In this week’s episode of the show, I talk with Mike "SullyDawg" Sullivan, the viral creator behind the cup pyramid videos that turn massive federal budget numbers into something you can actually see. Mike spent decades as a teacher and coach before a bike ride inspired his first video stacking Solo cups to explain government spending — and it took off almost overnight. We dig into why three-dimensional scale succeeds where bar charts and line graphs fail, how he sources and cross-checks the data behind every video, and the four-part formula he swears by: topic, data, energy, and visual. Mike also opens up about the physical work of stacking thousands of cups in his garage, the unpredictable swings of the social media algorithms, and what’s next for his growing platform. It’s a fun, thoughtful conversation about making enormous numbers finally make sense.

Subscribe to this podcast. [https://pod.link/982966091] Follow this show and everything dataviz on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanschwabish/], Substack [https://jschwabish.substack.com/], X [https://x.com/jschwabish], and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/c/JonSchwabish]. Check out the PolicyViz website [https://policyviz.com/]to learn more about data and data visualization.

Questions? Comments? Pitch ideas? Email me at: jon@policyviz.com

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Mike "SullyDawg" Sullivan: Explaining Trillion-Dollar Budgets with Solo Cups

In this My Favorite Graphs episode, I revisit a 2016 New York Times visualization comparing the convention speeches of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I explain why highlighting phrases across miniature pages can reveal themes in qualitative data that word counts and bar charts can miss. I share how I have used a simple version of this technique in my own work and discuss tools for creating similar views. Alicia contributes a voice note about the project's development, including the highlighted Google Docs behind the finished graphics. I also discuss how pairing an overview with example quotes can help readers see the broader context of an interview, focus group, or speech.

Subscribe to this podcast. [https://pod.link/982966091] Follow this show and everything dataviz on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanschwabish/], Substack [https://jschwabish.substack.com/], X [https://x.com/jschwabish], and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/c/JonSchwabish]. Check out the PolicyViz website [https://policyviz.com/] to learn more about data and data visualization.

Questions? Comments? Pitch ideas? Email me at: jon@policyviz.com

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My Favorite Graphs: Stronger Together from The New York Times

Lauren Klein joins me to talk about her new book, Data by Design [https://link.amazon/B01DQgByh], co-authored with a team of student collaborators. Over more than a decade of work, Lauren set out to place the history of data visualization in its full historical and political context, going well beyond the familiar “great men” narrative of Playfair and Snow. We talk about how she chose which historical visualizations to feature and redesign, the ethical questions that come up when working with data about the transatlantic slave trade and Indigenous mapping, and what it actually took to track down high-resolution scans of centuries-old charts. Lauren also shares what she wants readers, especially working data visualization designers, to take away: that visualization is only as powerful as how, and by whom, it's put to use.

Subscribe to this podcast. [https://pod.link/982966091] Follow this show and everything dataviz on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanschwabish/], Substack [https://jschwabish.substack.com/], X [https://x.com/jschwabish], and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/c/JonSchwabish]. Check out the PolicyViz website [https://policyviz.com/]to learn more about data and data visualization.

Questions? Comments? Pitch ideas? Email me at: jon@policyviz.com

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Playfair, Power, and the People Behind the Data: Lauren Klein on Data by Design

This week I kick off a new series on the show: My Favorite Graphs. I’m going to walk through the projects that shaped how I think about data visualization, data communication, and data storytelling. I'm starting with the Guardian's “Bussed Out: How America Moves Its Homeless,” published in December 2017, an 18-month investigation into the one-way bus tickets that US cities hand out to homeless people. There’s a special treat at the end too!

My Favorite Graph: Bussed Out [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country-study]

Subscribe to this podcast. [https://pod.link/982966091] Follow this show and everything dataviz on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanschwabish/], Substack [https://jschwabish.substack.com/], X [https://x.com/jschwabish], and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/c/JonSchwabish]. Check out the PolicyViz website [https://policyviz.com/]to learn more about data and data visualization.

