTube and watch it there.
XPLANE | Dachis Group developed a A vibrant, engaging poster showing how Microsoft Azure enables developers to run applications and store data on Microsoft servers. The poster recently took top honors in the American Business Awards.
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