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Data for a Continent: Inside the European Correspondent’s Visual Journalism
691 Plays20 days ago
In this episode, I chat with Mandy Spaltman and Sebastian Graeff, co-leads of the data team at The European Correspondent, a volunteer-driven journalism initiative covering news across Europe. They discuss how their team of passionate designers and analysts craft daily data visualizations, their creative process, the tools they use, and the challenge of maintaining a cohesive style while allowing artistic freedom. Hear how they balance storytelling and design, and what the future might hold for interactive and multilingual content.
Keywords: data, data visualization, European Correspondent, data visualization, journalism, infographics, storytelling, media startup, volunteer, creative process, visual design, newsletters, Europe
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Email: jon@policyviz.com
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Transcript
Podcast Update and Personal Changes
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome back to the Policy Biz Podcast. I'm your host, John Schwabisch. I hope you are well as spring gets underway here in Northern Virginia. It's bit of a rainy day here as I record, but we are on the upswing into warmer weather with what we call the great pollening here in Northern Virginia with a green sheen over everything because of the pollen. So making our way through that.
00:00:39
Speaker
There's a lot going on these days, as I'm sure you are well aware. So before I get you over to this week's episode of the show, ah just want to catch you up on what's going on at PolicyViz and with me.
00:00:52
Speaker
So first thing, is i'm still employed. Yes, I am still working at the Urban Institute. We have seen lots of federal grants cut and we have unfortunately had to lay off some good friends and great colleagues. So that has changed my day today. I'm doing more making graphs, which is fun, ah doing more development and doing lots more quick turnaround, fast turnaround research on issues that are important to the country.
Shifting Focus to Current Events
00:01:25
Speaker
So that's the first thing. So I'm still fortunately employed, still working hard to conduct the types of research on issues around nutrition and disability and social security.
00:01:36
Speaker
Secondly, what you might have observed on the policy of his website or in my sub stack or on the dwindling number of social media feeds that I'm still engaged in.
00:01:48
Speaker
I'm focusing a little bit less on data visualization best practices and strategies and focusing more on what's happening in the country these days with my analysis and research and of course data visualizations.
00:02:01
Speaker
So I have been spending a lot more time Thinking about and collecting data on where the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk's Doge Department, and the Trump administration are planning to close, for example, Social Security offices or national parks. I'm focusing more time thinking about how tariffs will impact different communities around the country.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm spending a lot more time thinking about different closures of agencies, different impacts on the economy, and different impacts on people with disabilities as Doge threatens to close and impact in particular the social security system and the social security administration. So you'll notice I'm spending a lot more time thinking about and writing about these issues.
Interactive Maps and New Sales Platform
00:02:46
Speaker
I'm also trying to make more visualizations of the data. One of the things that I released recently is an interactive map built in Flourish that takes the doge list of office closings out of their table and put it into an interactive map.
00:03:00
Speaker
Not a particularly amazing visualization, but just trying to get that information into the hands of people like you who can use it to do your own analysis to understand how these actions of the government can affect you, your family, and your community.
00:03:16
Speaker
A couple the last things that have been going on. One, I have moved my shop off of the PolySivist website over onto Etsy. I was once again ah sort of ah a victim of a credit card attack ah where some of these credit card farms just throw credit card numbers into the shop trying to see which ones ah have not been canceled. So I've had enough of that.
00:03:39
Speaker
No more. I'm done. So I've moved everything over to Etsy. I'm still busy. Building up the shop over there, but if you'd like to check it out, I've got some Excel templates over there I've got some cheat sheets over there and importantly I've put up the last box of match it data visualization ah card games that my friend Severino Rebecca and I made a few years ago I have one box left in the closet and decided to just put up those last 25 on to Etsy. So there's a dwindling number I don't anticipate, especially with new tariffs on China, I don't anticipate printing another set. So if you'd like to get this match it data visualization card game for your kids or your friends or just for yourself at the bar, ah this is
Exploration of New Graph Types
00:04:19
Speaker
your chance. Go over to etsy.com and search for policy viz and it will show up.
00:04:23
Speaker
Other than that, Still just continuing to do the good work, still engaging with the community, a little less active now that social media sort of fragmented. But you will see me writing about some data visualization issues in the coming weeks. There's been an interesting conversation about innovation in the field.
