In technical communication, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. There are multiple ways to ensure this principle. Some of these ways require careful chart fine-tuning. However, there is one tool that is easy to master, fast to apply, and that provides a high return on the investment rate. I refer to chart titles. In this talk, I had two main theses. My first thesis is that most of you suck in communication (and not only data visualization).
My second thesis is that you can quickly improve your graphs by merely adding a good title. The importance of good titles is not new to my preaching, but I thought it was an excellent thing to formalize this thesis a bit, and I’m thankful to the NDR organizers for giving me this opportunity.
I will be talking about data visualization at the next NDR conference on July 28. All the conferences organized by the NDR team are well organized and of a very high value. I hope to keep the level high.
NDR is a family of machine learning conferences in Romania. Last year, I attended the Iași edition of that conference, gave a data visualization talk, and enjoyed every moment. All the lectures (including mine, obviously) were interesting and relevant. That is why, when Vlad Iliescu, one of the NDR organizers, asked me whether I wanted to talk in Bucharest at NDR 2020, I didn’t think twice.
Since the organizers didn’t publish the talk topics yet, I will not ruin the surprise for you, but I promise to be interesting and relevant. I definitely think that NDR is worth the trip to Bucharest to many data practitioners, even the ones who don’t live in Romania. Visit the conference site to register.
Yesterday, a new episode was published in the Popcorn podcast, where the host, Lior Frenkel, interviewed me. Everyone who knows me knows how much I love talking about myself and what I do. I definitely used this opportunity to talk about the world of data. Some people who listened to this episode told me that they enjoyed it a lot. If you know Hebrew, I recommend that you listen to this episode
In June 2019, I attended the NDR AI conference in Iași, Romania where I also gave a talk. Recently, the organizers uploaded the video recording to YouTube.
That was a very interesting conference, tight with interesting talks.
Next year, I plan to attend the Bucharest edition of NDR, where I will also give a talk with the working title “The biggest missed opportunity in data visualization”
In this post, I will try to convince you that speaking at a conference is an essential tool for professional development.
Many people are afraid of public speaking, they avoid the need to speak in front of an audience and only do that when someone forces them to. This fear has deep evolutional origins (thousands of years ago, if dozens of people were staring at you that would probably mean that you were about to become their meal). However, if you work in a knowledge-based industry, your professional career can gain a lot if you force yourself to speak.
Two days ago, I spoke at NDR, a machine learning/AI conference in Iași, Romania. That was a very interesting conference, with a diverse panel of speakers from different branches of the data-related industry. However, the talk that I enjoyed the most was mine. Not because I’m a narcist self-loving egoist. What I enjoyed the most were the questions that the attendees asked me during the talk, and in the coffee breaks after it. First of all, these questions were a clear signal that my message resonated with the audience, and they cared about what I had to say. This is a nice touch to one’s ego. But more importantly, these questions pointed out that there are several topics that I need to learn to become more professional in what I’m doing. Since most of the time, we don’t know what we don’t know, such an insight is almost priceless.
That is why even (and especially) if you are afraid of public speaking, you should jump into the cold water and do it. Find a call for presentations and submit a proposal TODAY.
Boris Gorelik 