Two of our facilitators and one of our attendees from VizThink ‘08 were involved in a significant visualization effort for one of the most famous conferences in the world, TED. If you’re unfamiliar with TED, they choose a theme each year and then each presenter has 18 minutes (no more, no less) to present their story. The presentations are almost always impressive, and most certainly inspiring. One of the most famous TED presentations related to our field was one done by Hans Rosling in 2006.
Here’s a note from Tom Wujec who headed up this visualization effort at TED:
Dear VizThinkers:
As many of you will recall, at VizThink 2008, I extended an offer for a free ticket to TED to a graphic cartographer who had the talent and stamina to capture the ideas of over 50 TED presenters in 3 ½ days of meetings. It probably will not surprise you that the offer was extended to David Sibbit of the Grove Consultants International, one of the leaders in our industry. David and Kevin Richards, from Autodesk, made a herculean effort to create over 700 sketches which are now on-line in a 200 page pdf book as well as in several videos. If you’re interested in seeing this emerging variation of digital visual recording, please download the interactive pdf book as well as the videos that strive to capture the spirit of this year’s Big Ideas.