How to Visualize Data Effectively, with Prof. Alberto Cairo

The renowned data-visualization professor and many-time bestselling author Dr. Alberto Cairo is today's guest! Want a copy of his fantastic new book, "The Art of Insight"? I'm giving away ten physical copies; see below for how to get one.

Alberto:

• Is the Knight Chair in Infographics and Data Visualization at the University of Miami.

• Leads visualization efforts at the University of Miami’s Institute for Data Science and Computing.

• Is a consultant for Google, the US government and many more prominent institutions.

• Has written three bestselling books on data visualization, all in the past decade.

• His fourth book, "The Art of Insight", was just published.

Today’s episode will be of interest to anyone who’d like to understand how to communicate with data more effectively.

In this episode, which tracks the themes covered in his "The Art of Insight" book, Alberto details:

• How data visualization relates to the very meaning of life.

• What it takes to enter in a meditation-like flow state when creating visualizations.

• When the “rules” of data communication should be broken.

• His data visualization tips and tricks.

• How infographics can drive social change.

• How extended reality, A.I. and other emerging technologies will change data viz in the coming years.

The SuperDataScience podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms, YouTube, and at SuperDataScience.com.

Business Intelligence Tools, with Mico Yuk

Today's guest is the straight shooter Mico Yuk, who pulls absolutely no punches in her assessment of, well, anything! ...but particularly about vendors in the business intelligence and data analytics space. Enjoy!

Mico:
• Is host of the popular Analytics on Fire Podcast (top 2% worldwide).
• Co-founded the BI Brainz Group, an analytics consulting and solutions company that has taught over 15,000 students analytics, visualization and data storytelling courses — included at major multinationals like Nestlé, FedEx and Procter & Gamble.
• Authored the "Data Visualization for Dummies" book.
• Is a sought-after keynote speaker and TV-news commentator.

In this episode, Mico details:
• Her BI (business intelligence) and analytics framework that persuades executives with data storytelling.
• What the top BI tools are on the market today.
• The BI trends she’s observed that could predict the most popular BI tools of the coming years.

The SuperDataScience podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms, YouTube, and at SuperDataScience.com.

Pandas for Data Analysis and Visualization

Today's episode is jam-packed with practical tips on using the Pandas library in Python for data analysis and visualization. Super-sharp Stefanie Molin — a bestselling author and sought-after instructor on these topics — is our guide.

Stefanie:
• Is the author of the bestselling book "Hands-On Data Analysis with Pandas".
• Provides hands-on pandas and data viz tutorials at top industry conferences.
• Is a software engineer and data scientist at Bloomberg, the financial data giant, where she tackles problems revolving around data wrangling/visualization and building tools for gathering data.
• Holds a degree in operations research from Columbia University as well as a masters in computer science, with an ML specialization, from Georgia Tech.

Today’s episode is intended primarily for hands-on practitioners like data analysts, data scientists, and ML engineers — or anyone that would like to be in a technical data role like these in the future.

In this episode, Stefanie details:
• Her top tips for wrangling data in pandas.
• In what data viz circumstances you should use pandas, matplotlib, or Seaborn.
• Why everyone who codes, including data scientists, should develop expertise in Python package creation as well as contribute to open-source projects.
• The tech stack she uses in her role at Bloomberg.
• The productivity tips she honed by simultaneously working full-time, completing a masters degree and writing a bestselling book.

The SuperDataScience podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms, YouTube, and at SuperDataScience.com.

The Intentional Use of Color in Data Communication

In today's episode, Kate Strachnyi— author of the new book ColorWise — opened my eyes to the vastly underutilized power of the intentional use of color in data visualizations. Now you can harness its power too!

Kate:
• Is a multi-time data science book author.
• Her latest book, ColorWise, was published by O'Reilly Media: It’s a beautiful, comprehensive guide to the effective use of color when communicating data visually.
• Founded the DATAcated Circle, a community of data professionals committed to engaging and learning together.
• Is a megastar on LinkedIn where she has over 170k followers and was twice recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice for Data Science & Analytics.
• Is big into long-distance running; her longest to date was a 50-mile (!!!) ultramarathon in New York’s Central Park.

Today’s episode should appeal to technical and non-technical folks alike because I suspect that pretty well any listener of this show presents data and could benefit from learning how to do so more effectively with the intentional use of color.

In today’s episode, Kate details:
• Why the intentional use of color matters.
• What thought process you should follow to select a color scheme for a visualization.
• Special considerations for color choice, such as accessibility, cultural understanding, and due to human psychology.
• How to effectively use multiple visualizations together in a document, presentation or dashboard.
• Her favorite data viz tools.

Want a free digital copy of ColorWise? The first five people to comment on this post that they want one, get one! Thanks to O'Reilly's Suzanne Huston for offering this to our listeners

If you miss out on one of the five copies, you can use my special code "SDSPOD23" to get a free 30-day trial of the O'Reilly platform and read the book there.

The SuperDataScience podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms, YouTube, and at SuperDataScience.com.

How to Influence Others with Your Data

If you ever use data to make decisions or to persuade those around you to make data-driven decisions, today’s episode is jam-packed with relevant, practical tips from data presentation guru Ann K. Emery.

Ann:
• Is an internationally-acclaimed speaker who delivers 100+ keynotes, workshops, and webinars each year to enable people to share data-driven insights more effectively.
• She has consulted on data visualization, data reporting, and data presentation with over 200 organizations — the likes of the United Nations, the US Centers for Disease Control, and Harvard University.
• She holds a BA in Psychology and Spanish from the University of Virginia and a Masters in Educational Psychology Evaluation, Assessment, and Testing from George Mason University.

I rarely say that everyone should listen to an episode, but this is one of those rare cases.

In this episode, Ann details:
• What data storytelling is.
• Best practices for data visualization.
• Surprising tricks you can pull off with spreadsheet software.
• How to report on data effectively.
• Her top tips for presenting data in a slideshow.

The SuperDataScience podcast is available on all major podcasting platforms, YouTube, and at SuperDataScience.com.