Questions? Comments? Pitch ideas? Email me at: jon@policyviz.com

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My Favorite Graphs: The Guardian's “Bussed Out”

In this very special episode of the podcast, I talk with my wife, Lauren Schwabish, a speech-language pathologist who helps adults recover communication after stroke, traumatic brain injury, and other neurological conditions. We discuss person-centered care, translating medical jargon into plain language for patients and families, and the visual tools and assistive technology Lauren builds to help people with aphasia communicate — with real lessons for anyone designing data visualizations, dashboards, or reports for a broad audience.

SHOW NOTES

Neuro Speech Services [https://www.neurospeechservices.com/] | @NeuroSpeechServices on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/neurospeechservices/] | National Aphasia Association [https://aphasia.org/] | Aphasia Access [https://www.aphasiaaccess.org/] | BYU Aphasia-Friendly Research Resource [https://aphasia.byu.edu/resources-for-people-with-aphasia] | Stroke Association (UK) Aphasia-Friendly Guide [https://www.stroke.org.uk/aphasia-accessible-information-guidelines.pdf]

Subscribe to this podcast. [https://pod.link/982966091] Follow this show and everything dataviz on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanschwabish/], Substack [https://jschwabish.substack.com/], X [https://x.com/jschwabish], and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/c/JonSchwabish]. Check out the PolicyViz website [https://policyviz.com/]to learn more about data and data visualization.

Questions? Comments? Pitch ideas? Email me at: jon@policyviz.com

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What Data Communicators Can Learn from Speech-Language Pathology

Welcome back to Season 13 of the PolicyViz Podcast! In this quick solo kickoff, I walk you through everything I have planned this season, from a full episode on accessibility in data communication to a brand-new weekly series where I talk through some of my favorite data visualizations from the last 15 years. I'll also tell you about my very first live podcast recording, happening in November in Boston as part of the IEEE VIS Conference and the new Cluster Practitioner Summit I'm co-organizing. Along the way I'll be expanding my YouTube content around Flourish, Excel, and PowerPoint, including how I'm using AI tools like Claude and Copilot in my own workflow. It's shaping up to be a busy, lucky Season 13, and I'm so glad you're along for the ride.

Subscribe to this podcast. [https://pod.link/982966091] Follow this show and everything dataviz on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanschwabish/], Substack [https://jschwabish.substack.com/], X [https://x.com/jschwabish], and YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/c/JonSchwabish]. Check out the PolicyViz website [https://policyviz.com/]to learn more about data and data visualization.

Questions? Comments? Pitch ideas? Email me at: jon@policyviz.com

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New Season, New Format: Live Shows, Accessibility, and My Favorite Dataviz

Welcome to the final episode of Season #12 of the PolicyViz Podcast! Thanks so much for checking out the show this season and I hope you enjoy your summer. I’ll be back this fall with more great episodes.

On this episode of the show, I’m joined by David Aerne, a freelance developer and designer based in Zurich who has spent years building a remarkable collection of open-source color tools. We dig into the difference between color models, color spaces, and gamuts, and David explains why thinking about color in three dimensions—like navigating a cylinder—can make choosing palettes so much more intuitive. We talk through several of his projects, including Color Names (a curated list of nearly 32,000 community-contributed color names), Rampensau for generating color ramps, and the playful RYB-inspired explainer that simulates how physical, “printy” colors look on screen. David shares his philosophy that we should integrate the systems that generate colors into our work, rather than freezing a static palette and losing the creativity along the way. Whether you build dashboards, design slides, or just love playing with color, this conversation will change how you think about picking your next palette.

