Piton Data Lab

The Piton Foundation's Data Initiative collects examples and tools of data visualization and digital storytelling that inspire us ... with some of our own work sprinkled in for good measure ...

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Bostonography has released an amazing study of crowd-sourced definitions of neighborhoods in Boston. The maps are fascinating and pretty, showing regions where more than 75%, more than 50%, and more than 25% of survey respondents agreed on neighborhood boundaries.

Crowdsourced neighborhood boundaries, Part One: Consensus

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A project from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution analyzing standardized test scores from 69,000 schools in 49 states, featuring a searchable database, story, and description of project methodology.

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Data can be an immensely powerful asset, if used in the right way. But as users and advocates of this potent and intoxicating stuff we should strive to keep our expectations of it proportional to the opportunity it represents. We should strive to cultivate a critical literacy with respect to our subject matter. While we can’t expect to acquire the acumen or fluency of an experienced statistician or veteran investigative reporter overnight, we can at least try to keep various data-driven myths from the door. To that end, here are a few reminders for lovers of data: Data is not a force unto itself. Data is not a perfect reflection of the world. Data does not speak for itself. Data is not power. Interpreting data is not easy.

- Jonathan Gray, What Data Can and Cannot Do, on the Open Knowledge Foundation blog

[datalab-blog]

Data is entering the world at a rate that is so fast it’s almost incomprehensible to human brains. It’s like trying to comprehend geologic time. The cost of generating data is so low in so many spaces, and dropping like a stone in so many others, that the real challenge is to do interesting things with it. The gulf between those who can do something with data and those who can’t is a serious new case of digital divide, and licensing is just a tiny part of that gulf. Important, to be sure, but tiny.

- John Wilbanks, Why Open Data isn't enough, posted on the Open Knowledge Foundation blog

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What data journalism trends or needs are you tracking?

Jonathan Gray: Having recently been a member of the pre-jury for the Data Journalism Awards coordinated by the European Journalism Centre, I noticed that, in addition to broader tools that let you generally explore and browse through datasets, some of the best applications let you do one simple thing very well. While I believe that media organizations and NGOs have a duty to cite and provide access to their data sources -- just like scholars should -- some of the most effective examples were surprisingly filtered and focused. Rather than big powerful dashboards or sprawling interactives, these mini-apps would just explain or deal with one variable, often in quite a creative or unexpected way. Data journalists can help to guide our attention to one thing, one issue, one question in a big dataset. Discarding all kinds of other potentially interesting material requires discipline, and I think this is where journalists' editorial and narrative skills can really play an important role, as opposed to the "discard nothing" instinct of researchers and information scientists.

I'll briefly mention two other things that I'd really like to see more of: firstly, short or micro-short videos accompanying data-driven news apps or interactives. A voiceover with some narrative showing you trends and pointing to important developments is a really powerful way to pull people in.

Secondly, augmented datasets cross-linked through to stories: for example, taking a public dataset, combining it with other information sources, or crowdsourcing further details, and then linking items through to relevant news stories. This is a great way to give readers the sources behind the headlines and context around the data in one fell swoop.

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Sparkwise: A Data Storytelling Tool for Change-Makers

Sparkwise is a free, open source web-based tool, aimed at the non-profit sector, for creating live data-widget-filled dashboards.

Their tagline: "Sparkwise gives meaning to your data and momentum to your goals."

You can use add widgets that visualize data -- your own data, data from a social media or web feed like Twitter followers, Google Analytics, etc. -- or display photos, videos and text. Moving and re-sizing the widgets, you can build your own customized dashboard layout.

Sparkwise also provides some tips for telling data stories that will most effectively engage your audience. Jeremy Lehrer has an article at Co.Design that goes into deeper detail about Sparkwise's motivation and features.

Piton, in partnership with the Denver Foundation, is working to build two data and storytelling platforms that touch on some of the same goals as Sparkwise:

Floodlight, a community storytelling tool for creating and sharing data- and multimedia-rich stories.

The Colorado Data Commons, a public data engine for finding and visualizing information.

One area we are focusing on that Sparkwise hasn't yet tackled is how collecting data stories together in one place can build momentum and gather attention to them. Through Floodlight and the Colorado Data Commons, which will be open tools but will have a focused effort in the Children's Corridor, we hope to affect positive change through data and storytelling. The first step to positive change will be shining -- or, as we like to say, flooding -- light on the unseen issues and stories within our local communities and using data to explore potential solutions.

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The Knight Foundation posted some ideas about how to sustain the energy around hackathons beyond an intense day or weekend:

Start With An Organization

Engage Teams of Developers

Build & Implement

Document & Share

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Lucy Bernholz on how Global Pulse and others are practicing a new kind of philanthropy,

when big BIG DATA companies (telecomms, search engines, social networks) donate their public use data (privacy rights protected, opt in only) to a data commons.

She writes,

If foundations really valued data as an input, they'd rethink their grants management departments. These data experts wouldn't just deal with compliance issues, they'd be unleashed on relevant external data sets that matter to the foundation's program strategies. They'd be let loose to map, crunch, remix public data sets, peer data sets, industry data sets that would be used by program officers to develop their funding strategies. Grants management isn't just compliance, its strategy and learning. They'd partner with program and evaluation staff to make teams with data, domain, and grantmaking expertise, as well as appropriate external networks to assess and validate internal ideas. They'd be part of building the learning cycles and tools that would keep the grants meaningful and the foundation catalytic, not just compliant. They'd lead the charge in re-inventing evaluation at foundations, a process that data, shared data systems and data software will accelerate.

[newschallenge2]

1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]

Enable anyone to add narrative clarity to static data visualizations with a web-ready, no coding required, interactive annotation tool.

2. How will your project make data more useful? [50 words]

Information is abundant; clarity is rare. Narragraph...

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"The International Space Apps Challenge is your opportunity to build, create, and invent new solutions to challenges of global importance."

While Piton's work to democratize data usually focuses on neighborhoods, the Space Apps Challenge is a useful to remember that we're all part of a global (and solar system, and galactic, and universal) community.

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We can do better. Rather than accept these “content blobs,” as Karen McGrane calls them, we can embrace meaningful, modular chunks that are ready to travel. This is a content strategy problem, true. But listen up, designers, developers, and UXers: you’re not excused just yet. This job takes editorial, architectural, and technical knowledge. This is a project for all of us. ... This, I think, is why structured content has often been written off as too technical and utilitarian for the mainstream web crowd: because we’ve left the editorial side, the experiential side—the part that lends content life—out of these conversations. This needs to stop. Future-ready content isn’t about becoming an XML expert or assuming microdata will solve your problems. It’s about seeing structures through the lens of meaning and storytelling, and building relationships across disciplines so that our databases reflect this richness and complexity.

"Future-Ready Content," by Sara Wachter-Boettcher, A List Apart

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Before Nathan Yau, before visualization software (or much software at all), before Tufte, even, there were these:

Chart Port shares three data visualization books -- full of detailed hand-drawn charts, maps and graphs -- in PDF form.

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From Stanford's free textbooks and classes to Google Correlate, Knight news Challenge winner Overview picks the best data ideas of 2011.