Jamie Dorst Looking Outward 08

This week I watched the Eyeo talk from Moritz Stefaner. Stefaner is a German data visualization specialist. He studied Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabrueck) and Interface Design at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. He describes himself as a “truth and beauty operator,” as a reference to his skills balancing aesthetics and analytics.

Moritz Stefaner’s talk at the Eyeo Festival 2011

I wasn’t expecting his talk to be as interesting as it was. He used a lot of humor and was casual with his audience, which I liked. I think it made it a lot easier to pay attention, and made it feel more interactive even though it was just him talking the whole time. Even though there were times when he stumbled, he continued to go with the flow and not let that slow him down, which I think is a really effective presentation strategy–especially since it’s rare that you give a flawless presentation.

He has a lot of projects involving visualization of large-scale human activity. One of my favorites of his is called Multiplicity. This project looked at social media, and how pictures posted represent the place they were posted at. He looked for similar pictures–if it’s possible for two people to take the same picture–similar outfits, similar actions, etc. I thought it was interesting that you could see what most people present the place as, what it is to them, and how that compares to how you see it normally.

A video demonstrating how Multiplicity works