Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Policy Diz Podcast. I'm your host, John Schwabisch. I am very excited for today's guest. Mike Sully Dog Sullivan joins me. Mike is the creator behind the Sully Dog feed. Primarily, I found him on Instagram, but also YouTube, also TikTok, all the places. And what Mike does is really interesting. He presents...
Speaker: I'd say complex information, deep down complex information in a very visual and simplified way using solo cups. That's right. Using plastic solo cups, he explains complicated information in an engaging and visual way. And so I reached out to Mike because this is exactly what we as data visualization creators are trying to do. We are trying to get people's attention. We are trying to engage them. We are trying to get them to understand our information. And Mike makes a really interesting argument in our discussion here about the value or the impact of using 3D. And I think a lot of us, when it comes to data business, we sort of frown at 3D because I think in our heads, we're probably thinking of like that terrible rotated pie chart from Excel. But Mike's point is that showing people the scale and the scope of numbers in that visual way so that you can see how tall this stack or this pyramid of cups actually reaches up towards the ceiling or out the window really helps people understand the data in better, more, more engaging, and more visceral ways. And so it's a really interesting conversation. I really enjoyed his feed. I think you should check it out. I think you'll learn a lot.
Speaker: We also talk about the process. how he goes through actually stacking up those cups and how tiring that can be, I can only imagine. So I think you're really gonna like this week's episode of the show. I'm really excited about it, as you can probably tell. So let me get over to my interview with Mike Sullivan, the creator of the Sully Dog Instagram channel, where he's focusing on making data accessible and easy to understand, right here on the Policy Biz Podcast.
Speaker: Mike, I'm very excited. I'm very excited to chat. I even have a solo cup ready to go ford for this conversation. that's ah That's the smaller version. This is for the adults.
Speaker: I'm really excited to chat. I found your feed a while ago on on Instagram. I just love it. So I want to talk about the whole thing about the messaging and also like how you actually go about doing it. um But maybe we just start like your background and how you you know found your way into doing budget data economics explainers with solo cups.
Speaker: So I'm guessing you didn't like starting the workforce going like, I want to be an influencer with solo cups. This was all part of the master plan. job I've had, I've had this on my radar for 20 years executed flawlessly.
Speaker: No, man. I mean, uh, listen, um, I'm from, uh, just outside of Boston, uh, former educator and teacher. I've taught everything from, you know, college to seventh grade. I've i've taught in reform school. I've been in the toughest, uh, high schools, um, gang bangers, you name it. And it's really all I ever wanted to do. It's, uh,
Speaker: Something I've been super passionate about is kind of natural to me. And, you know, I'm one of those people that believes that you get if you know, if you screwed up 21 times, you you still should get the 22nd chance because that's what education is about um as a coach. So I was actually teaching in reform schools. I had I mean, and then I was in college, but I really wanted a coach. So I went inner city as a baseball coach.
Speaker: And kind of, you know, because of my journey of you know really having to be a disciplinarian at certain schools, then you're at the higher level. And then when you kind of settle in and then be a coach, this this coaching strategy, this teaching and mentality has really worked well for me. And even when i when I take some leadership advice or leadership courses and even talk about it, I really believe that the message coming from a coach is kind of universal. And I tell people, if you're ever having a hard time in your business or with your kids, you know, if you just take the approach of a coach, it's familiar to everybody, just a lot of positive reinforcement, but be just right honest with somebody. Cause you know, a coach only wants everybody to do their best. And, you know, that's kind of what happened. I just, uh, use that persona to explain something. And, um, it's kind of been my thing all along. ah I love to just teach and
Speaker: I didn't plan on being a data scientist. I just kind of fell into it one day after a bike ride. ah um So, okay. So let me let me start with what I love about, <unk> I'll just use the tagline because the tagline, I think on the on your YouTube channel really for me is is, it sums it up, right? So tagline there is visual explanations for real people, cup pyramids, clean data, straight talk, truth should be easy to see, which is like,
Speaker: ah Like 1000%, right? Couldn't agree more. And so I'm curious about how you, I guess, discovered like this concept of, you cup pyramids, like what was it about cups? What is it about data that lend themselves so well to that sort of explanation?
