How the Illusion of Being Observed Can Make You a Better Person: Van Der Linden, London School of Economics

Many years ago, when I was still in high school, I was extremely fond of chewing gum, especially during class hours. However, sooner or later the chewing gum would either lose its taste or I would become bored with it. After a while, I would start looking around, wondering how I could get rid of the gum nice and quietly. As you might have guessed by now, yes, I was that kid sticking his used gum underneath the desk. And as I grew older, I started noticing that I wasn’t the only one deviating from the social norms that society has laid out for us. How often is it that we conveniently forget to return dirty food trays in the cafeteria? Or let our dogs poop in the park and head off before anyone has a chance to notice? I think Thomas Jefferson was on a similar train of thought when he wrote, “Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.” I always found this to be a particularly interesting quote, as it reminds us of the fact that we tend to be on our best behavior when we know that we are being observed. While this may seem obvious, new research points to something far less obvious:

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Data, information, knowledge, wisdom - visualized! Information Is Beautiful |

Just a think-piece really.

(I was recently visiting the office of the awesome design website Swiss Miss. Over snacks, they asked me to christen their “lunch guest wall” with a scribble. Caught in the headlights and feeling the pressure to be clever and impressive, my mind, of course, went blank. Spotless white. All I had was a noodle in my notepad about the increasing organisational structure of information and how it might relate to visualization. It had been a *long* flight to NY.)

I got kinda stuck with it. So I wanted to open it up and see what you thought.

This is by no means original thought. This structure has been around for a while. (In fact does anyone knows who first came up with it?). The only new thing is relating it to visuals. And giving it a nice font.

One interesting thing. If you visualise information without designing it, you often end up with a mush or a meaningless thicket. So if you can only really ‘design’ information, rather than visualize it, then maybe the term ‘information visualization’ is a bit of a misnomer?

Anyway, how does it look to you? Does it seem logical? Truthful? Do the definitions ring true? What could be the word for the visual depiction of wisdom? Does greater verticality imply greater meaning? Or can errors creep in?

Look forward to your ideas, feedback and corrections!

Link to Information Is Beautiful Blog

How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online? - An Alarming Statistic from Information is Beautiful

Recently, the UK government passed The Digital Economy Act which included many, perhaps draconian, measures to combat online music piracy (including withdrawing broadband access for persistent pirates). Much was proclaimed about how these new laws would protect musicians and artists revenue and livelihoods. But how much money do musicians really get paid in this new digital marketplace?

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What Does Your Soul Look LIke

What does your Soul look like? An interesting visual art project created by a group called Information is Beautiful. Full instructions on how to draw your Soul are included on the site

How Visualisation of Data and Things Helps Us

I have always wondered why visual artists who are employed to illustrate meetings seem to stimulate some meetings and attendees and not others. This video provides a reason as to why they work. However my view is that this process doesn't work for everyone. Worth having a peep at least!!