00:04:41
Speaker
There's been some suggestions of new types of graphs that I've really been interested in. So I'm still playing with those ideas, but it's just taking me a little bit longer to get that stuff written and pulled together so that I can share it with you. So.
00:04:53
Speaker
I hope all that is valuable and of interest to you. But if not, if you're here just to listen to the show, well, let me turn
Interview with European Correspondent
00:05:01
Speaker
to that. On this week's episode of the show, I talk to folks from the European Correspondent, a volunteer-led news organization in Europe. I'm really fascinated by their work, by the data visualization in the graphics team, by their workflow, and how they're pulling all this really amazing work together and doing some, what I certainly will argue with some really creative data visualizations.
00:05:24
Speaker
Every day. I mean, every day they are creating some really interesting stuff. So I think you're really going to enjoy this week's episode of the show. We have a really interesting conversation about the workflow and the approach and what the future looks like for the European correspondent. So going to turn it over to that interview. i hope you enjoy it. This has been the Policy Viz Podcast.
00:05:41
Speaker
Enjoy this week's episode of the show.
00:05:46
Speaker
Hey, Mandy and Sebastian. Good to see you. Thanks for coming on the show, taking some of your, ah guess your evening, my morning to to chat. Good to see you both. How are things?
00:05:58
Speaker
Thanks for having us. We're very excited to be here. Things are good. Good to see you. Very, yeah. Very good. ah Yeah, i'm I'm very excited to chat with you all about about the work that you and the team are doing. We've got a lot of ground to cover.
00:06:11
Speaker
So I thought we would just start with like introduction so folks, especially on this side of the pond, can kind of get to know some of the folks behind all of the work.
00:06:22
Speaker
So maybe we could just do like where you're based and not necessarily education per se and all that kind of stuff, but like how you got into like data and data storytelling. And then, um and then what your role is at the, do we say European correspondent or would you say the EC? Cause the EC sounds.
00:06:39
Speaker
We can do both. Okay. All right. We'll both. All right. Mandy, you want to get us going to get us started? Let's go. Yeah, sure. ah So yeah, my name is Mandy. I'm based in the Netherlands, grew up in the Caribbean.
00:06:51
Speaker
um My well educational background, if you will, because that is part of the story of how I got there is in ah neuropsychology and in behavioral science. um So more from like that scientific point of view, I was like, oh, these graphs suck. The posters presented at like scientific conferences suck.
00:07:09
Speaker
Like this can be done so much better. And that's kind of how I got excited about it and sort of shifted a little bit. But still, I think the background in neuropsychology and behavioral science still does shape ah how I approach data visualization. I'm still very much interested in the human ah information processing and and cognitive biases that come into play when you design and interpret data on both sides.
00:07:34
Speaker
um So I think that i still i still have a little bit of a mix of that in there as well. um and my And my full-time job, I work as a data and AI designer in the health technology sector.
00:07:47
Speaker
And then in addition, um I co-lead the data team at the European Correspondent or the EC ah alongside Hannah, who unfortunately could not be here today, um and Sebastian, who is. And yeah, yeah Sebastian, if you want to take over.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. um So I'm Sebastian. I am also co-leading the team, like Mandy said. um My journey into data business was also just like everyone else, a bit peculiar, I guess.
00:08:18
Speaker
Um, I grew up in South Africa, um but I'm German through my family. and I moved to Germany to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering and then realized, Hey, engineering is maybe not really my thing. So I started exploring different things on the side and always thought design was quite cool.
00:08:39
Speaker
And I started doing some data analysis courses, um on the side of the studies, which I wasn't focusing too much on at the time. Um, so I started experimenting a bit and somehow, uh, just started making infographics that are ah posts, um, and a little pseudonym on social media. And that took off a bit. And then that just motivated me to explore a bit more, uh, create a few more infographics. And then I found out there's a whole field out there called, uh, data visualization, which was a great fine. Um, so I pivoted and
00:09:17
Speaker
I'm now doing a degree in computational social science at the university of Amsterdam, um full time. And on the side I'm doing. that and this work here at the European Correspondent.
Mission and Team Dynamics
00:09:30
Speaker
Right. ah Yeah, we need to talk about the... ah because i It's not clear to me that that most people know that the EC staff is volunteer and volunteer-led. So you both have these like full-time jobs and doing this on the side.
