Yesterday I went to the lecture by Edward Tufte. Every year I miss the date with careless vacation plans. I have been a fan of his for years and consider Visual Display of Quantitative Information to be required reading for data geeks without design skillz. So, pretty much all of us.
The professor has built himself into quite a brand. Design, data, publishing and even sculpture and metalwork. His latest sculptographicalness is available for a cool $200,000. Unfortunately, I have to stick with his books. For $380 you get all 4 of them – amusingly available for autograph during the breaks BUT he’ll only sign two! – and a six-hour lecture. He filled the ballroom at ~350 people. Not a bad side-job for tenured Yale faculty but I digress.
The professor has a predictable disdain for PowerPoint. He loathes linear presentations and suggests a number of visual display techniques that integrate data, images and text. It was all quite beautiful and gave me some ideas but hearing him rail about organization-wide adoption is a little like hearing Sheryl Sandberg proclaim that she only works 35 or 40 hours a week. Due respect Mrs. Sandberg, but before I can work your hours I need to have your resume and I don’t think you got that by leaving on the 4PM train every day. Same with Professor Tufte. Most of his audience isn’t rule makers. We are game players. Without tenure. How many times do you imagine you can give a customer who expects a PPTx something radically different before they quietly go with someone else? It would have been nice to hear him explore some middle ground or adoption strategies but in a room of 300+, QA sessions are impossible and the length of the line for autographs exceeded my patience.
I was also disappointed not to see any material on small screen displays. LG recently made a bet on second screen apps (we produce content for ACTV8) and fitting meaningful material into 4 inches is really pretty hard. Sure, we can apply some of his technique here but I’d be nice to see a well-done sample like he had with the web page. Since the compost that passes for television cannot itself keep your attention, we’re gonna get you on your phone! So there.
The prof does exude a little high-priest quality but his crusade is noble and I can only hope that if enough people buy into his better points, we will have a presentation revolution. It will take a lot. Remember Kai Krause? How amazing was his software? But his ideas had a too tiny of a microphone until Apple started integrating them into OSX and now everything has transparency and 3D buttons.
The geeky public should not shy away from this. I highly recommend the lecture and at the very least the books. If you include the cost of the books, the lecture is very well-priced. I have taken ideas from the books that have helped me help sales guys improve their pitch and never underestimate the political capital attached to being the guy who can help the sales guy close.
