Data Visualisation tweets: Top Nine experts to follow on Twitter
As promised in an earlier post, sharing recommended blogs, it’s time to move onto data visualisation tweets.
In this post, I’m going to recommend some Data Visualisation experts to follow on Twitter, both because of their own content and the wider resources they curate and share.
I hope you found the previously recommended blogs useful. If you are serious about improving your (or your team’s) data visualisation skills, I would recommend considering joining the DataIQ Leaders programme. In December, I’ll be running another one day workshop for them, sharing design principles, tips & tricks for data visualisation. The content does not require specialist tools, but focuses on improving data visualisation design thinking for any analyst, even if just using Excel.
Anyway, enough time pitching for DataIQ, let’s get back to sharing with you the data visualisation experts whom I follow on Twitter. Here is my totally subjective list of the Data Visualisation experts, whom I’ve found it worth following on Twitter.
Data Visualisation tweets: 1 Edward Tufte
Professor Tufte is the expert I have read & followed longest. A statistician, visualiser, artist & Computer Science academic. He has plenty of wisdom from experience to share.
Data Visualisation tweets: 2 Alberto Cairo
With the wonderful title of ‘Knight Chair’ at the University of Miami, Alberto is both an active blogger and gifted author. He also shares some great examples of work by his students.
Data Visualisation tweets: 3 Andy Kirk
My first UK expert. Andy is a freelance data visualisation specialist, who also consults, trains, researches & writes. He also finds time to lecture at both MICA (US) and Imperial College (UK). Given the frequency of his blogging & tweeting too – I have serious doubts as to whether Andy sleeps. Well worth seeing his work & recommended resources.
Data Visualisation tweets: 4 Nathan Yau
Nathan publishes the data visualisation blog that I visit & retweet most often. A statistician with a specialism in data visualisation, Nathan is also an excellent curator or data visualisations, with expert commentary and advice.
Data Visualisation tweets: 5 Jon Schwabish
Continuing out focus on commercial applications of data visualisation, Jon is an economist and data visualiser who runs a really useful PolicyViz site and shop for seeing tips & buying aids. Well worth a visit, especially as an educator, for Jon focusses on educating others and providing practical resources for the tools most analysts are using.
Data Visualisation tweets: 6 Randy Olson
Back to US academia, Dr. Olson is the senior data scientist at University of Pennsylvania. He’s also an active tweeter & runs the brilliant community @DataIsBeautiful. Appreciate aesthetics.
Data Visualisation tweets: 7 Cole Knaflic
Overdue to have a woman on this list & Cole is well worth following. She blogs & tweets on both improvements to data visualisations & the power of using data visualisation to tell compelling stories – such a crucial skill for those working in businesses. Having learnt her craft in banking, private equity & at Google, she is now a consultant & educator. Well worth following.
Data Visualisation tweets: 8 David McCandless
Returning to the idea of data visualisation as art & the UK, David is a London based author, writer & designer, with a passion for sharing beautiful data visualisations. Following roles at The Guardian & Wired, he now works as a data journalist & information designer. He rightly hates pie-charts and is well worth following, to be inspired by beautifully effective data viz.
Data Visualisation tweets: 9 Robert Kosara
In these days of Tableau dominating visualisation for BI analysts, I guess it was impossible to avoid the effort they have put into education & social media. Robert is a research scientist at Tableau, following his academic background. He does a great job of sharing helpful examples of data visualisation & visual storytelling, without selling his product.
Who will you follow?
I hope you found that list useful and will enjoy following at least one of that varied list.
For those of you who prefer other media, later this month I will be continuing our theme of sharing data visualisation resources, by sharing recommended books and even some Pinterest users to follow.
Until then, enjoy being more visual and seeing the impact it can make when communicating your analysis. Keep testing & learning!