Edward Tufte Data Viz Course in Bay Area this month

[Mariel]

Bay Area Data Champs,

First, if you’re looking for PD opportunities, look no further than Data Champion Summit.

BUT if you’re looking for even more PD opportunities, you all might be interested in this course with Edward Tufte, data visualization guru, in a couple weeks.

Not education or Tableau-specific, but maybe useful for general data visualization skills.

If anyone decides to go, please ping us here so you have the option of meeting up with others working in a K-12 context.

@jboots, @amanda_gonzalez, @david_roth, @Angelina, @alexxawebb, @cormac_harkins, @mdickel2, @jstewart, @rvanherk, @ashah (feel free to loop in colleagues who might also be interested)

[Angelina]

Very cool! Would you believe I signed up last week! My Director of Development read all the books and highly recommends.

Angelina Garcia, Data and Assessment Manager

[Mariel]

No way, @Angelina! Which date will you be there?

[llacroix]

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information is one of the two required texts in the Data Visualization course I’m currently taking at Northeastern University. It’s a great book. I wish I were in California and could attend the conference!

[Angelina]

Wednesday, 12/14. Anyone else?

[neffl]

@fuhrmannm and I went to the one day Tufte course when he was in Portland. We had a good day and learned a lot that helps set the vision for our Schoolzilla and Tableau work. I’d definitely recommend catching it if you get the chance.

[jfaraguna]

Anyone know if charters can get the discounted price?
Love his books. Any other thoughts on if the workshop is worthwhile?

[Mariel]

Hi @jfaraguna, I haven’t taken any Tufte courses myself but found a couple reviews here and here. Granted, they are outdated, so please share with us if you find more current ones.

@rhowell, have you taken any of Tufte’s courses?

[lynzi]

Hi Jan — my husband took this course a couple of years ago, and his review is aligned with the first one Mariel posted, unfortunately. “I was disappointed. He fills an auditorium to the brim and gives a long lecture, which I can’t recall having added anything to the content of his books. His main points I can recall are: put more raw data in your visualizations and avoid chart junk.” My husband also said that Tufte said during the training that he is not a creator, just a critic, of visualizations. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Lynzi

[Mariel]

@Angelina, what did you think of the workshop? I’m eager to hear-- I’m sure others on this topic are too.

[Angelina]

@mariel_matze It was good I left encouraged to bring the concepts to Envision. I agree with one of the reviews, a lot of it was a history on visualization and some stuff around presenting in general. I walked away with a lot of little lessons to bring into my work with Tableau and SZ and feel refueled to produce better reports with good content. I think most Data Champions could just get the books and get the same lessons.

[Mariel]

Glad you enjoyed, @Angelina. Sometimes all it takes are a bunch of “little lessons” to bring renewed inspiration to your work. Did you have a favorite little lesson you’d be willing to share? I’m so curious!

@jfaraguna, see Angelina’s thoughts above on Tufte’s workshop, in case you were still considering for the future.

[Mariel]

Tufte’s coming back to the Bay Area. If you’re local and interested in attending, details below!