Speaker: Well, i I really have taken it upon myself in the classroom all the time to find whatever I needed to do to explain it. And I mean anything. Like when I was working with the gang, you know, kids in the gangs, like i would literally use drug trades, like how how we make change, like however I needed to talk.
Speaker: And the one thing I can tell you that is universal is that three-dimensional scale works every time. Even animals understand scale. It's very difficult to to not – I mean to be able to like say a story about it. Yeah.
Speaker: When you use three-dimensional scale, because if you try to teach anybody, and even when you watch on the news, say bar graphs, histograms, people don't understand it. And when you start talking about really huge numbers, they definitely don't understand it. They don't understand the difference between millions and trillions. So the only way around that is to do it with three-dimensional scale cups blocks something that some because even an an animal can walk in and like oh my god that's bigger than this and your brain instantly gets it it can't be tampered with and it's just a very effective way of doing things that i found um i used it a lot in the classroom i there's actually a lot of teachers that use cups in the classroom now because you can do a lot of lessons with them they really explain a lot very very well so yeah That's kind of what happened. it' It was always a go to for me of how to do it. And again, just kind of fell into it one day after after a bike ride and and it took off pretty it took off pretty quickly. So after like the second day, I was like, OK, there's something here. People really understand how this is cutting through the noise. And I just kind of, you know, layered it on top of that.
Speaker: So when you were teaching, um how did you how did you think? Because you started by saying, you know you see a bar chart or a line chart or whatever on the news, and people may or may not understand those. And I agree, people don't understand large numbers. like How do you understand a $40 trillion dollars federal budget deficit? like Right. Just a number from space. But when you were teaching and teaching data and teaching graphs to kids, was what was that experience like in trying to improve that graphic literacy of that younger generation?
Speaker: So I was teaching at a school up in Massachusetts that gave me a lot of latitude in a classroom that was called problem solving that they had never had. It was a vocational school, which in Massachusetts is just a program I think the rest of this kind the country should adopt.
Speaker: Kids spend half their time in a vocational part of the school and the other half in the academic. And they graduate with both with both diplomas. yeah So it gave me a lot of flexibility. And because I had access to shops, I was able to have stuff built for me. And we did a lot of things. We had these Olympics that we would do with problem solving. We would build a lot of stuff.
Speaker: And the engagement was tremendous. And it really did help students understand, you know, better how it was going. So I just kept extending that extending that. And, you know, I got involved with a couple of organizations creating independent study strategies. It really just kind of took how I was. I had a lot of liberty. I worked for some great administrators that just said, Mike, it's working. Just keep doing what you're doing. So I just kept expanding it and, you know, I've created just, you know dozens and dozens of text, you know, workbooks and I went into the publishing industry with some of them. So it's just been a lifelong between math and physics and sports really is, you know, how taking the complicated, making it simple. I think that's what really motivates me and always has.
Speaker: So let me ask, um did you fall off the bike and hit your head and it came to you in stars or like what's the what's the bike story? So yeah I ride my bike, up you know, five, six times a week. And i this was at the beginning with Doge. And I just couldn't believe what was going on. I'm like, I don't think the american average American understands what these guys are doing. So I came home, got off the bike. flipped open a table and I said, I'm going to show America with three dimensional scale.
Speaker: It was the first video I'd ever did. I put it up on Tik TOK. And, uh, like about an hour later, my niece calls me and says, you're going viral. He's like, he's already got 250,000 views. Wow. So, and like, you know, like the table sideways. So I did one again, like two days later, Don Lemon reached out to me and that's kind of where I kept going. But, Yeah, it really does. It instantly people, I kind of almost feel like it stops them dead in their tracks. They see the colorful cups and they're like, what is what's he what's he doing in there today? yeah and it's and it's and it's worked. so And it really does make it easy to explain the difference between legislation.
Speaker: so So let me ask about the the data part then, because everything that you talk about, you don't always visualize a whole bunch of numbers, but you often talk about a bunch of numbers and put the you know two big shares or the four big shares behind you in a broader context. So do you like do you spend a lot of time like mining you have data sets and pulling stuff together, or is it or are you kind of like looking for those headline numbers and and staying...