00:09:45
Speaker
um It's also interesting, Sebastian, to to hear you talk about getting started because it's like, I i wonder... Kind of two things pique my interest. One is like I wonder how new people sort of or finding sort of the lack of a good data biz social media community to like throw little things out there and get started. But also like your path is interesting because a lot of the European correspondent stuff kind of feels that way. Like it's these, a lot of it is this like little one chart. That's like one little story. Um,
00:10:17
Speaker
So maybe we can start broader and then and then dig into that. Like, what is the correspondent's goal? What is its makeup and and sort of how it's it structured and what are what are the goals that not just the data team, but like the entire team is trying to trying to do? I don't know who wants to start.
00:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, I can pick that up. um Yeah, so the European correspondent is a media startup, a journalistic startup, whatever you may call it, um of now a bit more than 150 journalists spread around all of Europe in almost every European country from Azerbaijan to UK and across the whole continent, basically ah covering all the pressing events, geopolitical events, anything that really occurs across the continent with the goal of
00:11:10
Speaker
having this this news outlet for Europeans and that kind of brings Europeans together. um And so what we often say is some kind of New York Times or The Economist or something for Europe, for all of us. um So that kind of brings together all these characters who want to tell stories about the continent. and So we are 150 volunteers who are really driven by this idea of creating this kind of journalism.
00:11:40
Speaker
Um, yeah, and that brought the data team into this as well. Um, one year ago now, um, and we are 10 people out of this chunk 150 and yeah, created um and yeah we created data visualizations every day um about every region also specifically because the European correspondent is split up into regions.
00:12:05
Speaker
um So ah we go through Southern Europe, Northern Europe, ah the Balkans, every region on every day of the week. So it it kind of loops every every week um through these six different regions and then one European FS newsletter.
00:12:23
Speaker
Let me ask that kind of a two part question here. So maybe it'd be helpful for folks who haven't checked it out either. There's so folks who don't know, there is the website obviously um where you can check out every day's post.
00:12:37
Speaker
There's the newsletter, which you can get every day delivered right to your email. And then there's an app, which the app is really interesting. It's a very, I would say kind of different for a news app because it's sort of like a horizontal scroll, which is kind of interesting.
00:12:50
Speaker
Um, But also it's really interesting. You can play the audio. You can you can have it play an audio sort of read of everything, which i which is really interesting.
00:13:00
Speaker
um But from the data team's perspective, how is it structured? How do you make assignments? How do you sort of get things in the queue to sort of line them up? And and where do the ideas come from?
00:13:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'll tell you a little bit about that. I think our process is, some it's it usually starts off with a lot of, collaboration and creativity. So we try to organize regular brainstorm sessions. We do those weekly or biweekly um where we just sit down all together and we pitch ideas to each other. We share inspirations. We identify emerging trends and data sources.
00:13:38
Speaker
And um those sessions usually really help to spark ideas. um And then each person in the team has their own ah individual background and preferences that they sort of relate Like some people relate more to certain stories than other people, ah which it results usually in a really great mix of of different topics.
00:13:57
Speaker
um So, yeah, those sessions usually really um spark ideas, but they also help us align priorities and fill the schedule for the coming days or the coming weeks.
00:14:08
Speaker
And then from there, the journalists are pretty self-motivated and self-driven. They then go through a cycle where they formally pitch their ideas, their final ideas.
00:14:19
Speaker
They draft an initial version of the visual. um They write a short text that accompanies the visual so that it all ties back together to the broader story.
00:14:30
Speaker
And then And that draft goes through like a feedback loop basically between the journalists and then us as co-leads um where we really play more of a supportive role.
00:14:41
Speaker
um So we provide guidance on data sources, on chart types, on design choices, storytelling techniques, whatever. and we ensure that each story also aligns with our broader journalistic and design standards.
00:14:56
Speaker
um And then once the feedback is incorporated and the vinyl version is polished, that's when the story is ready to be published. um So that's in short, our very structured but still collaborative workflow, I would say that, yeah, that really helps. And does everybody on the team have their own preferred tool and workflow?
00:15:18
Speaker
um We have a structured the the tooling a little bit, which Sebastian can tell you more about, but um um workflow, yes. so Like you said, everyone's volunteer volunteering to do this, right? So everyone is doing this on the side of whatever else they have going on in their lives. yeah So, you know, that also means that people have different availabilities and different, um, yeah, workflows also that go along with that.
