
The PolicyViz Podcast
Learn how to be a great data communicator and visualizer with host Jon Schwabish. Hear from experts in the fields of data science, data visualization, and presentation skills to improve how you and your organization collect, analyze, and communicate your data in better, more efficient, and more effective ways.
Latest episodes

Nov 30, 2023 • 55min
Tracking Data Visualizations in Congress with Bill Gray
William Gray is the guy behind Floor Charts, the website and Twitter feed that documents all things graphic in the US Congress. During the day, Bill oversees the strategic communications efforts at R Street and manages its growing Communications team, including overseeing the public relations, digital and events units. He joined the organization in 2020. Previously, William was communications director at Issue One, the leading cross partisan political reform group in Washington, where he helped launch and executive produce the first conservative political reform podcast, Swamp Stories. Prior to Issue One, he managed press and negotiated news partnerships as the media relations specialist for the Center for Public Integrity, one of the oldest nonprofit investigative newsrooms in the country; and was a producer at C-SPAN, delivering daily public affairs programming and coverage of Congress and the White House to viewers around the world.Check out more links, notes, transcript, and more at the PolicyViz website.Sponsor: Nom NomNom Nom delivers fresh food made with whole ingredients, backed by veterinary science. And science tells us that dog health starts in the bowl so improving their diet is one of the best ways to help them live a long, happy life. All you have to do is order, pour and serve.Try Nom Nom today, go to Nom Nom and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping with the code policyviz

Nov 16, 2023 • 35min
Be a Better Presenter with Andrea Pacini
Andrea Pacini is the author of the best-selling book Confident Presenter, a presentation coach and Head of Ideas on Stage UK. He specializes in working with business owners, leaders and their teams who want to become more confident presenters. Since 2010 Ideas on Stage has worked with thousands of clients around the world, including organizations like Microsoft, Spotify, eBay, The World Bank and over 500 TEDx speakers. Andrea is on a mission to stop great ideas from failing just because of the way they are presented. His vision is to help hundreds of thousands of business leaders inspire their audiences, increase their influence, and make a positive impact in the world.Check out more links, notes, transcript, and more at the PolicyViz website.Sponsor: Nom NomNom Nom delivers fresh food made with whole ingredients, backed by veterinary science. And science tells us that dog health starts in the bowl so improving their diet is one of the best ways to help them live a long, happy life. All you have to do is order, pour and serve.Try Nom Nom today, go to Nom Nom and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping with the code policyviz.

Nov 1, 2023 • 39min
Distorted Maps and Storytelling with Tomas Pueyo
Tomas Pueyo is the author of Uncharted Territories, a newsletter where he tries to deeply understand how the world works to understand where it's going and nudge it in the right direction. He became world viral with his COVID articles, notably The Hammer and the Dance. He has 75,000 readers, and 300,000 on Twitter. Before Uncharted Territories, he has worked in tech companies in Silicon Valley for 15 years.Sponsor: Maryland Institute College of ArtMICA’s Master of Professional Studies degrees offer intensive, online education designed to develop both creative and professional skills. Now accepting applications for the spring, summer, and fall semesters.Check out more links, notes, transcript, and more at the PolicyViz website.

Oct 18, 2023 • 39min
Doing Data Stuff for Money with Moxy Analytics co-founder Serena Roberts
Running your own data literacy and data consulting shop is no easy task. And helping customers not only build better visualizations and dashboards, but helping them create a better (or new) data culture is even harder. But Serena Roberts and her team at Moxy Analytics has been fighting that good fight for a few years now. Serena and I talk about what Moxy is up to, how to build better data teams, getting over imposter syndrome, and much, much more.Sponsor: Maryland Institute College of ArtMICA’s Master of Professional Studies degrees offer intensive, online education designed to develop both creative and professional skills. Now accepting applications for the spring, summer, and fall semesters.Check out more links, notes, transcript, and more at the PolicyViz website.

Oct 4, 2023 • 53min
Data Physicalization with the 'Making with Data' author team
Creating data visualizations in the physical world is not a new phenomenon. Humans have been drawing on walls, tallying money and crops, and carving on stone tablets for thousands of years. Today, though the practice of data visualization is largely done in the digital world, there is an exciting area of working in the physical space--the real world, as it were--to create, share, and communicate data and information. That brings us to the exciting new book, Making with Data, that provides a snapshot of the diverse practices contemporary creators are using to produce objects, spaces, and experiences imbued with data. In this week's episode of the podcast, I chat with the editors of the book to get their take on this exciting field.Sponsor: Nom NomNom Nom delivers fresh food made with whole ingredients, backed by veterinary science. And science tells us that dog health starts in the bowl so improving their diet is one of the best ways to help them live a long, happy life. All you have to do is order, pour and serve.Try Nom Nom today, go to Nom Nom and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping with the code policyviz.Check out more links, notes, transcript, and more at the PolicyViz website.

