Enrico's Updates #1

I explain what I am trying to achieve here and what you can expect from me in the near future

As the number of subscribers grows and I post way more regularly here, I figured it would be nice to send regular updates about what I am trying to do with this newsletter. So, starting today, I plan to send regular updates every once in a while so that you can get a better sense of where I am going and, hopefully, I can get some feedback and recommendations from you!

If you have been a subscriber of the newsletter for a while, you might have noticed that I have a regular schedule now. You can expect at least one post every week.

Recurring themes 📋

You might have noticed that many of my posts revolve around a common theme. While I plan to expand my reach, the main focus of my ideas in the last few months/years has been to go beyond the traditional ways we think about and teach visualization. We need to understand visualization from the cognitive standpoint better, and we need to understand the impact of all the elements that constitute visualization beyond “graphical encoding.” Precision is only partially helpful. Contextual elements like titles and annotations play a major role. The way data are gathered and manipulated is often more relevant than what representation we decide to use. Etc. I’ll keep beating this drum for a while because there is much to do in this space.

On a completely different note, I am planning to write more about the role of Visualization in Machine Learning and AI. I somewhat timidly posted an overview of a course I taught last year, but I have much more that I’d like to share.

Work in progress … 👷‍♂️

One of the main goals of this newsletter is to help me produce intermediary products that will eventually result in something more durable than individual posts (books, courses, etc.) For this reason, I am iterating over common themes, organizing some posts around series, and publishing recorded videos of my courses. These are the currently active projects:

1. RhetVis course. This semester, I am teaching a new course titled Rhetorical Data Visualization. As I prepare material for the course, I record video lectures that I post in this newsletter. So far, I have posted only the first video, but you will see more soon.

2. Series on Data Transformation. Last week, I started a series on Data Transformation and the role it plays in visualization. This is, in my opinion, a big gap, and I am excited to contribute some structured content.

I hope I will be able to record and post all the RhetVis videos before the Christmas holidays. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish the series on data transformation too. It should be around 4-5 posts in total.

Brewing … 🫖

Many other things are brewing but are still in their infancy. Here are some I’d like to share with you:

1. Visualization for Machine Learning. I have a series of posts on visualization for machine learning. They revolve around the modules and themes of the course I taught last year. It’s on the back burner because I have the two projects above to complete. But if you are interested, let me know! I have a great annotated list of papers that I could share.

2. (Video) paper reviews. I have a hypothesis that many of you would like to know more about the ongoing research but have no time to stay up to date. I would like to experiment with a format where I summarize the main ideas in a paper (or group of papers) in a video where I scroll through the paper and highlight and explain the main part. I did some experiments, but I have to try again. What do you think? Would you like something like that?

I have been thinking about a (monthly?) list of interesting papers to read that I could send you in the newsletter, but I am unsure if I can do it yet.

Social media, schmedia …

Social media has been a mess lately! I kept being bullish on Twitter/X for a while. I really did not want to drop the bone, but in the end, I have to face the reality that my messages there do not gain any traction anymore.

For this reason, I have been focusing on LinkedIn quite a bit lately. I am still uncomfortable with the platform's corporate vibe and push nature. Most people seem to be there only to advertise their work (which I honestly find a pretty boring and unimaginative use of social media). However, some of my posts there gained a lot of traction. My post on having days with no meetings seemed to strike a chord! Even my Dean replied enthusiastically, which was really cool. So, people seem receptive to people who are not only promoting their work.

Jane Adams convinced me to hang out more in “vis.social” on Mastodon. I started yesterday, and it seems like a nice, quiet place (finally!). I hope it’s not too quiet, but the vibe seems ok. So, I’ll try that in the next few weeks. I will be on these two platforms if you want to interact with me.

Can I ask you a favor? Actually two …

First, if you enjoy the newsletter, let me know! I encourage you to write comments on my posts or write to me directly via social media if you are on LinkedIn or Mastodon. I’d love to know more about what you like and what else I could do to provide useful information. You can also use the button below and leave a comment here.

Second, can you help me attract more subscribers? If you know anyone who might find this newsletter useful please share it with them. If you like a post, let others know on your preferred social media platform.

Ok, that’s all for now.

Thanks!