Data is the future -- does it scare you? [QTMM 4/4/18]

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How many times a day do you say, "I'm sorry" or "thank you?" 

To whom do you say it most often? And what triggers it? 

If you counted, you would certainly learn something about yourself. You might even change something. 

That is a tiny example of using data, your own personal data, to become more human. 

And that is one of the many things I learned from my recent podcast interview with HOW Design Live Keynote speaker, Giorgia Lupi, an award winning information designer, artist and author.




I’m especially interested in Giorgia’s work because too many creative professionals say they aren’t "good with numbers." Sometimes I get the feeling they’re afraid of data.

Mathematician, Eugenia Cheng, calls this "Math phobia" and through her work, including as Scientist In Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and math columnist at the Wall Street Journal, her aim is to rid the world of “math phobia.” 

I love the way, ithis very funny BBC interview, Cheng proclaims:

Just because math lessons aren't necessarily creative, a lot of people got the idea that math isn't. But it is! All of science is -- you have to think creatively to get your head around problems and to think of new ways to look at situations.

(You must check out her web site here and be sure to watch her TEDx talk.)

I love language too and since I interviewed Giorgia, I’ve been thinking of data as a new language, kind of like emojis seem to be a new language (although I don’t love them, yet). (Debbie Millman talked about emojis in her recent interview with Steven Pinker, Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, linguist, and popular science author of the new book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress, among many others.) 

Data is the future and it seems to me that if we don’t all find a way to get comfortable with it and to show our clients that we understand how to use data for them….well, dinosaurs come to mind. 

Won't you join me at HOW Design Live in Boston, April 30-May 3 to learn a little bit so we don't become obsolete? 

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