Community

One has to participate in a community to be part of a community. I naturally want to be part of the discourse, and through a sense of community I have found friendship, intellectual stimulation, and a sense of belonging - three key attributes for a general sense of well-being.

History

I have always been obsessed with culture. I’ve been fascinated with how it evolves and how subjective our understanding of culture is. I’ve come to realize a shared history is what binds us together and helps us learn important lessons for the future.

Entrepreneurship

I’ve always had a lot of energy and an ability to help people organize. Recognizing opportunities and having the drive to make sustained progress toward goals has been another theme, and I’ve learned a lot along the way.

Additionally, there are 2 core skills to fit into the mix, design and technology, and both cut across the concepts above. 

My interest in historic data visualization is just an angle to explore human creativity in design, which I use to engage with the wider community.

McKinsey & Company

I was an Associate Partner and the Director of the Data Visualization Lab, a client-focused team creating interactive data storytelling. Our team worked across industries to bring interactive storytelling to our clients to humanize data and drive real-world impact.

The astute observer will notice the changing nature of my work for McKinsey & Company over the 9 years in the chart above. I began my career as a UX designer, then pivoted into data visualization through a stint working in people analytics.

I was at the center of many of McKinsey’s most exciting large-scale projects like launching the McKinsey Health Institute, designing a major sustainability campaign for COP26, and the Future of NY Summit.

When the pandemic hit I had the opportunity to establish the COVID Response Center, a unique platform to share McKinsey’s cross-functional expertise on issues relating to healthcare and economic data related to the pandemic. This included several novel and widely regarded projects like the Emotion Archive, an exploration of US Unemployment, and our most viewed page, the Vaccination Distribution Map.

Nightingale Magazine

The Data Visualization Society launched in 2019 and I founded its journal - Nightingale -  first as a digital platform on Medium, then as a standalone website, and now as a print magazine. We've had over 6M views since we launched, and our print magazine has over 2,000 subscribers across 59 countries.

We consider Nightingale to be a community celebration! Nightingale has become central to the discourse on data visualization globally, with a focus on exploring ethics, best practices, history, career development, and many more compelling conversations.

In 2023, we began our print magazine to continue to inspire and broaden the field of data visualization. We are thrilled to collaborate with so many leaders and practitioners from across our profession to create progressive momentum for our field.

The Data Visualization Society is a professional group with over 22,000 members globally. I also serve on the board of directors and support many efforts across the organization.

Writing about art, culture, and information. 

My research on the data visualizations of W.E.B. Du Bois began as an obsession with understanding how history can inspire the present. The vast history of information design is a window to the real-world problems people faced in the past and mirrors the issues we have today.

I get really excited by system design and approaches to illustrating information. I have a broad set of interests that help me to find parallels from the fine arts to business to science.

This is why I have been so interested in Isotype and pictorial statistics. I have a series of articles written under the general heading of Isotype: an exploration in design. I am currently working on my first book on the design and methodology of Isotype/pictorial statistics and expect it to be ready for publication later this year. 

Lectures and webinars

I’m pleased to lecture often and I always do so without a fee. I regularly speak on W.E.B. Du Bois (youtube), Isotype/pictorial statistics, and historic data visualization in general.

I have presented research at many conferences, symposiums, and learning institutions such as Oxford University, Columbia, NYU, and Northeastern University as well as dataviz groups around the world.

Interested in having me present? Drop me a line at the email above!

Network Awesome

I co-founded Network Awesome on Jan. 1st, 2011. This online TV startup was curated from over 80,000 videos on youtube.

In less than 3 years the site had over 5M views curated by 270 volunteers from around the world. Our channel included a magazine with 800 feature-length articles to elaborate on and explain our curated media. Network Awesome had a die-hard community with 1.5 Million viewers returning over 50 times.

Network Awesome also had a sister company called Radosaur Productions that focused on live-edited HD video streams. Our team brought the massive music channel Boiler Room from webcams to multicamera HD streaming and produced some of their most watched content to date. Other clients included Pitchfork, Universal Music Group, Tumbler, Bonaparte, and House of Vans.

Radosaur Productions also created 2 seasons of the Network Awesome Show -  a concert series featuring some of the best (and weirdest) acts from Berlin as hosted by David Strauss.

Star6

My introduction to software design and development was an iOS app called Star6. We started development a month after the iTunes app store launched in the summer of 2008, and made it to the front page of iTunes in 17 countries eventually selling about 70,000 units. 

Star6 was a musical instrument where the user could upload samples to their phone, manipulate the sound using the accelerometer, and record their performance. Considering the iPhone 3 had a 333Mhz processor at the time, Star6 was an innovation powerhouse that would pave the way for many mobile-first instruments to follow.

Electronic Musician

Much of my wild professional life was lived as an electronic musician (wikipedia). I have many releases on record labels around the world (US, Japan, UK, USA, Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Australia, see Discogs 1, page 2).

In 2004, Pitchfork named one of my albums Best New Music which paved the way for a series of adventures crisscrossing the globe.

I performed at some of the world’s biggest music festivals including Glastonbury (UK), Tim Festival (Brazil), Lowlands Festival (Netherlands), Primavera Sound (Spain), Mutek (Canada), Pukkelpop (Belgium), Glade (UK), Arrezzowave (Italy), and Club Transmediale (Germany).

I started in music by launching the Cock Rock Disco label in 2001 which released scores of albums, vinyl, and CDs by many of the most influential artists in breakcore. At the time, I was hosting the influential “Advanced D&D” radio program on WFMU in NYC, which was from 2002-2008. He co-founded the Wasted Festival with Pure and in conjunction with Club Transmediale (CTM) in 2005. The festival was focused on the Breakcore genre and all forms of music that share the same energy and reckless enthusiasm.

My album, “Fear City”, was released in September 2018. You can find more of my music on bandcamp, youtube, and Spotify.

Resident Advisor bio

All Music Guide bio

All music guide on Jason Forrest’s “Unrelenting Songs…”

“A Day-Glo burst of wacked-out samples, clattering percussion, sun-kissed melodies, and general electronic insanity. Unless you are the sourest of electronica purists, you can't help but be knocked out by the sheer amount of wit, skill, and joy on display here.”

Pitchfork on “The Everything”

“Jason Forrest's mid-decade breakthrough was a coup when it came to the sampling arts.… these albums were singularly deranged acts of joyful violence against musical familiarity. You like having your music-nerd buttons pushed by recognizable snippets of canonical rock and pop favorites? Well, here they are crumbling to scraps, rattling around like superballs in a laundromat tumble dryer or burning like overheated film stock. Whether they were specific moments of instantly identifiable songs or a more generalist interpretation of certain genres, the way these loops were fed through Forrest's unpredictable yet danceable breakcore rhythms was invigoratingly grotesque.”

Music videos

The video for "Steppin Off” was directed by Jon Watts who went on to direct Spider-man: Homecoming + sequels as well as the series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. This was Watt’s first music video and it was named the video of the year by Res magazine in 2005.

The War Photographer video by Joel Trussell (Pickle and Peanut) was named top 5 by Pitchfork media and was downloaded more than 1.5 million times (this was in the days before Youtube.)