FILWD Year In Review 2024
Visualization of last year's posts. Top posts of 2024. Personal highlights.
Here we are, friends. An entire year of newsletter posts has passed. It seems like yesterday, in December 2023, when I was sitting in a coffee shop in Rome (we call it a “bar” in Italy), making plans for what I wanted to accomplish with the newsletter in 2024. I have such a vivid image of how I felt about it. The privilege of writing to a growing number of people and ideating ways to create something interesting and useful for them (that’s YOU, my dear reader). One of the main goals I set for myself was to write one post a week. Actually, a little less. I remember telling myself, “I want to be able for the first time to do something consistently for a whole year.” I also told myself that I should make it realistic and cut myself a little slack, so I wrote it down in my annual plan, “By the end of 2024, I will have published 50 posts,” which is one post a week minus two. I am happy to report that this is the last and 50th post of 2024. Mission accomplished!
What did I post?
What is better than a data visualization to look back at this past year? Below, you can find a couple of visualizations that tell a story about the 50 posts I wrote. I organized the data into two main facets: the topics I covered (top part) and the post type (bottom part). It took me a while to find a reasonable categorization, and it’s never going to be perfect, so bear with me, please!
Main Themes
The thing that stands out the most to me is how many posts were related to AI. I did not intend to focus so much on AI, and I was surprised when I finished categorizing the posts. As you can see, I have covered AI-related posts quite consistently throughout the year. Part of this is due to the inclusion of reports from events and video chats I recorded in this category, but still, I did not expect this to be such a central theme of my newsletter.
The yellow sequence in the chart is all the monthly updates I wrote. As you can see, I have been quite consistent in reporting the main updates each month.
The purple sequence concerns visualization literacy, which I consistently covered in the year's first half. Some of these posts are about the reading clubs I organized.
I also posted about academia more recently (blue dots), my RhetVis course (red dots), data aspects of data visualization (cyan dots), and vis theory and practice (pink dots), which I like to think is the most classic type of post in this newsletter.
Post Types
Another useful lens is to examine the type of posts I created. As noted, I have been quite consistent with my monthly updates. Do you see all the stars in the first row?
The regular posts are just posts where I write my ideas and reflections that do not belong to a series. As you can see, I was very busy writing a series in the first half of the year (the arrows in the chart) and focused more on writing regular posts (the dots). These two types require the most thinking, research, and writing time. This is when I feel like I am “squeezing my brain.”
In 2024, I recorded a few videos and video chats (the diamonds). I enjoyed experimenting with them, but I wish I had worked on them more systematically. Next year, I may record and publish this type of post more frequently.
I expect next year to be filled with more events and announcements (the crosses), so you’ll see more of these posts. I have an idea for creating more recurring events similar to the reading clubs we had in the first half of the year.
Top Posts of 2024
To my surprise, two of the top three posts of 2024 are about using titles in visualization. I never imagined this topic would be so popular!
I have no idea why this topic resonated with so many of you. My initial intent was to create something for my courses and to cover a gap I felt I had. After researching titles and creating a module for my course, I feel I have a much better grasp of the problem. In any case, be on the lookout for new posts. I have been preparing new material to add to the series on titles. I need to do a bit more thinking and research before writing the next post.
The third post in the top three is not too surprising; it’s one of my posts on AI.
In this post, I speculated about what AI can do for data visualization. My original intent was to make it a combination of posts, with the other one titled “What Can Data Visualization Do for AI?” But somehow, I got lost and never managed to work on it.
Personal Highlights
I love everything I have written and done in 2024. I am happy with the variety of post types and themes I have covered. This is what I wanted above all: experiment with all these directions. I am even happier with how much I had to learn in order to write these posts and organize all the activities that revolve around the newsletter and its subscribers.
My personal highlights are all about producing valuable content and services for my readers. When I started this newsletter, my intent was to find a way to “exploit” the weekly writing practice as a way to produce more durable content than individual posts, as well as learning experiences. For this reason, these are my personal highlights:
Rhetorical Data Visualization Course: I already wrote about the course in a previous post. This is my biggest achievement this year. The fact that a whole course is available online and people can now take it is a massive milestone for me.
Reading Clubs: The meetings I had with FILWD subscribers have been fantastic! There is a world of difference between sending posts to thousands of faceless people and talking with some of them in a conference call. The reading clubs gave me an opportunity to interact and connect with some of you in a much closer way and gave me a good sense of how much potential there is here to create a more interactive community.
FILWD Series: Creating a series is the hardest activity after creating courses. They require a ton of thinking, researching, reading, drafting, etc. I am super proud I was able to finalize the series on data transformation and start the one on visualization for machine learning. The next step is to use these series to create even more durable content, such as guides, courses, or books.
Gratitude
I want to conclude this end-of-the-year post to say thank you to all of you for reading the newsletter. A special thanks go to the readers who participated as beta testers of my course and to those who took the time to participate in the reading club. Your feedback has been absolutely invaluable, and I am looking forward to creating much more content and ideas in 2025!
Happy New Year!!! 🎆 🎊🍾🎉