00:15:45
Speaker
But the structure I just explained is sort of the general structure that works for everyone. And then for some people that goes way quicker and they create a visual weekly and then other people, um take two weeks to create one visual and put more effort or more time into it spread over two weeks, for example. um So yeah, that's super personal and yeah, everything, we're very open to everything and making it work for everyone individually.
00:16:09
Speaker
Sebastian, I do want you to talk about the tools in a second, but Mandy on the, on the workflow piece on the pacing are members of the team. Are they required to produce some, like, like I can imagine it's volunteer driven, right? So like that's, I can imagine like the management part's pretty hard because you don't have many like carrots and sticks to motivate people um aside from what drives them personally. Right. So um do you have,
00:16:35
Speaker
like minimum requirements on what people need like how many they need to produce what they need to produce what they need to attend meetings they need to attend etc etc that's a really great question and something something that we've talked about a lot also the three of us um but one thing you mentioned yourself which i think is critical and very needed in a in a situation or a setup like this is that everyone is very motivated intrinsically. So everyone really has a passion for for data visualization.
00:17:04
Speaker
They're doing this voluntarily. That already shows that they have a passion for it then they have their own purposes. Some people want to build their portfolio. Some people want to know more about what's going on in Europe in general, and this is their way to do it.
00:17:16
Speaker
um Some people want to learn more about data analysis or design or whatever it is. um But there's a lot of intrinsic motivation. So honestly, we haven't had a lot of problems with like chasing people or anything like that. People have been super, super supportive and and everything everyone's created has always been so great. So yeah, luckily we haven't had a lot of issues with that.
00:17:38
Speaker
where it comes Where it becomes a little bit more difficult is with the recent like Christmas period, like the holiday time, that's when it becomes a little bit more difficult just because everyone's availability is a little bit less. um But even that, we've we figured it out. We worked ahead and we like sort of pre-planned all of our posts and it worked out really well and everyone was collaborating. So it was yeah it's just a really great little community that we have there grew with excited people. So that's really great.
00:18:07
Speaker
And then... and We are going to get to the tools. I keep i keep like, I was asked for folks who listen to this show, they know I just go off on these tangents. But um I would say, well, you can tell me like what share, but but most of the stuff that I see is as you sort of described, it's a short little story and then and then ah a main graphic.
Project Planning and Tools
00:18:25
Speaker
But there are other bigger, longer project, or not longer, but sort of bigger projects, more of those like narrative pieces that have, you know, they're sort of bigger.
00:18:34
Speaker
I would suspect that the shorter pieces make it a little bit, the work a little bit more or little bit easier for folks. It's just like a one little bite. But how do the the bigger, longer projects work in terms of farming out who's going to do it how you're going to, I assume, like you're teaming up with journalists who are on the other side of the continent and sort of how does that part play out?
00:18:58
Speaker
Yeah, to be honest, those are usually like the really exciting projects for us to work on because usually that means more data, more graphics, all on the same topics. And you can really do more like a deep dive and indeed what you were saying, more of a narrative around it as well.
00:19:12
Speaker
And working together with these correspondents that are way more um skilled, I guess, in like the journalistic sense in their countries or whatever, they have more knowledge there. um that teaming up is so great and so valuable.
00:19:27
Speaker
So those are those are usually really fun. Those do require a little bit more time. um Whenever we have those, we just plan those a few weeks ahead. But honestly, usually the ones that we've done so far ah consist of around three visuals, similar to the ones that we do typically.
00:19:44
Speaker
So it's also not like that big a deal. So maybe you we plan it like two or three weeks and advance and then there's a lot of collaboration between the data journalists and the local journalists um but other than that the process is pretty pretty similar to what i've explained before yeah okay i promised we would talk about tools so you've got a team of like 10 people plus all the journalists all the all the you know sort of people working in sort of the more traditional journalism so what is the kind of range of toolkits and and how have you like
00:20:16
Speaker
try to shoehorn it into like a manageable tool set of tools? Yeah, and we we kind of leave it quite open to to what tools you can use and what everyone prefers really. um In the beginning, we were using a lot of open source tools like Flourish,
00:20:37
Speaker
Um, a lot more raw graphs, things like that that make it quite, um, easy to, to create graphs because we're we're also a bit under pressure creating, um, things daily. So that is quite a lot sometimes.
00:20:50
Speaker
Um, but now we've kind of managed to space this out a bit more and give everyone a bit more time. And that's also kind of changed this, and this tool set a bit. Um, we we've seen more programming language languages coming into play something like Python or R, um, or just playing around more. so one project can contain flourish and Python and everything.