Speaker: Nope. I actually, I go, to you know, a lot of lengths to make sure that what I'm saying is accurate. have to, I, I, I cross-reference it as many times as possible. You can never really get exact numbers, but once I get it down to a range where like, if some source is saying it's 6.5 million, the other one's saying it's seven, the other one's saying it's 6.2, I'm okay with, with what I have. But once I get down that it's the truth. So, I mean, you have to throw it, depending on what I'm doing, you got to throw it up against a bunch of government sites, then you got to go into few research sites and you have to constantly do this.
Speaker: So initially when I was coming up with the data, you know, and I would put the sources in the first comment, you know what it was, but yeah that wasn't good enough. So then, you know, somebody who was following me, they helped, they put together a website for me.
Speaker: And then that allowed me to actually, all of the videos are housed in the website. And then the actual sources that people can, can click at no charge that go in there. And that's made it easier, too. But it's a it's a ton.
Speaker: It's a ton of time to make sure that if you're going to if you're going to state something publicly and what's happened is that the more I've been doing this, the more I think I've earned people's trust, the more I i must go the extra mile to make sure that I'm not breaching that.
Speaker: Right, right. um So now you've narrowed down into a topic and let me ask about the topics. Well, let me let me make this a broader question. So what do you think resonates with people? Is it the data? Is it the topics? Is it the energy that you bring to the videos? Is it just the cups? Like, what do you think is the thing that draws people to to your feeds?
Speaker: You know, it's an excellent question. you know I think the topic is what you know earns the attention of people. and And basically what I'm trying to do is find a topic that people are confused about or think that they know the answer. They know it. They can't explain it. You know, that really plays a role with me. Now, the data is what earns people's trust. You got you know you gotta to put that in there The energy what keeps people watching. you know if you don't have that, and then the visual is what makes it memorable. I mean, that's just, it's kind of the four-step process. When I explain it to people, you know, as a lifelong educator, and I've just been, I've studied pedagogy my whole life, just the science of teaching.
Speaker: I'm a glorified Mr. Rogers in a garage. Like I'm literally following Fred Rogers' way of teaching by, i pretty much wear the same thing. i pretty much say the same things over and over again. When I'm wearing a certain thing, people don't realize it, but it actually has a Pavlovian effect. Like, okay, coach is back on the floor here. And it's just that same process over and over again that I've kind of followed.
Speaker: and And certainly and the thing about it, John, is that you know, every video is designed to do something different. And what I mean by that is there's, I always define who my audience is before I shoot.
Speaker: And that audience could be an audience of one. I could be trying to explain something to somebody in my circle, somebody outside my circle. And sometimes the the message is super generic for everybody.
Speaker: Sometimes it's very poignant, aimed at somebody. Sometimes it really is for, you know, a particular political affiliation that just want me to just be super direct and like, yeah, that's somebody's finally saying it, that type of thing. So it all depends. It's never the same thing. Just like every class is never the same class. And I think people don't, like they don't, I think if I had to explain that to people, if they knew that every time that I'm talking to that camera, I'm literally talking to somebody different by design.
Speaker: Right. Like the new medium of communicating is video, right? It's it's Instagram, it's YouTube, it's TikTok. And do you think that that has you know helped supercharge your work? I mean, I could imagine you setting up the cups or you know using an AI thing, right? And have that picture and post a picture of it. But my guess is that the video does something that a still picture isn't going to work. or going For sure. And even sometimes when I incorporate in some AI graphics, I try not to. um But I got hooked up with these guys that I really love out of Ukraine. And, you know, sometimes when I have like 435 cups that I have to stack, I don't even have the the room to do it. So they do it for me. But I try not to do that. I try to keep it as as real as possible. And a lot of the times what happens is is i I'll have the argument formulated in my head. And I will have to build the pyramids and then sit back to look to see if that's how I want to describe the argument. Many, many times before I shoot, I'm like, nope, that's not the sequence. And I'll have to alter how I'm doing it. I may have to change the color because I don't think that it's going to tell the story. And sometimes you hit, sometimes you don't. But after a period of time here, the consistency of the cups and the legends, I think people that fall, they know what the cup is going to symbolize. And sometimes I don't even, I don't even say it. I may just say what it is, but if I'm running short on time, the visual,
Speaker: does it for them. and And that's, so I've stacked a lot of cups. I got a whole garage full of them. I brought them all over the place with me. I've been to DC, I've been to Vermont with them. So it's pretty well.