Sep 19, 2023 • 48min
Maureen Stone tells you all about color in data visualization
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 served as research director (2017-2021), and has recently retired (June, 2022). While best known for her expertise in digital color, she has a broad experience in information visualization, interactive graphics and user interface design. She is a member of the IEEE VGTC Visualization Academy and the author of A Field Guide to Digital Color.Sponsor: Nom NomNom Nom delivers fresh food made with whole ingredients, backed by veterinary science. And science tells us that dog health starts in the bowl so improving their diet is one of the best ways to help them live a long, happy life. All you have to do is order, pour and serve.Try Nom Nom today, go to Nom Nom and get 50% off your first order plus free shipping with the code policyviz.Check out more links, notes, transcript, and more at the PolicyViz website.

Jul 11, 2023 • 42min
Bringing Joy to Your Data Work with Nigel Holmes
Nigel Holmes is a British/American graphic designer, author, and theorist, who focuses on information graphics and information design. Graduating from Royal College of Art in London in 1966, Holmes ran his own successful graphic design practice in England. From 1966 to 1977, he worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer for clients such as British Broadcasting Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and Island Records. His work appeared in New Scientist, Radio Times, The Observer, Daily Telegraph, and The Times. In 1977, art director Walter Bernard hired him to work in the map and chart department of Time magazine, where Holmes later became graphics director. After a sabbatical he started his own company, which has explained things to and for a wide variety of clients, including Apple, Fortune, Nike, The Smithsonian Institution, Sony, United Healthcare, US Airways, and Visa.See links, notes, transcript and more at the PolicyViz website.

Jul 4, 2023 • 33min
Building the BBC's Great British Class Calculator with Joe Sharpe and Mike Orwell
Joe Sharpe has been founder and creative director at Applied Works since 2005, a design studio using data visualisation, user-centred design and storytelling to create digital tools and products that drive positive change. Joe also teaches on the BA Graphic Design degree at Kingston School of Art, running an elective pathway for second and third year students that explores how emerging technology is transforming the way we communicate, work, play and consume.Mike Orwell is a digital executive producer, filmmaker and consultant. Between 2009 & 2018, he was a producer and commissioning editor at the BBC and since then has worked with award-winning digital production studios like Unit9, Marshmallow Laser Feast and Applied Works to explore new storytelling methods. At the BBC, he pioneered various mass-audience, data-driven storytelling & branching narrative projects , including the Great British Class Calculator and the BBC Lab UK platform. His boutique film-making collective Elastic Semantic specialises in telling research-driven science & engineering stories for clients such as Arup.See links, notes, transcript and more at the PolicyViz website.

Jun 16, 2023 • 39min
Akkio CEO Jonathon Reilly on Data and AI
Jonathon Reilly is an innovative and results-driven executive with over 20 years of experience in product management, business development, and operations. As the Co-Founder and COO of Akkio, he has helped create an easy-to-use AI platform that empowers users to build and deploy AI solutions to data problems in minutes.Prior to founding Akkio, Jonathon served as the VP of Product & Marketing at Markforged, where he played a critical role in the company's growth and success. With a strong background in the tech industry, Jonathon held various leadership positions at Sonos, Inc., including Leader of the Music Player Product Management Team, Global Channel Development, and Senior Product Manager. He began his career at Sony Electronics, where he contributed significantly to the development of a wide range of consumer products as a product manager and electrical engineer.Jonathon holds an MBA in Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneurial Studies from Babson College - Franklin W. Olin Graduate School of Business and a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Gonzaga University.See links, notes, transcript more at the PolicyViz website.Episode NotesJonathon | Medium | TwitterAkkioHow to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff and Irving GeisData at Urban: How We Used Machine Learning to Predict Neighborhood ChangeautoMLRelated EpisodesEpisode #227 with Max KuhnEpisode #225 with Julia SilgeEpisode #227 with Claire McKay BowenEpisode #227 with Steve Franconeri and Jen Christiansen

Jun 1, 2023 • 51min
Historical Data Visualization with authors Georges Hattab and Susan Schulten
On this week's episode of the PolicyViz podcast, I chat with Susan Schulten and Georges Hattab, authors of the new books on dataviz luminaries Emma Willard and Etienne-Jules Marey. We talk about these two creators and their impacts on the data visualization field today.Susan Schulten is Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Denver, where she has taught since 1996. Georges Hattab is the Visualization Group Leader at the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Public Health Research at the Robert Koch Institute since 2022.
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