95 | Challenges of Being a Vis Professional in Industry with Elijah Meeks

Data Stories

This week, we have Elijah Meeks on the show to talk about the state of data visualization jobs in the industry.

Elijah sparked a recent debate with the following Twitter message: “Most people in #Datavisualization end up transitioning into data sci/eng or UI because there’s something wrong with the state of dataviz.” His tweet struck an interesting chord, so we thought we would bring him on the show to hear more.

In the episode, we talk about what is going on in the data visualization field and whether there really is a problem for data visualization professionals in the industry. We also talk about the great survey Elijah run on the state of the vis industry, which attracted around 1000 responses (!).

Enjoy the show!

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Data Stories is brought to you by the upcoming 2017 Eyeo Festival. Eyeo brings together people drawn to the intersection of data, art, storytelling and creative technology. Tickets are on sale now, and almost gone. Get yours at eyeofestival.com. Converge to inspire.

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Links

• Elijah’s original tweet
• Elijah’s follow-up article “If Data Visualization is So Hot, Why Are People Leaving?”
• Collection of responses: “Visualizing, The Field: Finding Our Way”
• Moritz’s response: “There be dragons: dataviz in the industry”
• Irene Ros’ Response: “In Defense of Simplicity, A Data Visualization Journey”
• 2017 Data Visualization Survey Results

http://datastori.es/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/elijah-meeks-promo.m4v

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Related episodes

• Jeff Heer on Merging Industry and Research with the Interactive Data Lab
• The Hustle with Mahir Yavuz and Jan Willem Tulp
• Data Visualization at Capital One with Kim Rees and Steph Hay
• Formalizing Design with Gabrielle Mérite and Alan Wilson

Chapters

1. Our sponsor: Eyeo festival 2017 (00:00:10)

http://eyeofestival.com/

2. Welcome back to Data Stories! (00:01:20)

3. Don't forget to support our Patreon account! (00:01:43)

http://www.patreon.com/datastories

4. Introducing Elijah Meeks (00:02:12)

https://medium.com/@Elijah_Meeks

5. Debating data vis industry (00:04:27)

https://medium.com/visualizing-the-field/why-people-leave-their-data-viz-jobs-be1a7ab5dddc

6. Is it a problem if data viz is treated as an add-on skill? (00:19:24)

7. Is the industry actually evolving (just slowly) to support data viz? (00:23:46)

8. What should be done to fix this (supposed) problem? (00:29:16)

9. The role of data visualization professionals in growing the industry (00:39:44)

10. Working on making data visualization a real profession (00:49:43)

11. Get in touch & back us on Patreon (00:51:16)

https://www.patreon.com/datastories

12. Our sponsor: Eyeo festival 2018 (00:52:45)

http://eyeofestival.com/