JC Herz and Completely Useless Visualization

I've just returned from attending - and enjoying - the first Defrag. I'll probably write a number of posts, but the first one I want to write is on the topic of Visualizing Social Media - the subject of my talk. I'm not actually going to write too much about the talk itself, but rather on the presentation that preceded mine, given by JC Herz.

JC Herz opened with some comments - mirrored in my own presentation and generally understood by the visualization community - about the distinction between graphics that look attractive and graphics which deliver value. Fine - I completely agree with this. However, she then went on to use one of my visualizations - specifically, the map of the blogosphere which I produced a year or so ago - as an example of this refering to it as (approx) "completely useless". This was a cheap shot. Firstly, I suspect that she had an idea of what she wanted to say (how network diagrams are far too common and often not well understood or applied) and then did a simple image search online for an example. However, she didn't take the time to read anything about the work behind the visualization, or the comments of the author. Secondly - and this is where her comments highlight a more worrying weakness in her approach to this field - she presented one of her own pieces of work which, taken out of context as mine was, confronted the viewer with far more ambiguity and lack of meaning. This was demonstrated at question time when her quasi 3d image of a social network of soldiers spread over time with their communications rendered in musical notation (you wonder why it was hard to understand?) was puzzled over by the audience.

JC Herz finished her presentation indicating that she was working on something aimed at the upcoming US Presidential election that would have an impact in Washington DC. Hopefully she will have learned to add context to ensure that that impact is well understood. Meow!

Comments

[Darius K.]

Actually, I'm pretty sure her name is JC Herz. No "t." Is this her?

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/herz.html

[Tom Carden]

That's her, no "t".

Matthew, I'm a fan of this blog and you clearly have a good eye and a head for this stuff, but I have to admit I might have used your map of the blogosphere as well if I was looking for an example of a muddled visualization. I wasn't at Defrag so I didn't see you or JC speak - is there more context, aside from that page, that I should be aware of before agreeing with JC's blunt assessment?

[Matthew Hurst]

Darius, Tom - Thanks for the spell checking; I've updated the post - though I still can't find any of JC's work online.

Tom - there is more information on the graph here: http://datamining.typepad.com/gallery/blog-map-gallery.html and a description of the interactive graph here: http://datamining.typepad.com/data_mining/2006/07/interactive_map.html

Matt

[Tom Carden]

Ah yes, by 'that page' I meant the one you link to in your sidebar - http://datamining.typepad.com/gallery/blog-map-gallery.html I'll check out the interactive one too.

I wrote some more (dense) thoughts at: http://www.tom-carden.co.uk/2007/11/08/sticks-and-rocks-illustrating-the-problem/

[Darius K.]

Is the data set for your blog map public information? I saw that it was from the WWE 2006 Workshop, but couldn't find a data set.