Speaker: So tell me about the physical process of setting these up because the other thing that I note about the videos and i'll And I'll say this and then and then backtrack to They don't look super polished in the sense of like Hollywood movie making, right? Like I can see like a light shadow. So I know you're like, you know, yeah, coaches standing right in front of me sort of feel to it. And so I think there's like, we don't need to have things super overproduced. with They don't need to be perfect. Like it is about the story and the data. But so tell me how you how you set these up and how you how you what your set is like.
Speaker: So it certainly is time consuming, depending on, I mean, I've i've had i've had, you know, 1,200 cups stacked up there. So I'm up on ladders, depending on what I'm doing, the shelving that's in there. I mean, I have the drill and I'll take out the shelves and I'll redesign them and be like, I need you to straighten out yourselves. And I'm like, listen, if you only knew, be happy that I have them up there. but so I mean, so no, it' it's it's a lot of work. I do have people that want to polish them.
Speaker: I can tell you that it'll probably go more in that direction as we go on. there'll There'll be some more, but kind of what I'm looking at now, I don't think I'll ever get away from the old school grindy you know garage video as the anchor piece for the month.
Speaker: ah And then there'll be ancillary pieces around it that will probably be a little bit more polished now that i you know I've got a little bit more resources. Yeah. So are you out there, you're telling your your family that, you know, i can't have dinner, I gotta go spend the next two hours in the garage stacking cups?
Speaker: um I wouldn't say that, but they definitely know when I, so originally, my family's been super supportive. Like, I mean, they all thought that it was unbelievable that the grandfather of the group is, you know, becoming the social media guy. Right. But they they have been super supportive. But, you know, I have other businesses, so I do have another life. So we have to carve things out and another thing that makes it kind of unique is really the supply. I mean, there's only like 55 videos over the course of, uh, so there's just so few of them, but they have such long legs. Like I, I can wake up and I could see, I mean, these videos, they just don't die. Someone, someone finds a library and they just keep going through them one after the other, and then they get shared. And then all of a sudden, you know, a video that hadn't had any views gets a quarter of a million views that day just because it it kind of goes around. So yes, I have to do, you know, as we've gotten a little bit more serious, my family has been like, okay, you know, what are your, what are your days going to be this week?
Speaker: And, but I've gotten a lot better at it. Like I really have gotten better at it as, as time has gone on. I don't go in the garage until I, I really know. I have so many pictures now, John, of pyramids that instead of building them and looking in there, I can look inside my phone and say, okay, I need that pyramid. I need this pyramid. I know how big it is. I know where I need to put the shelf. So it's just it's gotten a little bit better.
Speaker: But it's still a lot of work. No question about i bet. Yeah. Is it like stacking cards? Is it like making a card pyramid? Yeah. That's it. And when you use the small ones, when you use the small ones, because sometimes I have to, those are particularly hard to do. yeah stack Taking them down is super easy.
Speaker: Putting them up takes takes a long time. takes a long And I really have gotten better. Like I have like a moving chair now when down on the floor. So I do a bunch. I do prefer the shelves because I can stand up and stack the entire time. yeah yeah But yeah, when I got to go out there and do a whole bunch, my back will be sore the next day for sure.
Speaker: I should hire somebody to do it. Yeah. Well, right. That's what grandkids are for, right? you just got Too small, but yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. um Are you known at the Publix now when you walk in? They're like, oh, Mike's here. He needs he needs more cops. No, this all came through Amazon for sure. They've been recycled over and over and over again. i have like these cabinets and some of them are kind of beat up. They've traveled with me. You know, they've been to DC. They've been to other places. I just was up in Vermont with Ben Cohen.
Speaker: um for a few days so they've been all over the all over the country and then the the thing is is that depending on what i'm doing i need multiple colors and that would change one cup to the other and they have to be the same size so if i have a black in one company brand and a yellow in another and they're slightly off like sometimes two becomes where you have to stack them just so they have the same height right it's really it's really the science of stacking john it's uh feel i I feel like I feel like I'm in an elite category here. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. There's going to be like an Olympic, an Olympic event in a few years that you'll be, oh you know, what I want to do, I want to do is, uh, I want to get some of those kids that in those competitions that they stack up all those cups super fast. I think it would be really neat to have like four, go up to New York and have four or five of the kids who were the competition, like putting them together and then taking them down. I think that it would be kind of cool.