00:21:18
Speaker
in between kind of, but in the end, this is all brought into Adobe Illustrator, um, or Figma, if you like. Um, and then, um we, we publish those from there.
00:21:33
Speaker
Gotcha. Okay. So there's a manual kind of cleanup piece at the very end of the process. Yes. and Yes. And the graphs all I guess they have a kind of a similar feel to them. I want to talk about like, they're not all bar charts and they're not all line charts. There's a lot of like non-standard stuff, which is, which is one of the reasons why I love it.
00:21:55
Speaker
um But is there like a style guide that, keeps the team sort of within some basic framework? Or is that just my reading of like, I just kind of see it, it feels that way, but it's not based on anything. we definitely have a style guide. and It's an ever evolving piece of a style guide, I guess. um It really keeps changing. So we had one in the very beginning, which was really, really basic. um It just gave ah constraint in background color or
00:22:29
Speaker
or text really. um And this is now evolved to symbols and where exactly are ah different elements of a chart. But we really want to give the designers as much freedom as possible.
00:22:42
Speaker
So we we do give all these these um i don't know policies, regulations to where should text or something usually be located. But we we more or less give them a blank canvas to work with.
00:22:57
Speaker
um we We just say maybe this is a good text size to use and not not any smaller. I see. Some standard colors, but they're really free to create whatever they want.
00:23:09
Speaker
And that's really important to us because being in a volunteer organization, everyone really wants to do what's passionate what they're passionate for and their designs that they're passionate about.
00:23:21
Speaker
And do you share because ah so much of it is done in Illustrator, do you share like, it's been a long time since I've worked in Illustrator, I'll be honest.
00:23:31
Speaker
Do you remember that you could share like style, style pack, like you you share color palettes with folks and you build those um pieces so that everybody's sort of working from the same palette and font kit and all that sort of stuff?
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yes, exactly. we We give everyone kind of a pack of templates um and then they go from there. It contains everything they need. Right.
00:23:55
Speaker
So let's turn to the fact that ah you don't see a lot of like bar charts and line charts and
Creativity and Future Aspirations
00:24:04
Speaker
pie charts. I mean, they do show up, but it's not like five days a week. There's five bar charts, right? Like there's some stuff I'm looking at one that I found, which was from January 2nd. I'll just describe it quickly for folks. It's the title is first signs of spring and it's um there are ah six flowers.
00:24:20
Speaker
And then there's kind of basically like an area chart line chart combination thing that's every month. And it's just basically like when these Each of these flowers bloom in different areas around around the continent. So um that's not like something crazy that no one has ever seen before, right? It's area charts and line charts, but um it's not like one chart and it's not like just a simple line chart.
00:24:43
Speaker
um And I'm curious where that comes from of we are going to just, I guess, but I'll put it this way.
00:24:55
Speaker
I found a chart that you guys did, which is why I kind of reached out in the first place and we've been chatting for a few months that I loved. um And it was this kind of step thing with like little flags of all the countries and I put it out somewhere and people were like, no, this is terrible because you don't know what the countries are and there's not enough text and it's not a bar chart. And so like there is still that world of data viz, which is like kind of the Tufty, Steven Few view of the field.
00:25:19
Speaker
And I'm curious, it's clear to me that you all don't share that kind of rigid view. And and I'm curious, what are the kind of pros and cons of just like, go make stuff and try stuff?
00:25:32
Speaker
That's a very, very broad question. i but but But yeah, I mean, like,
00:25:41
Speaker
There are pros and cons to doing it that way. And you all are pumping out a graph a day, which is not an easy task. And so I'm curious how you all think about and how your team thinks about not doing bar charts every day um and trying things that I'm guessing sometimes work and sometimes don't.
00:25:58
Speaker
i think I think you're already saying sort of it yourself, like a big part of the reason at least, is that we are producing on a daily basis, which is a lot. So if you produce a bar chart every single day, that will not be interesting for anyone to look at every single day.
00:26:15
Speaker
um So that is a big part of the reason why we challenge ourselves to produce. ah find other ways to visualize and sometimes it still has to be a bar chart you know like we're not like not doing a bar chart if if a bar chart is really the best way to visualize the information and ah convey the message, but then we're still trying to add sort of a creative flair, I guess, to it in some way, either, i don't know, adding a pattern to it, or indeed, like now with the flowers you mentioned, like having like illustrations there, or just make it somewhat more visually appealing or interesting than just a regular old bar chart.
