I love speaking and writing about data, visualization, and technology. I co-host the Philadelphia Data Visualization Meetup where I curate interesting talks on the intersection of information visualization, data analytics, and design thinking.
In March 2024, I spoke to the annual Datawrapper conference on how to extend Datawrapper tooltips using Svelte, focusing on creating interactive charts with custom data displays. I dove into how to use Datawrapper's chart interaction events and Svelte's reactive programming model to send data from a Datawrapper chart to a Svelte application for displaying additional context. Check out the GitHub repository I mention in the video!
In March 2021, I moderated a panel discussion on Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) for the Delaware Data Innovation Lab Meetup. I gave a presentation on the experiments we conducted at The Lab and insights we had uncovered for data visualization in shared virtual space. I then brought in a panel of technologists and product leaders to share their perspectives on this growing domain which led to fruitful discussion!
In February 2020, I gave my first talk to the meetup I now co-host, the Philadelphia Data Visualization Meetup. I explored the evolution of Google Data Studio (now Looker Studio after the Google acquisition) and its potential for creating custom dashboards and community visualizations. The presentation covered the platform's history, ecosystem, and hands-on methods for building interactive, browser-based data experiences. Check out the full slide deck!
The Urban Institute data visualization team creates a wide array of visual products, including static charts for reports and briefs, interactive standalone graphs for the Urban Wire blog, and larger exploratory tools, all to make research findings more accessible for policymakers, researchers, community leaders, and other stakeholders.
The quest for making melodic discoveries from almost any source
Learn how to create standout portfolio projects that demonstrate creative problem-solving in data analytics interviews.
Explore the best R Shiny UI skins and dashboard themes that go beyond the standard shinydashboard.
Learn how to create an advanced custom heatmap visualization in Google Data Studio using JavaScript and the simpleheat library to improve upon traditional scatterplot visualizations for better insight derivation.
Learn how to create a comprehensive social listening report in Google Data Studio that compares Facebook and Twitter engagement across multiple accounts using normalized engagement metrics for fair comparison across different follower scales.
You can create fully-fledged custom Google Analytics dashboard applications by taking advantage of the vast R/Shiny ecosystem of packages! There's an example application, Shiny template, and instructions to get started.
The feature set within Google Data Studio is growing and the Data Studio development team is putting custom visualizations in the hands of its users!
My first experience at BarCamp Philly, an unconference format that reduces barriers to entry and encourages open knowledge sharing. This post covers highlights from talks on data communication, management parallels with D&D, and thriving in professional environments.
You can easily increase the business value of your existing data by gathering and joining publicly available information from the web. Learn web scraping techniques using R and the rvest package.
Creating a data visualization based on a Twitter bot's data of emojis. Sentiment and count analysis included!