Speaker: Yeah. And then you can figure out what the, then you have like an animated version of some, of some graph essentially. Right. I've done that too. I've literally like claymation, like back when we used to watch electric company or zoom, like put one cup, take a picture, put another cup, take a picture. So I've started the video. well Well, they go up just by accelerating, but I don't have time for that anymore. Yeah.
Speaker: so So the other thing i want to ask you on the on the data side, and you mentioned it earlier, is on the the big number situation. So I worked for the Congressional Budget Office for a long time, and this is always ah a frustration of mine, and I don't know how to get around it, is you know how do you get people to understand what $40 trillion dollars is or $5 billion dollars out of $40 trillion? dollars So do you think it is that that single unit, even if that unit might represent multiple units?
Speaker: Yep. I 100% believe that the only way to do that is through three-dimensional scale. I don't know any other way to do it. And sometimes you can do it through characters, you know, or like... And i've I've tried certain things like this would be the equivalent of filling the entire White House with one hundred dollar bills just so they understand the scale of things of what I'm talking about. But without question, you need the primary unit. It has to be explained.
Speaker: And then you have to kind of let every let the cups do the the the thing about the visuals. I really don't even need to be there. By the end of what I've taught when I walk off the screen, the visuals are telling all the story. And that's why I always leave it up at the end. And I know a lot of people go back to look at it at the end because it does just describe everything that I just said. Your brain gets it. It can't be tricked. It's it's just it is what it is. It's one of those. Right. It is what it is. no one No one can tell you a story around it.
Speaker: And you know that because 40 billion, 60 trillion, 10 million, it's all the same. It rhymes with alien. yeah Yeah, exactly. it It does remind me, the Weather Channel for the last couple of years has been doing some, what I think is some cool stuff with augmented reality, where they'll be talking about, say, a hurricane.
Speaker: The weather person will be standing on it's usually this big circular stage. And then behind them will be sort of an augmented visual of, here's what one foot of flooding looks like. Here's what six feet looks like. And you can see it right behind them. It's sort of a- augmented version of what you're doing, but with computers behind it. And I'm curious if you think that may be the future of, i mean, not just weather forecasting, or but but the news and and other you know public media. 100%. El-Sayed just did a video a couple of weeks ago that he did this exact thing with how much money APAC was spending against him. And he did use AI and computers to do it by showing how much money was spent And then showing the next amount of money and the money kept growing and he kept getting smaller. So by the time that he was at the end of his video, you could see the scale of what he was talking about is he had this tower of money that was probably 10 stories tall compared to his body. It's very, very telling. So. It does the same thing because it's three-dimensional scale, which is exactly what the weather is doing.
Speaker: You know, if you're not a math person, it just doesn't make sense. It just does not make sense unless your eyes can visualize. I just believe that wholeheartedly. And I think that your your thing about the Weather Channel is completely on point. That is how it needs to be done. I wish that some of the news networks...
Speaker: would get away from their bar graphs and get away from their, um, whatever they're using and really start going to that because they have the means to do it. I mean, they could technically show a stack of money going into outer space without any problem, you know, because an AI tool would make that. And that would be so much better for the person that's trying to learn. And do you think that that learning,
Speaker: um I guess I'm asking you to to take your experience teaching kids and now apply it to hundreds, millions of people who are watching your videos. Do you think that that learning extends beyond now that they have, they've seen this video, they have um a greater appreciation or understanding of how to maybe read another chart type that they might see that bar chart on Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if what I do actually helps them with that. I still just think from what I've known, because I've taught adults too, that it's just a very difficult area. And I really believe it's simply because of how we teach math in America versus some of our Asian counterparts. They get it way better than we do. But we have a big gap in number sense in this country, a huge gap. And it's universal. and you know so I don't know if it's helping that, but I i certainly i don't know if I'm answering your question, but I think that as we move into that direction, that the more that people can use computer modeling, the better. And we do it. I mean, you you see it all the time, whether it's the Titanic when they explain things, it just makes more sense.
