Big Data Bootcamp in Dallas May 5-7

I'll be giving my talk "What is Good DataViz Design?" at the Big Data Bootcamp in Dallas, May 5-7, 2017 at the Irving Convention Center. There will be other fantastic speakers as well, including Barrret Clark, author of the Data Visualization Toolkit, which is this month's giveaway!

For anyone interested in attending the entire event, get $200 OFF your registration cost by using the discount code DFWDATAVIZ and this LINK. The discount is good for registrations until April 27th.

O'Reilly Design Conference 20% Discount

The O'Reilly Design Conference will run from March 19-22, 2017 in San Francisco, CA. Cool Infographics readers can get 20% OFF the registration cost by using this LINK and the discount code PCCOOL

It’s no longer enough to solve creative problems well; designers must also be business-literate and tech-savvy. Join us to learn new skills—and build your career—at the sweet spot where design, business, and technology intersect.

As the combination of design and technology continues to revolutionize products, services, and the very nature of competition, the role of the designer is ever more critical. Whatever your title, if you contribute to design decisions, you need to be prepared. At the O’Reilly Design Conference, interaction and UX designers, user researchers, product designers and managers, and entrepreneurs will share important lessons on how to make a lasting impact on your organization—and the world beyond—through design.

If you're anywhere around the San Francisco area, or can make the trip, this is a fantastic conference!

Strata-Hadoop World NYC Conference Pass Giveaway & Discount

The O'Reilly Strata+Hadoop World conference is coming up September 26-29 in New York City, NY!

First, I have a discount code from O'Reilly that will get you 20% OFF the registration cost!  Click THIS LINK and use the code PCCOOL during checkout to get the 20% discount.

Second, this month's giveaway is one free pass to the Strata+Hadoop World NYC conference! Register on the GIVEAWAYS page before 11:59pm CT on September 2, 2016 to be entered. I will randomly chose a winner on September 3rd.

Customizing 360 Photos - I Need Your Votes

I NEED YOUR VOTES!

SxSW 2017 PanelPicker is open until September 2nd, and this is the community voting portion of the SxSW conference. This is a big part of getting accepted to speak at SxSW, and I need your votes to help support two proposals. My talks proposed for the 2017 conference relate to editing and publishing 360° photos with data visualizations and graphic elements for digital marketing. This is a new content format that can also take advantage of data visualizations and infographics!

Now that Facebook natively displays immersive 360° photos, you can use 360 photography to promote your product, service, and/or brand. However, just publishing raw images is already behind the curve. In this presentation I will teach you how to embrace this technology and harness its reach. You will learn how to inject your brand, call outs, data visualizations and graphic elements to make your 360 photos a full experience for your audience. This presentation will also cover how to optimize a 360 image file, adjust the metadata, demonstrate different editing tools, and help your brand take its marketing to the next level.

You'll need to sign in or create an account to vote. Here's the Login Page

Optimizing 360 Photos for Marketing Your Brand is my Solo talk proposal

Customizing 360 Photos for Digital Marketing is my Workshop proposal

You can help in three ways:

1. Click the links above and vote for my proposal.
2. Leave a positive comment about the talk or your experience with me.
3. Share this proposal on your social pages using the buttons from the SXSW website.

Below you can see a sample edited 360° image embedded here. This example image shows the potential for branding, callouts, data visualziations and other graphic elements that can be added before a company publishes a 360° photo. For example, the white square represents the original view when posted onto Facebook. 

Demonstration of adding graphics to Bedford Boys Ranch Pokemon GO Event 360 photo - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

You can also see the original 360° photo here, before any of the graphic elements were added.

Big Design 2016 Discount & Giveaway

The Big Design 2016 conference is coming up September 8-10 in Addison, TX (in the DFW area)! Big Design is a fabulous conference covering User Experience, Design, Data Visualization, Digital Marketing, Content Strategy and Usability! This year I'll be there signing copies of Cool Infographics, and I'll be giving a new talk "What Is Good Dataviz Design?"

First, I have a discount code from Big Design that will get you 20% OFF the registration cost!  Use the code DATAVIZ during checkout to get the 20% discount.

Second, this month's giveaway is one free pass to the Big Design 2016 conference! Register on the GIVEAWAYS page before 11:59pm CT on August 19, 2016 to be entered. I will randomly chose a winner on August 20th.

O'Reilly Strata Conference Discount & Giveaway

The O'Reilly Strata+Hadoop World conference is coming up quickly on March 28-31 in San Jose, CA.

First, I have a discount code from O'Reilly that will get you 20% OFF the registration cost! Click this link, and use the code AFF20 during checkout to get the 20% discount.

Second, this month's giveaway is one free Bronze pass to the Strata conference! Register on the GIVEAWAYS page before 11:59pm CT on February 29, 2016 to be entered. I will randomly chose a winner on March 1st.

January Roundup of DataViz News

I sent this out to the Cool Infographics Mailing list previously, but I wanted to share on the blog as well. This will be a regular feature sent out to email subscribers, but I haven't decided if I will always post these on the blog as well. Thoughts?

If you're not a subscriber, you can join the email list HERE. I try to send only a few emails per month, and load with them valuable information on dataviz news, design tools, tips, upcoming dataviz events, giveaways, discounts, discussions and other valuable links.

