Avoid death by data

Who among us has not sat through a presentation doomed to lull us into the deepest sleep? Yet behind that snooze-inducing talk there were probably stacks of interesting facts and data on a topic that is of great interest to you.

Data presentation doesn’t have to be dull. Take a look at this talk by Hans Rosling of the Karolinska Institute.

He is one of the developers of TrendAnalyzer, a software package that enables you to animate your data, freezing some parameters while adjusting others. This software, developed via www.Gapminder.com, has been bought by Google and the basic version can now be used by anyone. You can also buy the full software for less than £100.

You can play with Hans’s graph yourself here:
http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/

Or if you want to input your own data, go here:
http://www.gapminder.org/upload-data/

And if you’re looking for some fantastic maps try these:
www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/index.html

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What do you think of these tools?
Would you find them useful?
Have you used another data presentation tool that you’d like to recommend?
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