Data Rocks

TL:DR; Hire Sophie Sparkes, she's awesome and talented! Sophie's work is unique and creative and she's perfect if you're even considering a hand-drawn and illustrative element to your data visualisation project, her recent projects are really getting noticed. She was also generous enough to give me one of my first breaks in data visualisation, giving me my first valuable speaking opportunity almost ten years ago, from which I never looked back and have always been grateful.

I'm reposting my old (Dataviz) Design Matters series on both my blog and on Medium, weekly! This week: all about typography for your data displays. ➡ Here's the link to read it on Medium: https://lnkd.in/dH4UYRja ➡ And Here's the one to see it on the Blog: https://lnkd.in/dSzWUebR ➡ If you'd like to get upcoming articles fresh when they're first published, I do recommend subscribing to the newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g-wUz_N7

How about 150 #dataviz people to follow in one single place? On Bluesky, far away from the toxicity of X, we created a "starter pack" that allows any user, new or existing, to find dataviz accounts and a few feeds specialized in the field. Since it launched a few days ago, several people have reported tens and hundreds of new followers, and it has created a new momentum on this platform. Just click on the link to discover this resource 👇 https://lnkd.in/eUkyp7_M

I'm reposting my old (Dataviz) Design Matters series on both my blog and on Medium, weekly! This week: the second most-read article I have ever written! Part two of last week's repost! ➡ Here's the link to read it on Medium: https://lnkd.in/gT9DJcZq ➡ And Here's the one to see it on the Blog: https://lnkd.in/gs9zKJ6U ➡ If you'd like to get upcoming articles fresh when they're first published, I do recommend subscribing to the newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g-wUz_N7

Outstanding opportunity here if you're NZ based and want to kick start your career in #dataviz!

🎉 SEPTEMBER DATA BOOK GIVEAWAY!! 🎉 Welcome to my monthly book giveaway, where I team up with amazing authors to highlight their incredible books. 📚✨ This month, I'm thrilled to partner with Nick Desbarats! 🤩 His book Practical Charts is essential for anyone who wants to visualise data. It is one of the most practical and helpful books on data visualisation I’ve read. And, of course, The Data Storyteller's Handbook is a must-have for anyone passionate about data storytelling. If you'd like to be in to win The Data Storyteller's Handbook and Practical Charts, like and/or share this post! 📗📘

I'm reposting my old (Dataviz) Design Matters series on both my blog and on Medium, weekly. This week: the most-read article I have ever written. ➡ Here's the link to read it on Medium: https://lnkd.in/gEV3Bmbq ➡ And Here's the one to see it on the Blog: https://lnkd.in/gJty3uew ➡ If you'd like to get upcoming articles fresh when they're first published, I do recommend subscribing to the newsletter: https://lnkd.in/g-wUz_N7

Cool data use case, fresh from Data Rocks: I just finished creating my own CRM to understand a bit better Data Rocks clients, the lurkers, the people who subscribe to the content, and who are the people in my 'cheer squad' (it's an actual label inside the CRM). Collecting and organising all of this data in a purpose-built CRM for myself, with my specs, for my context, has helped me see a few things that I wouldn't otherwise - and in fact, that I couldn't see using off-the-shelf solutions! One of the most interesting bits is where my leads come from. Unsurprisingly, most of them come from recommendations from past clients, friends, and other colleagues in the field (thanks, folks! 💜). But here's the surprising insight: the social media where I get my best engagement. It is NOT LinkedIn!!! 😲 It is NOT Bluesky (yet). 🦋 It is NOT Mastodon. 🐘 And most definitely NOT the bad place site. ❌ My best quality leads (the ones who comment, engage, get in touch and eventually become either friends or clients) come from... BEHANCE! I would not expect a niche design portfolio website to be where quality leads come from, but it is! That got me thinking about the nature of social media engagement and why this might be the case. I have a few theories... Behance doesn't focus as much on personal posts. It focuses on the things people create. It is less noisy, and most people who lurk there are looking for high-quality inspiration or work as designers as well. It doesn't have much in the way of social features, as the work is the centrepiece and what it's really all about. It is first a portfolio site, and then a social media. As much as I dislike Adobe, I have always liked Behance for design inspo. ✨ Learning this also means that I'll be posting more of my projects there. I have lots of more Graphic Design oriented projects I don't always feature here because, well, they're not BI dashboards... and BI dashboards are what LinkedIn seems to like best. But if you're keen on seeing what else Data Rocks does, you can check my Behance profile here: https://lnkd.in/grEpk5E3 How about you? Have you made any fun discoveries from your data recently? What were the best little surprises your data have given you?

"Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!" 📣 #IYKYK Do you work in Australia and want to learn how to communicate better with data? I would love to help! But I don't know how to find you. Despite publishing a book on the subject and running workshops in countries much further afield, I don't get many enquiries from across the ditch. If you (or someone you know) have a team that needs help making data insights resonate, let's chat. You can read more about my remote or in-person workshops here: https://lnkd.in/gSEY2Ye I would love to find an "Oi, Oi, Oi!" in my extended network 😍 🐨 🐨 🐨 Speaking of awesome Australian businesses, here's a shout-out to Jess Page and her amazing data team at WGA (Wallbridge Gilbert Aztec) for their workshop enthusiasm 🤩

I have been a bit quiet on the content front, but I'm preparing great things in the background! I've just resumed republishing the (Dataviz) Design Matters content on my blog and Medium. Every week from here until October, you'll see the articles that my newsletter subscribers got to read last year. If you're wondering, the newsletter content will resume in early October. Subscribe so you don't miss upcoming news and more articles soon! And if you read so far, you'll see that all articles, old and new, now have new cover illustrations created by myself. I had a lot of fun making them look nice for the blog. :) Here's the republished article: https://lnkd.in/gravmYpu And if you'd like to subscribe to get more content like this, you can do so, here: https://lnkd.in/g-wUz_N7