Visualizing Data in the New Millennium

Infographic source: Westwood College Website

The internet is far too full of gobbledygook, quite literally and often figuratively. Futurist that I am, I predict that the ability to synthesize massive amounts of information into bite-sized chunks will become ever-more important as reading materials and communication pieces continue to migrate online. Publishing companies, take note.

Those working in the field of information design have a decent heads-up when it comes to understanding how to sink or swim in an information-saturated culture. When information is now available by the Google-load, all at the click of a few buttons, what will set some resources apart from the others is their ability to dissect, synthesize, and represent information in a useful and accessible way. Increasingly, multidisciplinary tools (infographics, easy-to-understand videos, and the like) are being used to communicate information to the average consumer. And those consuming this information are frequently coming back for more.

Imagine, if you can wrap your head around this concept, an infographicy augmented reality-like search engine. That is my slightly ambitious dream of where the internet (atleast the "smart" version) might be headed. Telling a good story is just not good enough anymore, but the design trade can help storytellers of fact and fiction alike get their bits and bytes into the public's noggins. Eventually, if the rate of information feeeeeding it's way into the airwaves continues people will either unplug, go crazy, or start a revolution. If the work of information designers is any hint, I think that a revolution might be in the making.

Don't get what i'm talking about? Take, as one small example, this brilliant project recently launched by IBM that uses incredibly smart visualization techniques to summarize what blah blah bland bills in Congress hold within their pages.

Making Sense of Electric Impulse

Hello passengers, welcome to the world of 3G networks. Here you can text your boyfriend/girlfriend from Paris a thousand times a day on an international unlimited plan, or probe blog subscriptions virtually anywhere from a machine you can fit into your pocket. Through that curtain you'll see Sammy staring at a screen late at night, surfing his latest matches and hoping he'll find "the one." Meanwhile, to your left is Patricia, who has tracked down her high school best friend, and is now writing her a very long "wall post." Finally, just ahead is interior decorator Alice, who has virtually sketched out the living room for her new client and is now custom-ordering linens, wallpaper, and seating to arrive in a few short weeks.

In less than a single lifetime, who would have thought we'd be here, connecting across the globe via keypad, screen, and some welded pieces of metal and microchips? Marshall McLuhan once predicted the rise of a "global village" where walls would come down and people across the world would live together. And yet, in moving towards such a village, society has created new walls of separation-profiles, avatars, and inboxes. We can connect in seconds to anyone around the world, but is instant and utterly convenient connectivity really what we need? Perhaps not, but regardless this is the world we live in.

Far too often I've been the writer criticizing technology for how it squelches and misshapes our true humanity, failing to note that technological outcomes are the results of human actions. I have some friends who continually challenge me to look for the shimmers of goodness in things, rather than dreg up the dirty rags. Admittedly, I often find myself in the camp of those who are readily willing to criticize problems, but perhaps not so willing to be a part of a working solution. In efforts to mitigate my own distaste for and disallusionment with modern technology and move in the direction of a "working solution," I have decided to embark upon a new project.

I envision this project looking something like a series of posts that detail my findings, and what follows is a loose outline. In this upcoming series, I'd like to take my readers on a bit of a journey-first into the annals of history to determine what norms and values have made our world what it is today, particularly in the realm of technology. Secondly, I would like to meditate briefly on the status quo-what sums the present role of technology and what we make of it. In this section, I will highlight both the bad and the good, helping readers see both sides of the coin rather than just the positive or just the negative. And finally, I will glance briefly into the future, but not into "what's coming up," but rather what could be. In this section, I will make recommendations, of sorts, on how we can thoughtfully utilize and harness technology, using it for good rather than evil, and in service of others rather than our selves.

This is quite a lofty project that I 1) feel completely unqualified to see to its completion, 2) am simultaneously dying to tease out, and 3) think could profoundly change the way I interact with and engage in modern culture. This is going to be a journey, so buckle your seatbelts.