Making Big Numbers Meaningful

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Using Images to Understand Social Causes

Sometimes numbers can be confusing... That is why many choose to demonstrate key social issues using images and graphics.  These Infographics and Data Visualizations cut through the abstractness of "1 billions dollars", "102,234 deaths" or "600,000 homeless" by displaying images that are clear and often overwhelming.  Essentially making statistics much more real to the reader.

Below I capture some of these outstanding commentary on society.  Some are listed and reviewed because of the cause and others because of the mastery in producing the visualization.

How Billions are Spent 

where the money goes...

This is an entry in the Information is Beautiful Blog by David McCandless. It uses a technique of layout out boxes whose sizes represent amounts of money. Quickly you see the staggering amounts the U.S. is spending on the stimulus, how the Iraq War spending compares to initial estimates, and relatively how little it would cost to feed every child in the world for a year. This is one powerful graphic...The Billion Dollar Gram

Good Magazine Contest to Create an Infographic on CEO Pay 

Is such disparity justified?

Capitalism is about supply and demand and selecting the price that the market will bear. This info-graphic brings calls out the disparity between those at the top and the bottom.

Link to the winner of the Good Magazine Contest.

Contest details and other entries.

Chris Jordan's talk at TED 

Visualizing Society's Bad Habits

This is an amazing video that inspired this Lens. It demonstrate the art of visualizing large numbers in a way the human mind can really understand. It has the power to motivate one into changing.

Chris Jordan: Picturing excess

http://www.ted.com Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics -- like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day.

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Links to Social Infographics 

Discussing or Demonstrating Social Infographics

Below are some products on Amazon that either discuss Social Info-graphics or demonstrate use of data visualizations as commentary on society.

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth

Director Davis Guggenheim eloquently weaves the sc more...0 points

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It by Al Gore

An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It by Al Gore

An Inconvenient Truth-Gore's groundbreaking, battl more...0 points

Running the Numbers: An American Self-portrait by Chris Jordan

Running the Numbers: An American Self-portrait by Chris Jordan

Statistics can be daunting and dry: 1,000,000 tree more...0 points

Good Infographics 

GOOD is an organization and associated magazine that aims to be "a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward." While they do it they have also created some amazing images to help society understand the data around it.

If you have not seen it you should check out the Good Transparency Department.

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by GaryGeo

My interest from (professional to personal) business intelligence, the web, programming, gadgets, chess, bbq, jeeping and family time (3 under 4). (more)

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