Hans Rosling & the art of storytelling with statistics

Hans Rosling is the Zen Master of presenting statistics. He's brilliant. Hans proves what we all know, even if our teachers from yesteryear did not: Statistics are not boring. Statistics tell a story. Hans gave this talk at TEDIndia a couple of weeks ago. (I heard from friends who attended TEDIndia that the entire event was incredible; I must get there next year.) This may be the best Hans Rosling TED talk yet (all his talks are fantastic). He's natural, funny, passionate, and he knows his points and where he's going with them—and he's very, very visual. And what a great stage—that's the best TED stage atmosphere I've seen yet. Do yourself a favor and set aside 15 minutes to watch this informative talk. Better yet, share it with others.

Gapminder World
Gapminder World is a web service that displays time series of development statistics for all countries (Google acquired Trendalyzer from the Gapminder Foundation in 2006). Gapminder World is a powerful (free) tool. Increasingly, we're running out of excuses to be dull. Remember: Do not simply display data—present the data so that its story is revealed to all.


Gapminder World is loaded with over 200 indicators displaying trends in some cases back as far as the year 1800. Gapminder World is an amazing tool that is especially useful for educators or anyone else who is interested in "unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view."

Comments

[Michael Eury]

He is good isn't he! Riveting, interesting, thought provoking and motivating - and it's based largely on stats - one word, wow!

[Patrick]

Did you see that : http://vimeo.com/6437816 ?

[Mozza]

I had the chance to meet him last Spring and he was incredibly generous of his time (45 minutes for a corridor conversation) and passionate about his topic. Here's hoping that he will influence presentations and teaching all over the world.

[Samuel Sawyer]

Yes, indeed. I watched that video a couple of times right after it appeared.
Thanks of reminding me again about it.
I think I'm going to watch it right now again.:D
Thanks.

[Alışveriş]

Thank you in advance for your quick answer !. Very nice post.

[Alışveriş]

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[seo]

Thank you in advance for your quick answer !. Very nice post.

[seo]

I had the chance to meet him last Spring and he was incredibly generous of his time (45 minutes for a corridor conversation) and passionate about his topic. Here's hoping that he will influence presentations and teaching all over the world.

[sexvkontakte]

Yeah, interesting post indeed!
(my login in Twitter is sexvkontakte)

[Bender]

Nice talk! how did he embbed the content from gapminder to use it on keynote?

[wideeyed.myopenid.com]

I've enjoyed Roslings presentations on Ted but I feel the need to say that it is not just stats. There is this kind of 'gee-wiz isn't this revolutionary' notion that TED seems to implant in people who've seen some presentation as if they knew nothing before — and everything after — the presentation.

The STORIES Roslings tells when he presents these stats are very much sourced from *outside* statistics. At every juncture and shift in data he will say "This is when..." and he points to some historical event/policy reversal etc. (The extent to which he is correct or incorrect about these assertions is not tested statistically just illustrated by way of correlations and co-incidental shifts in the data).

I would suggest what he is really presenting is social geography and history in a way that particularly appeals to a modern mindset that loves to pretend rationality or logical constructs have equivalence with truth. Perhaps he is "leveraging" (to use a weazle word) the *evil victory* of Management Theory over all aspects of communications, decision making and public discourse for a 'captured' audience.

[Presentations Training]

Brilliant use of visuals. Thanks for sharing this!

[kanghosi]

Quite good!! He made tremendous visual:) Thanks for sharing

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[rough toned pencil]

Thanks for this information. It's a nice way to have statistics fun to learn. Just like a rough toned pencil storyboard. It presents simple art yet it conveys meaningful message.

[Commercial storyboard artist]

Brilliant use of visuals.

[video production house]

Here's hoping that he will influence presentations and teaching all over the world.

[sinema]

Nice Article, informative and interesting