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Visualization Guru Edward Tufte has received the honor (some would say curse) of being on President Obama’s Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. If you haven’t heard of it:

“The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board was created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with two goals:

• To provide transparency in relation to the use of Recovery-related funds.
• To prevent and detect fraud, waste, and mismanagement.

Earl E. Devaney was appointed by President Obama to serve as chairman of the Recovery Board. Twelve Inspectors General from various federal agencies serve with Chairman Devaney. The Board issues quarterly and annual reports to the President and Congress and, if necessary, “flash reports” on matters that require immediate attention. In addition, the Board maintains the Recovery.gov website so the American people can see how Recovery money is being distributed by federal agencies and how the funds are being used by the recipients.

Mission statement: To promote accountability by coordinating and conducting oversight of Recovery funds to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse and to foster transparency on Recovery spending by providing the public with accurate, user-friendly information.”

On his site, Tufte’s response:

I’m doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do. Maybe I’ll learn something. The practical consequence is that I will probably go to Washington several days each month, in addition to whatever homework and phone meetings are necessary.

Congratulations to Edward Tufte!  Glad to have a true expert in the field up in Washington, although only time will tell if he actually has any power to effect change.

via Ask E.T.: Edward Tufte Presidential Appointment.

Science arra, government, tufte

A new patent application (hasn’t been awarded yet, I believe) from Microsoft bears stark resemblence (in both form and name) to Edward Tufte’s Sparklines.  I don’t think anyone would doubt that Tufte created the popular visualization algorithm, however the inventor list completely excludes him:

Radakovitz, Samuel Chow (Redmond, WA, US) Buerman, Adam Michael (Bellevue, WA, US) Garg, Anupam (Redmond, WA, US) Androski, Matthew John (Bellevue, WA, US) Becker, Matthew Kevin (Kirkland, WA, US) Ruble, Brian S. (Bellevue, WA, US)

Meant to be included in Microsoft Excel as a new charting method, it’s left many wondering what recourse Tufte has (aside from claiming prior art).  Tufte is himself entertaining ideas on his forum.

What do you think?

Sparklines for Excel: United States Patent Application 20090282325.

Science microsoft, patent, sparklines, tufte

At the Edward Tufte Lecture Tour stop that Maitri Erwin attended, and kindly wrote up for us here, she received four of his most popular books on data visualization and infographics (included in the registration cost).  For your reference, the four books were:

For a full list of Edward Tufte’s texts, you can look at Edward Tufte Amazon Page..

Science books, feature, tufte

Stamen Design is the talk of the geospatial design world.  Each offering is smart: minimalist yet visually pleasing, multi-variate and ready for analysis.  Flowing Data, no stranger to fine infographics themselves, recently featured Stamen’s California Stimulus Funding Map with high praise: “It’s slick as hell.”  This is what good information design gets you.  And, as far as academic memory serves, the revolution in modern information design started with a man named Edward Tufte.

Tufte, or ET as he prefers it, possesses an invaluable combination of talents that he draws from and to our collective benefit as visualization workers: an eye for art, thorough knowledge of content, design prowess, discipline, a desire to share and the energy for successive public speaking engagements in which he preaches his gospel.  I met up with ET after one such lecture in Cincinnati on August 25th, at which time he was kind enough to participate in an audio interview that sits at the end of this post.

Read the rest of Maitri’s article & hear the interview after the break.

Read more…

Graphics, Podcast, Science feature, interview, Podcast, tufte

Don’t forget, Maitri Erwin’s interview with Edward Tufte is tonight, so if you have ideas for questions or discussion then get them in now before it’s too late!

Upcoming VizWorld Interview With Edward Tufte | VizWorld.com.

Science feature, interview, tufte

Edward Tufte has long hated pie-charts, for both their aesthetic failings and misleading representations of visual data.  Neal Levene backs up the argument with a new post on Simple Complexity that quite simply shows that Pie Charts are just plain harder to deal with than their counterparts. (…)

Science piechart, tufte, visualization

Adam Aston, over at BusinessWeek, has an article up about everyone’ favorite visualization Guru Edward Tufte. In it he discusses the “less is more” mantra, and the power of “sparklines” .

Graphics, Science sparkline, tufte

As Randall mentioned a couple of days ago, Edward Tufte will be touring the United States over the second half of this year to talk on Presenting Data and Information.  I have registered for the Cincinnati talk on August 25th and will be interviewing Mr. Tufte following the lecture.  (Incidentally, Edward Tufte refers to himself as ET, and I must admit I was half tempted to email “Phone home” back to him.)

What do you, dear readers, want to know from Tufte?  This is a chance to get your questions answered by the king of data visualization himself.  As an added incentive, the interview will be recorded for a podcast and, if your question is selected, your name will be mentioned before it is posed.  Nothing like free publicity to get the creative juices flowing.

Off to find a reliable voice recorder.  Let the questions roll in.

Update 9/10/2009: The result of the lecture and interview is now available.

Graphics feature, interview, tufte

Businessweek has gathered up some of his greatest work and combined it with descriptions of the depth of meaning he was able to bring to it.

Science example, tufte, visualization

Visualization guru Edward Tufte is traveling the US and offering a one-day lecture on “Presenting Data and Information”. (…)

Graphics, Science education, lecture, tour, tufte