Edward Tufte looks at everything that looks at you.

On Wednesday of this week, I attended the "workshop" of Edward Tufte. If you have ever been associated with advertising, you may have gotten a mailer from him. He is probably the leading figure in the world when it comes to data visualization. Indeed, he is to the point in his career where he is making up words to describe elements in his field of study. He teaches statistics at Yale, has hung out with tech CEOs and written several visually stunning books that delve into the visually stunning. And he collects old books.

You can learn more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte

My expectation for the class was that there would be instruction on how to visualize data, and there certainly was. What I didn't expect was that his approach to data is really a philosophical approach to the art of presenting as a whole. I would recommend that anyone who is tasked with keeping someone's attention for an hour in a meeting take Edward's class.

In brief, and in direct violation of Edward's advice, I shall proceed to a bullet list of highlights he discussed:

• PowerPoint sucks. No one uses it at major companies like Yahoo, Apple or the like. Even certain execs at Microsoft won't sit through PowerPoint as it wastes their time. It's set up for the presenter, not the consumer of information. It is inefficient and a waste of time
• He suggests presenting the material in spacial adjacency rather than stacks. Think sellsheet vs PowerPoint
• His ideal meeting is everyone gets a one-page handout of the entire topic when they walk into the room. The first 7 minutes are for reading. The next 15 are for discussion. He told the crowd in his best Yale professor statistician voice that this move would result in 20% more efficiency in meetings
• Handouts should be framed with 3 simple points: 1: Problem 2: Who Cares? 3: What we can do about the problem
• Never ever skip references and the data behind conclusions. Just providing it establishes credibility even if no one ever checks it
• Never trust something that isn't referenced
• Always vet the referenced material for a slant
• People read 3x faster than someone can talk to them – that's why you have them read the content at their pace in the beginning of the meeting
• Future presentations will look like web pages, with all the data linked.
• Always take notes when people raise a question in your presentation
• All of the above stop the presenter from rambling and telling personal stories (ah-um!)

Some notes on design

• Always list by performance, not alphabetically
• Want good examples of presentations? They have all been done before. Don't start from scratch – google them and use the results as your starting point. You'll learn from the mistakes of others immediately
• ESPN.com and NYTimes.com are 2 websites that get it right. If your reports and presentations were this clear, you shouldn't be taking a class on data visualization
• Sentences are WAY underrated. Everyone wants to design when sometimes a sentence will work just fine

Some of the examples of great design he provided:

• Sparklines (which Edward invented)
• Minard's map of Napolean's invasion of Russia:

 

• History of rock & roll 

 

Last, but not least. Here is another person who took his class and had to some up what he learned for his work. He has more time on his hands than me.