00:26:54
Speaker
pulled from Excel. um Yeah, so I think that's the main reason. And again, ah so many passionate people in our team, we're so excited. That's that's what we want to do. We want to try to try out new things and like find new ways to visualize. And we draw inspiration from so many amazing artists as well. and And we talk about those people and we're like, oh, maybe we could draw inspiration from that and like reshape it in a way that works for this topic. And yeah, I don't know. it's ah i think I think honestly, the answer to most of your question question is is like just intrinsic motivation and true passion for like the field, um which is kind of cheesy, but it but it is true. I don't know if you have any more insights there.
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I think you, you basically answered all of it already, but yeah, we are in a very tight schedule, but given that we have like these brainstorms and, um,
00:27:53
Speaker
Mandy, Hannah and me are are still going over pitches because we have a pitch workflow as well. um We can kind of guide the journalists or brainstorm with a journalist. What is a better way than a bar chart to to display it? And more often than not, ah a bar chart is just not the way to go.
00:28:14
Speaker
And um even if it's a bar chart, there's so many ways to still spice it up and add some flair to it, which. Yeah. is really good for our readers as well because um I think what our match is also a bit, we want to create something that a reader doesn't usually see, and like something fresh on the eyes.
00:28:36
Speaker
um So that's kind of what we go by. but But my experience has been that like when you say flare, I think ah probably a lot of people hear the word flare and they think it's like just decorative, but a lot of it is not just decorative, right? Like it's helping the reader. But I am curious when you make graphs where it's like flags of European countries without maybe like the word of the country, whether because your audience is Europeans, whether you feel confident that you don't necessarily need to spell everything out.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's one part of it. I think um in general, most Europeans know most flags, but even if they don't, um I think um for our audience specifically, i think most people would just look for their personal flag of interest and then just see like how they stack up against the others, irrespective of like which country is which exactly.
00:29:37
Speaker
i think I think that's usually most often at least ah sort of the goal for for our reader. it's not like our Our readers are not data viz people, right? like Our readers is are just like a global like a general broad audience that maybe aren't even like super data literate necessarily, you know?
00:29:56
Speaker
um So yeah, I think they just have a different purpose of reading the chart than us data viz people do sometimes. yeah Yeah, for sure. I mean, it is interesting to hear your point about you, you want to see your country, not necessarily where all the, like, it doesn't really matter or all the, what every other specific country is. It's like, where am i relative to these other ones?
00:30:20
Speaker
Which leads me to another question, which is how do you all handle languages? So at least the one that I get is all English. Like, are they all English? Have you, have you dealt with the translation issues yet?
00:30:32
Speaker
and As of now, not yet in terms of translating data visualizations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's something that's, for example, also hopefully in the in the future that we can also work on um translating our visuals because there's so many languages in Europe yeah and we we can reach so many more people by by introducing those different languages.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah. So to date so far, I think most of the data viz products you're producing are static. um And I have two questions done on that. So one, are there plans to start creating more interactive charts, maybe dashboards or just, you know, and your kind of classic dashboards or just interactive data visualizations into whether you feel like the static charts are in some ways harder than a good interactive chart because you kind of you don't have a filter or a search or a thing to help explain it like, yeah, I'm looking at this.
00:31:35
Speaker
this graph right here um on my screen that like you have to add the annotation to that single image. um So maybe we can handle that question first and then talk about like the future.
00:31:47
Speaker
Sure. you? Shall I take it? um over So um is it harder? I think I think they're just two very different approaches, right? So the classical interactive pieces or dashboards or way more explorative, exploratory. That's the purpose, right? For you to be able for the user to be able to click around in them freely and not really have like a story to tell necessarily. Whereas with the static pieces, that's exactly the purpose. You're telling a story. So So that's also the starting point almost. You have to have a story. We can't just visualize data and then release it and then that's it. We the only visualize data if it tells a story.
00:32:29
Speaker
So I think that's ah just a different approach altogether. and I don't know if it I would say it's harder. um For me personally, not, but that's also because I think my my background and just the way my brain works, I like telling stories and making sense of things and explaining things is easier for me than just to explore freely.