Keywords: color theory, color palettes, data visualization, color tools, HSL, HSV, RGB, color models, color spaces, open source, generative art, color ramps, design tools, JavaScript, web development, pixel art, PolicyViz Podcast, David Aerne

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Follow David Aerne on Bluesky and X (@meodai) and explore his open-source projects at elastiq.ch

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Email: jon@policyviz.com

The Math Behind Beautiful Color: David Aerne on Building Open-Source Color Tools

Welcome back to the show! In this week’s episode, I chat with Christian Martinez, a faculty member at Brooklyn College and several other CUNY schools, and Shannon Joyce, a newly minted master’s graduate in psychological research—who, as we note at the top, literally graduated the day before we recorded. Christian shares how he redesigned his graduate stats and R course around NYC Open Data, building what he calls an “accidental author” process that transforms students’ weekly homework into portfolio books and, ultimately, chapters in a published student gallery. Shannon walks us through her own project exploring the relationship between mold complaints and domestic violence rates in New York City, and reflects on what it means to learn to code by asking questions you actually care about. We also dig into the NYC Open Data R package Christian and his students built together—now streamlined from 40 functions down to three and approaching 2,000 installs—and close with a lively conversation about whether open data skews too negative and what a truly positive city dataset might look like.

Keywords: NYC open data, R programming, data visualization, teaching data science, open data, CUNY Brooklyn College, R package, data education, open educational resources, data storytelling, Quarto, RStudio, graduate education, data literacy, public data

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Find Christian Martinez and all student work at NYCOpenDataLab.org. Find Shannon Joyce on GitHub (github.com/ShannonJoyce) and LinkedIn.

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Email: jon@policyviz.com

From Homework to Portfolio: NYC Open Data in the Classroom

Episode #310! This week I sit down with Jennifer Roscoe and Shrishti Vaish, two of the key organizers behind Outlier 2026, the annual data visualization conference hosted by the Data Visualization Society. We talked about what it takes to pull off a fully virtual, global conference, and why going virtual this year was a strategic choice, not a compromise. Jennifer and Shrishti walked me through the conference dates (June 23–26), the brand-new pre-conference data challenge in partnership with the United Nations, and the exciting new feedback and career clinic designed to give attendees a safe space for honest critique and professional growth. We also get into the behind-the-scenes logistics: the 30-person volunteer committee, the technology stack (mostly Google Sheets, if you were wondering), and the delicate art of playing Tetris with 34 talks across a 12-hour global schedule. Whether you’re a first-time attendee or a longtime DVS community member, this episode is your guide to making the most of Outlier 2026.

Keywords: data visualization, data viz, Outlier conference, Data Visualization Society, DVS, data viz conference, Jennifer Roscoe, Shrishti Vaish, virtual conference, data storytelling, dataviz community, conference planning, career clinic, information is beautiful, data challenge, United Nations data, PolicyViz podcast

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Check out the 2026 Outlier Conference [https://www.datavisualizationsociety.org/outlier].

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Email: jon@policyviz.com

Outlier 2026: What to Expect at This Year’s Data Visualization Society Conference

I talk with Ramon Perez, Executive Director of the Digital Democracy Project this week. DDP is a nonpartisan nonprofit using secure mobile voting technology to give citizens a real-time voice in legislation. Ramon explains how the platform lets verified, registered voters weigh in on bills being debated in Congress and their state house—and then scores legislators on how closely their votes match what their districts wanted. We dig into how AI, including a RAG-powered chatbot called VoteBot, helps everyday citizens parse thousands of pages of complex legislative text. We also discuss digital security, participatory budgeting, and Ramon’s ambitious goal of expanding the platform to all 50 state legislatures by 2027.

Keywords: digital democracy, mobile voting, civic tech, legislative transparency, AI in government, Ramon Perez, Digital Democracy Project, VoteBot, participatory budgeting, voter engagement, legislator accountability, PolicyViz podcast, civic engagement, govtech

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Follow Ramon Perez and the Digital Democracy Project at digitaldemocracyproject.org and download the Votes (VOATZ) app to participate.

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Email: jon@policyviz.com

Reimagining Civic Participation: The Digital Democracy Project

Helping you do a better job processing, analyzing, sharing, and presenting your data.

Jon (@jschwabish) · Zencastr

Jon (@jschwabish)

Learn how to be a great data communicator and visualizer with host Jon Schwabish. Hear from experts in the fields of data science, data visualization, and presentation skills to improve how you and your organization collect, analyze, and communicate your data in better, more efficient, and more effective ways.

The PolicyViz Podcast