Please tweet links to any DataViz news that should be included in future emails to @rtkrum

Roundup of DataViz Insights, Tools, Tips and News

• Can a love of abstract art and infographic design be combined? They have more in common than we originally thought! This article by Giorgia Lupi delves into how this type of infographic was applied in explaining the "global brain drain."
• A woman of many talents, Dona Wong, author of Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics, tells all when it comes to creating infographics that have a purpose. With infographics, data needs to be more than just design. It should provide real insight into the findings, that are easily digestible for its viewers. Read more here if you’d like to apply her wisdom to the marketing world. She will also be speaking at the AMA Analytics with Purpose Conference next week. 
• The New York Times has announced that Amanda Cox has been named has been named editor of The Upshot. 
• Visually has now been acquired by Scribble Live, a leading content marketing platform, in the hopes of uniting data and creativity to reach target audiences more effectively.

• Don’t be making these design mistakes! If you’re a designer, or if you’re just getting your foot in the door, use tips from Visme to ensure that each design you make is a hit. Use discount code COOL30 for a lifetime discount 30% off your subscription.
• Are you a Prezi user? If so, they’ve updated a new feature to create charts using your data. Check out their tutorial.
• Your business can benefit from telling stories by visualizing data. Data Storytelling: Big Data's Next Frontier from James Kerr on Inc. provided 5 Tips to establish a necessary data storytelling environment for your business. 
• IBM's free online dataviz site, manyeyes, was shuttered on Dec 31st, and the visualization tools are being rolled into IBM Watson Analytics over time. To learn more about what they’re offering see, click here.
• KANTAR and Information Is Beautiful have announced the 2015 Information is Beautiful award winners! Check out the whole gallery.
• Malofiej 24: Infographic World Summit registration is now open, with an impressive lineup of speakers coming March 6-11 in Pamplona, Spain.
• The O'Reilly Strata+Hadoop World Conference will be taking place from March 29-31 in San Jose, CA. Use code AFF20 for 20% off tickets you can purchase here.
•  has opened for the OpenVis Conference in April, which will be held in Boston. 
• If you're in San Francisco, there will be a public workshop detailing storytelling using data with Cole Knaflic on February 8th.
• A FREE one-day event in Miami, FL will be held on February 20 in celebration of World Information Architecture Day.

New DataViz Books:

Building Responsive Data Visualization for the Web, by Bill Hinderman

Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals, by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

DataViz Gift Guide 2015

Some of the best DataViz themed gifts for the holiday season, with some great deals and discounts as well.

BOOKS

• Building Responsive Data Visualization for the Web, Bill Hinderman
• Storytelling with Data, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
• Signal: Understanding What Matters in a World of Noise, Stephen Few
• The Best American Infographics 2015, Gareth Cook
• Cool Infographics: Effective Communication with Data Visualization and Design, Randy Krum

POSTERS

• Timeplots.com - 20% OFF all infographic posters, Discount Code “coolinfo”
• HistoryShots - Check out PopWaves, the updated History of Pop/Rock Music poster!
• Pop Chart Lab - Running a 12-Days of Christmas sale in December

TOOLS

• Visme.co - Free trial, 40% OFF first payment (monthly or yearly subscription), Discount Code “COOL40”
• The Noun Project - Free with attribution or $9.99/month unlimited. Creating, Sharing and Celebrating the World’s Visual Language
• IBM Watson Analytics - Free & Paid editions. Predictive analytics and data visualization. Analyze your data in minutes on your own without downloading software.

TRAINING

• Data Visualization, Learning Paths Video Training Courses, O’Reilly Media
• Data Visualization & Infographics Design Course at SMU CAPE, Dallas, TX, taught by Randy Krum. April 5 - May 10, 2016 - Use discount code VIP316 for $50 off registration cost
• Social Media Marketing Specialization MOOC online course offered by Northwestern University and Coursera.

CONFERENCES

• O'Reilly Design Conference, San Francisco, CA, January 20-22, 2016, Discount Code 20% OFF “AFF20”
• Strata + Hadoop World, San Jose, CA, March 28-31, 2016, Discount Code 20% OFF “AFF20”
• AMA: Analytics With Purpose, Scottsdale, AZ, February 7-9, 2016

What else would you add to your DataViz wish list?

Giveaway: One O'Reilly Design Conference Pass

This month I have ONE conference pass to O'Reilly Design: Design The Future in San Francisco, CA from January 20-22. Conference pass only, any other expenses are your responsibility.

Register HERE by 11:59pm on December 31, 2015 to be entered. A winner will be randomly selected on Jan 1st.

I'll be going to the conference as well, so let me know on Twitter @rtkrum if you're going or will be in the San Francisco area that week!

This a new conference being held for the 1st time! The O’Reilly Design Conference is where interaction designers, UX designers, user researchers, product designers, product managers, and entrepreneurs will explore new ways design will shape the future. This three-day conference is a deep-immersion experience focused on providing designers with the full stack of skills they need to remain competitive and create the next generation of products and services.

If you are interested purchasing conference passes, click this LINK and use the discount code AFF20 to get 20% OFF the cost of the conference passes.

Giveaway: One Pass to Strata NYC Conference

I am pleased to announce the new Cool Infographics Giveaways page. I frequently have stuff donated to giveaway to the readers of Cool Infographics. Books, conference tickets, subscriptions, training courses, etc. My plan is to give something away each month, so check back often to register for the latest giveaway!

This month I have ONE conference pass to the Strata-Hadoop World conference in New York City from September 29 - October 1st. That's only TWO WEEKS away! Register by the end of the day on September 24th, and I will give away the pass on Friday, September 25th.

Register HERE