Speaker: And on a television show, they just don't do a great job with it. Yeah. Yeah, I've been seeing more sort of like I've learned a lot from a few feeds on like space, which is always the same sort of like how, you know how do you imagine the distance between planets? It's impossible to imagine. But though the the visuals of show, you know, you get a lot of bandwidth when you can actually use a video and then have this the black space between just that time element that runs between when you see Venus versus when you see Jupiter or whatever it is. You know, it's such a, it's a great one, man. And I remember it from physics with my teacher putting out all the planets with a marble, a golf ball, a basketball, a beach ball, the sun, yeah and just seeing it, how far away Mercury was. Like when you're, when you're all the way on the other end of the hallway to the school and it just, you can barely see what earth was. It really compared to the map you're looking at, like it doesn't make sense until somebody puts it into terms that your brain can calculate it. then it all comes together. And that, that one little lesson was the same thing you're saying is it's in your brain forever.
Speaker: It'll never leave. It's you've got it. the The concept is concrete now. Right. Yep. Okay. So folks can find you on Instagram and on tech talk. I'll put the links there. You've got the YouTube channel. So folks can find you. What are you thinking down the road for this project? Cause you've started, you've been doing it for what about but with six, eight months, something like that.
Speaker: Probably little longer, maybe like 14 months, 16 months, somewhere. started towards the end of the last week. Yeah, 14 months. Yeah, yeah. You know, so I have the website sullydog.com with D-A-W-G.
Speaker: And that is designed specifically for people that don't have social media. The video and I don't, my problem is John is that I don't really, I interact somewhat on Instagram and Facebook, you know, but I just have other things to but I do like to still, you know, present the lesson there. If someone has a really good question or a really good comment, whether it's positive or negative that I think can be a real super useful response, I'll go in and do it, but I don't do much on YouTube, but YouTube turns out to be like the housing mechanism for everything. So all the videos go on YouTube And then on SullyDog.com, the link actually goes there and then all the sources. So with one click, anybody can send the link for the video and all of the sources right from there. subs I'm on Substack now, Blue Sky, you know.
Speaker: But at the same time, i you know I don't really take too much of it too seriously. I spend most of my time on Meta, Facebook, Instagram. TikTok was the was really, really good to me.
Speaker: yes It's just not the same app anymore. you i don't know if you hear people talking about it. Just last week, okay I got 3.5 million views on one video on Instagram. I got like a million and a half on Facebook.
Speaker: I got 2,000 on TikTok. Wow. Yeah, it has. they i I'm in a box like they they absolutely do not put me on the for you page. I'll go on the for like, if you look at my Democrat, like you will see my stuff shoot up. I'll have 5000 views in an hour. And it will come straight down. i won't get anything for two or three days. And then it will kind of like find its way. Some of them have. But so on average, I used to do on TikTok. I did a probably half a million to a million per video.
Speaker: I'm lucky if I crack 10,000 now. Ever since the app opened back up, it's a. If I'm not pro administration, it's not going far. Oh, that's really interesting. yeah Yeah. And it's not just me. I mean, if you right if go on, I mean, there was just another guy who just kicked off at TikTok. Just a big one. Tizzy's got like 10 million followers. They just booted him off.
Speaker: Yeah. Wow. Well, it is social media, so you got to like take a breath, right? Yeah, yeah exactly. all right. It's a false world. Yeah, that's right. ah Mike, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks so much for doing these videos.
Speaker: I can't wait to watch more. They're great. And I appreciate you taking the time. John, it was a pleasure. Go Bills, go Pats. hopefully ah Hopefully we'll see you in the AFC Championship game. All right. We'll see. Okay, bud. We'll see you later.
Speaker: Thanks. Thanks for tuning in, everyone. I hope you really enjoyed that conversation. I hope you will check out Mike's feeds wherever you get your visual content, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, wherever you get it. Also, his sub stack, newsletters, another place where you can get his content.
Speaker: I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope you'll rate and review it wherever you get your podcasts. And that's all I've got. So more great episodes coming your way in the next few weeks as we get deeper into fall and the leaves turn colors. Okay, so until next time, this has been the Policy of His Podcast.
Speaker: Thanks so much for listening.
