Yes, we do believe in borrowing good ideas.  In this case, we are suggesting that designers of infographics “borrow” from cartographers in carefully picking colors that do more than just brighten the page.
See Cynthia Brewer's work at http://www.personal.psu.edu/cab38/ColorSch/SchHome.html

Color Use Guidelines for Mapping and Visualization
Cynthia A. Brewer

Click for generalized structure with links to
discussion of each color scheme type

The scheme guidelines are limited to the use of color to directly represent
data that occur at locations in the graphic where colors occur. The types
of thematic maps to which these guidelines apply are choropleth maps (for
example, census tracts filled with colors representing the percentage of
the population from an ethnic group), filled isoline maps (for example,
color bands that mark set ranges of terrain elevation), and qualitative
areal-extent maps (for example, different colors for different types of
vegetation). My hope is that these guidelines and the associated terminology
will also guide the work of people grappling with data visualization challenges
in diverse disciplines such as physics, medicine, psychology, and graphic
arts.

A disorderly jumble of colors produces a map that is little more than
a spatially arranged look-up table. The goal of this WWW resource is to
help you do better than that by using color with skill. This resource provides
a generalized set of color schemes and example
maps.

For those analytic journalists slipping toward geezer-dom, eWEEK magazine offers up an interesting blast from many pasts this week with “Peter Coffee's 25 Killer Apps of All Time.” 

Says he: “Microsoft's Vista has widely inspired the 'Why do I need that?'
question, which past 'killer applications' have answered in different
ways for different platforms during three decades of personal computing.”

It seems to us that comparing Vista to a break-through tool like Visicalc is a bit of a stretch, but check out Coffee's slide show anyway, just for fun.

A couple days before Christmas, Jesse Theodore — a writer at ESRI — interviewed Tom Johnson about the use of GIS in journalism.  That interview is now available as a podcast at http://www.esri.com/news/podcasts/audio/speaker/tom_johnson.mp3

No story?  Then check out Swivel, a web site rich with data — and the display of data — that you didn't know about and which is pregnant with possibilities for a good news feature.  And often a news feature that could be localized.

Here, for example, is a posting from the SECRECY REPORT CARD 2005  illustrating the changing trends in the the classification and de-classification of U.S. government data.  (You can probably guess the direction of the curves.)

Spotlight What is the US Government Not Telling Us?

Source: SECRECY REPORT CARD 2005

The
number of classified documents is steadily increasing, while the number
of pages being declassified is dwindling. This data were uploaded by mcroydon.

Some researchers in the Computer Science department (nary a journalists to be found) are doing some interesting work trying to determine the degree to which people in different regions talk about different things.  The assumption is, obviously, that newspapers are a good proxy for what people are talking about.  Still, some smart people are wrestling with interesting ways to understand journalism.  Be sure to check out the published paper at http://www.algorithm.cs.sunysb.edu/mehler/mypapers/heatmap.pdf

spatial analysis of news sources

21 December 2006

Friend Matt Waite, of the St. Petersburg Times, has an interesting post on his personal blog wherein he lists the 19 different software programs he used to prepare the latest installment of his ongoing work on the disappearance of wetlands in Florida.  (Who could ever imagine such a thing?)

We wonder how many journalism educators could identify these programs and what they are used for?

The online version of “Vanishing Wetlands” (Craig Pittman is the lead byline on this episode.) is rich with details and interactive features, including a fine mash-up of Google Maps to show the location of some land in so-called “mitigation banks.”  Best of all, for the analytic journalism crowd, is the explication of the story's methodology.  It's in some sort of embedded code that delivers the text in a pop-up.  Look to the upper right of the homepage for a hot button.

By the way, these guys have been working this story for three years.  Now THAT's the kind of dedication that produces insight and context.

And there's another good angle on this effort at “Working backward on the last wetlands story.”

A number of friends and associates, for whom we have the greatest respect, say this is one of the best, most enriching conferences in the U.S.  It is not cheap, but there are vacation condos to be found in the area that would help to make this affordable.

We are back with our 4th UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference on Human Complex Systems.
from Wednesday April 25, 2007 through Sunday April 29, 2007.

We look forward to
another cross-disciplinary gathering of social scientists who employ
cutting-edge agent-based computational modeling and related
computational ideas and methods in their research and teaching. As in
past years, dozens of presenters from numerous disciplines are
presenting. We are also hosting evening panels, a live simulation, and
opportunities for networking and relaxation amid gorgeous surroundings.

Advancing Agent Modeling in the Social Sciences


The conference is a forum for sharing the most recent advances — in
theory, methodology and application – in the area of agent modeling
throughout the social sciences (e.g., Anthropology, Communication
Studies, Economics, Geography, History, Political Science, Sociology,
Urban Planning). We also welcome social scientists in professional
schools (e.g., Business, Education, International Relations, Public
Health, Public Policy, Social Welfare) and in the public and private
sectors. Researchers and theorists in Psychology, Media Studies and
social aspects of Cognitive Science, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics
and related disciplines also welcome!

For a paper presentation, authors present for 20 minutes and receive an
additional 10 minutes for Q&A. We also welcome 90-120 minute
symposium proposals consisting of 3-4 individual papers on a related
topic of inquiry. Finally, we are open to someone wishing to organize
an evening panel discussion on a �hot topic� in agent modeling.

We're not wild about using “image” as a verb, but the conference looks promising and certainly appropriate for those journalists who understand that we have to learn to tell stories with more than just words and pictures.  Yup, “HCI” is where it's at, or where it's going to be at.

Imaging the City:

Recent
technological developments mark the city as a central and perhaps
special space for human-computer interaction research and practice.
Visions of ubiquitous computing, the resonance of the ‘urban probe’,
and the proliferation of interactive mapping services speak to the
significance of the urban landscape to studies of Human-Computer
Interaction. But such visions and technologies require, produce and
reproduce images of urban space that influence what these systems, and
our interactions with them, are and might be. Developing and employing
technologies for the urban environment requires visualization
techniques that both reflect and challenge how we image, and
consequently imagine, the city.

• How do we represent the city in HCI, and how do these representations inform HCI research and practice?
• What
  kinds of technological devices, services, and platforms support imaging
  the city now and might be created in the near future?
• How are and might these new representations of the city and urban imaging technologies be used for social and political ends?
• What new methods are required for developing technologies that image the city in new ways?
• What can we learn from the urban experience to design stronger representations and interfaces within HCI research and practice?

A few days back we reported on a verbal dust-up betweeen ASU (and IAJ's) Prof. Steve Doig and the PIO for the Maricopa County's district attorney's office.  Seems the spokesman didn't think much of mere “student journalists” wanting to attend the DA's press conferences.  (Of course, journalists are little more than just citizens doing a special task, but that's a sub-set discussion for another day.)  In the end, changes have been made; the DA's public non-information officer has been redeployed.

Spokesman is reassigned after dispute with ASU prof