00:32:51
Speaker
yeah um Also as a user. um So on both sides, I guess, but that's a very personal opinion. I don't know if in in general one is harder than the other necessarily. yeah But yeah, what do you think, Sebastian?
00:33:05
Speaker
Yeah, this is a thing we we discuss a lot, i think, about static visuals, dynamic visuals. Yeah. um and we're We're always trying to find a few different mediums.
00:33:18
Speaker
um So we've we've been experimenting a lot with animating different things. and But of course, and this is also where technical limitations for the European correspondent come in.
00:33:31
Speaker
um We are a newsletter. um You can't really... put these kind of reels that you maybe have on social media into a newsletter. yeah um Or it depends on what but software the user is running. So there's quite a lot of technical limitations which we're going up against.
00:33:50
Speaker
So that's why we mostly produce static for now. And then we see we can also pivot to to different kinds of web visualizations at a later date.
00:34:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So what are those? Do you, do you have a sense of what that later day might look like? What would you like that future to look like? That's a great question. And I think there's like different opinions, even like yeah within the team, you know, like just people have different preferences.
00:34:20
Speaker
um I think just generally speaking though, like the main aim will always be that we want to cater to the, to the reader eventually. Right. That's the, that's the, ultimate end goal.
00:34:32
Speaker
ah So whatever they want and looking are looking for, that's mostly what we're we going to be focusing on. And I think um we are naturally always looking to evolve and interactive visualizations are a part of that. We're We're looking into like to what extent that's possible, like Sebastian already mentioned.
00:34:50
Speaker
um And I think that could have an ah additional like engaging value to our readers to have like that interactive side of it and to be able to explore more data in different ways.
00:35:02
Speaker
um and But having said that, I think also for our current goals and I think the static data visualizations are super effective already because they allow us to convey very complex stories quickly and clearly, which is essential for engaging, like I said, the broader, not necessarily always very data literate audience.
00:35:28
Speaker
um So I think for now, we're focusing on maintaining that clarity and the accessibility that static visuals provide while also still you know exploring how can we incorporate interactivity in some way to compliment that storytelling, um, in the future, hopefully. Yeah.
00:35:47
Speaker
Sebastian, you have similar, you have any other, any, any tweaks on that?
00:35:54
Speaker
Um, uh, oh man, I have ah so many dreams when it comes to interactivity. Yeah. Um, and things already since the very beginning of the team. Um,
00:36:06
Speaker
I it's so tricky. I don't I don't ah know when we can jump to that because we also still produce in daily. So right i guess this is something that comes a bit over time.
00:36:20
Speaker
We've we've been doing this for less than a year now. um And so we we still want to perfect the craft of the static visualizations, which Mandy already said are very, very effective um and have got us pretty far already.
00:36:36
Speaker
yeah So we'll we'll keep experimenting with what we're doing right now and seeing um at what point we can integrate more user-centric or interactive things into the newsletter.
00:36:49
Speaker
Um, okay. Well, thank you both for, for coming on the show. So for, um, for folks who are not regular subscribers, what should they do? Where they, can they go to get all this great content?
00:37:04
Speaker
I can take that. yeah We can, we can, uh, you can go to the newsletter. You can subscribe, uh, to the European correspondent. Um,
00:37:15
Speaker
for daily data visualizations. and We are of course also on social media and on all the well-knowns, I guess. um And ah yeah.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah. and then that And then the app too, right? And the app too, yes. The app, yeah. um Yeah. So it's it's all over. And if folks have ah feedback, questions, if they want to if they're interested, if they're in Europe and they're interested in like being a part of the team, like how how can they reach out to either or both of you?
00:37:48
Speaker
I think they can find us on on LinkedIn, for example. They can also go to our website and find our contact information there and and yeah, reach out. we're We're always happy to invite more passionate, excited people to our team.
00:38:02
Speaker
That's awesome. Mandy, Sebastian, thank you both so much for coming on the show. This was fun and good luck. I'm excited to see what the future holds. Thanks so much for having us.
00:38:12
Speaker
Thank you. It's been fun. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed that. hope you will take a moment to rate or review the show wherever you get your podcasts. It could be on Apple, could be on Spotify.
00:38:25
Speaker
If you're watching this on YouTube, hit that like button, subscribe to the show, subscribe to Substack, subscribe to PolicyViz for all your data and data visualization needs. So until next time, this has been the PolicyViz podcast.
00:38:38
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening.