hi everyone Thank You Christine for the
introduction I'm Georgia it is such a
pleasure to be here and also a little
bit hard after Frank's fantastic talk
but let's see what I can do so today I'm
going to talk about data how original
right but I will not talk about
technology I'll definitely not talk
about Big Data I will talk about human
touch in datum handcrafted and even in
perfect data instead serendipity and
data and definitely about small data and
as a matter of fact I will also talk
about postcards data postcards but later
in my day job I work as a professional
in the data world I design charts data
visualization and interfaces that let
people access data in a visual way and i
run a design firm accurate and that i
co-founded five years ago we are a team
of designers data analyst and software
developers and we work across different
industries designing and developing
different kinds of data-driven digital
products for businesses and
communication purposes and in my
profession I realized that a common
approach very very common approach when
it comes to data is to throw technology
at the problem to begin with sometimes
without even spending enough time
framing the real issue and the real
challenge we have big data we should use
Hadoop or spark of whatever which are
only instrument and over the last year's
a lot of being done in research around
what technology can bring to data and
this is amazing but I believe that it is
the true convergence and hybridization
of science and design that can open new
perspective and take the conversation to
the next level because when we work with
information it is so easy to get
fascinated by the quantities the
variables the numbers it's so easy to
lose track of what numbers really mean
what it's important to display with my
company we work with business is an
organization of different nature and for
them we do build software
similarity black sport and we do
experiment and work with different kind
of technologies indeed but we also try
every time to look at any of their data
problem using a design approach from the
very early stage a design approach to
actually limit the possibilities to
increase the opportunities to focus on
framing the right questions and
ultimately to reconnect numbers to what
they stand for people behavior and today
I'm going to share with you two
completely different experiences where
self-imposed constraints in a way change
my relationship with data and change the
lenses that I used to look at the data
world the first one is called friends in
space last year a very peculiar
challenge was posed to my team by this
woman Samantha Christopher a tip she has
been the first Italian woman astronaut
and as you might have guessed already
I'm Italian by the way so she contacted
us before being lunch on a six-month
long expedition to the International
Space Station and she asked us if we
wanted to collaborate on some real time
data visualization what she would be in
space our awesome I must say that there
will be to visualize like the orbits
around heard the speed and position of
the ISS also a hair twitter feed
visualized and map on a map on the real
time and I could really go on howrse to
list all of the data because the ISS
makes all this information available for
everyone the technology driven approach
would have taken us far from anything
meaningful this is exactly what we
didn't want to do and actually who need
this but still we're also compelled to
use all of the numbers that we have to
show the complexity and the power of our
engines and to display everything that
we analyze them processed altogether
more and more well but in the end what
we wanted to achieve was a way to make
feel her presence a way to remind people
back here on her that orbiting around
Earth up there there was a human being
trying to find way to talk to them so we
decided to frame just one question to
guide our design process is it possible
to use this data to promote very simple
and basic in
correction in human connection and the
idea was there already in fact the core
idea of friends in space which we like
to describe as the first social network
that extends beyond earth is very simple
you login with your social profile you
can see Samantha's real-time position
above your head within the trajectory of
her current orbit which is the yellow
arc as well as a map of all of the
people around the world that are online
in the platform in that moment you click
hello from where you are and a simple
arc on the map connects you to other
people who just said hello from all over
the world and every now and then you
also have the possibility to say hello
to samantha when you wear in Earth orbit
so when she was about to fly above you
so through this simple interaction you
connected with strangers you would have
met otherwise and the whole simple idea
is that you are part of a map of the
world that is linking different people
who are feeling the same emotion who are
virtually looking at the sky and at
Samantha together and where if you were
lucky you also saw and received a
feedback when Samantha was digitally
waving back from the ISS and all of this
connection has been recorded for you in
your control room in form of beautiful
images like visual souvenirs from space
and you see that data powers all of this
but in fact a very simple and human way
of connecting drives all of the
experience and we limited the
interaction by design because we wanted
to play with this simplicity of the just
sort of say hello waving and say hello
from where you are to other places on
earth and beyond Earth and through
friends in space tens of thousands of
people connected with Samantha and
between themselves and the whole
experience at the incredibly positive
response of its user taught me a very
important lesson that limitation with
data are the true way to transform the
abstract and the uncountable into
something that can be sealed felt and
reconnected to our lives the other
experience that I want to share with you
today is definitely more radical in this
sense and for me it
is the big data hangover relief it is a
zero technological your own personal
project a very laborious and
time-consuming one that took out
practically all of my evenings and
weekends for the last year it was a
collaboration with information designer
Stephanie Pacific so I am an Italian and
I live in New York Stephanie's American
is she lives in London and we only met a
few times in our life but last year we
decided to work together because we
discover that we have so many personal
and worse similarities we are the exact
same age both in our 30s both only
children struggling to have decided to
live far away from our family we both
work with data in a very handcrafted way
trying to add a human touch to the world
of computing and algorithm and most of
all we are both obsessed with drawing
with data with sketching data so we
decided to challenge ourself we would
get to know each other through our data
and through our drawings with theorem of
course so we conceived and started what
we call dear data and in common kind of
Correspondence of hand-drawn data
postcard so yes again postcards across
the ocean every week since September 42
cesium September first 2014 and for a
year we would collect our personal data
around the sheer topic from our
complaints the interaction with our
partners from the compliments we receive
to the sound of our surroundings from
our negative thoughts or our habits and
they show up for the week 52 pretexts in
form of data to reveal and investigate a
particular aspect of our self in about
our days at the end of the week would
then take the time to analyze our
information and to create a hand-drawn
data corresponding to each other and
fold the data postcard with us we will
send from New York to London into London
to New York eventually the postcards
arrives at the other person's address
with all of the scuff marks of its
journey or the ocean and we purposely
designed initial constraint or the
posters to form a consistent collection
but also to allows us to experiment more
with our weekly data
in fact the front of the poster contains
no tax at all is just hopefully a
beautiful drawing that you could take as
an illustration if you didn't know that
there are data behind and the back of
the postcard circle take contains the
address of the other person of course
the title of the weekend of the project
and the legend how to interpret our
drawings and we didn't send each other
any digital scan of our poster so we
both interior waiting to get the data
weekly portrayed of the other person in
the mailbox for a year also we're
discovering the pleasure of checking the
post book as you get home as Frank's
knows better of course it has been a
type of slow data small dare and
incredibly analog data transmission well
yeah in in during a time when everybody
talks about big data and virtual reality
we of course too small there than
physical postcards you know well it
doesn't sound very revolutionary but by
removing technology from the equation we
have been forced to extend our self as
designers on the one hand we have been
itch forced to invent 52 different
visual language is because hand drawing
data leads you to design that are
incredibly customized and tailored to
the data that you're working with but
removing computer from the equation also
triggered us to find different ways to
look at data as excuses to tell
something about ourself in fact as we
gathered our weekly data our process was
definitely more labor-intensive than
just arriving in standard metric from a
technological devices we conceived dear
data from the beginning as a personal
documentary more than a quantified self
project in fact we here didn't only
quantifying number we've been adding
anecdotal Xin qualitative details in
form of data to our data collection for
example the very first week of the air
data which is a pretty cold and
impersonal topic how many time do we
check the time in a week and so here is
the front of my posters and you can see
that every little symbol represents all
of the times that I check the time order
/ days and per hour chronologically
nothing really complicated here but you
also see that I added anecdotal videos
about those moments in fact the
different instances of my symbol
decayed why I was checking the time was
what was I doing was a board was I
hungry was I late did they check in on
purpose or just casually glanced at the
clock and this is the key part giving
Stephanie an idea of my days through the
protects of my data collection something
that is not possible if we don't
actually actually actively attract add
meaning to our tracking but we can find
data even in our minds and in the words
we use for example and not only in our
activities which is even more compelling
if the goal is telling you something
about yourself through your data at week
seven we tracked our complaints and I
compose this musical complaint cars
following a very literal visual
inspiration from the music notation
system to show the repetitiveness of my
complaints of different types over time
and their pitch their loudness through
the positioning of my complaint notes
over the line of each score did I truly
need to complain explaining in my legend
to Stephanie how to interpret my protest
and being very honest about how grumpy
have been in the true spirit of sharing
but we also figure that we can find data
even beyond the daily tracking and for
example make a survey or what we own
walk into our closets with the eyes of
the data collection looking for data in
the way we categorize and classify our
garments or we can try to use data to
become better human beings at least for
a week and perform acts to then be able
to report them like this week we
purposely smile to strangers and track
their reaction if they smile back or if
they pretended they didn't notice our
smile so I'm not going to show you all
of 100 104 post cards you can find them
online if you're interested and a book
is going to be published in the fall as
well but what I wanted to say is that
over a year Stephanie and I shared
everything about our self through it the
excuses of our data we truly became
friends through our data and more
importantly we both started to look at
data even in our professions through
different lenses so I'm not suggesting
you to start drawing your data or to
find a temple across the ocean or
actually if you want to do it now we
have an open section on our website
where you can find a date of payment
and it's already full of individuals and
teachers with their students who are
participating from all over the world
but anyway it is of course not
imaginable that we haul handle data in
our job but experimentations of this
kind we are we radically limit ourselves
where we drastically limit our tools in
our possibility can teach us a lot about
the perspective that we look at any kind
of data from because by shifting away
the produce from the technology you can
get closer to real meaning if you think
about it even when we work with big data
the whole point is making it more
meaningful more contextual it's all
about making it smaller smarter
understandable so for sure data is not
only a matter of Technology it's mostly
a matter of how we collect process and
relate with information it's the matter
how we design the way we look at data
and this is why I would say we should
try to shift from this data driven
design which is pretty common to hear
but somehow implies that numbers should
dictate how we approach the design
problem and that design should fit
within precise boundaries that are
defined by data to something that looks
more like this design driven data which
means we should design the ways we
approach handle used analyze and talk
about data keeping always in mind that
we have to translate how our numbers
into human terms and the real power of a
design approach is to give us the tools
and not necessarily the technological
tools and the format to recognize
numbers what they stand for because
ultimately is going to be as human that
will interact with data when we think
about data we always associate it with
more efficiency more automation in our
life and if I can leave you with one
thing today is that I argue we can
absolutely use data to become more human
to connect with ourselves and with
others a deeper level if we design the
right ways to do it thank you