The conference has been largely academic in the past, but the role of industry and government is increasing. The organizers are including more practitioner-useful workshops and tutorials (last year included a day-long session on D3, and another on color selection). In addition to the workshops, and the past year’s research being presented, it is also a great opportunity to network with researchers looking for meaningful problems to solve.

Often, the work that practitioners do ends up hidden behind the scenes with no one to show it off to. This is a shame, because some of that work is really great, and could help to advance the field of visualization. Luckily, IEEE Vis has put out a call for posters for government and industry work, and it’s a perfect way to show off the problems you are solving in practice, or some of the problems with which you are currently struggling.

Visually will be putting in our own submission, and we’d like to welcome other practitioners to do the same. Getting your work out there is a great way to find people to help with it, or new ideas to make it even better. We hope to see you there!

 
Drew Skau is Visualization Architect at Visual.ly and a PhD Computer Science Visualization student at UNCC with an undergraduate degree in Architecture. You can follow him on twitter @SeeingStructure

How does your team stack up? Check out the “Top 10″ graphics below.

We also worked closely with the Bleacher Report team to create a “draft risk” interactive graphic, by averaging performance of every first round draft slot since 1980. This allows you to sort the first round of the draft by risk versus numerical order.

NFL Draft Risk infographic by visually.

The challenge has an interesting approach for the final stages. The top few entries will work with local leaders to iterate and implement the application or visualizations they produce. This will help to make sure the entries do the best possible job at addressing the needs of the community, and should help to answer any questions that the entrants have.

There are three phases of the challenge. The ideation phase helps to figure out what the needs of the community are, and potential solutions to address them. The creation phase involves building the tools, and the implementation phase involves putting the tools to use, and refining them as needed.

Judging

Challenge entries will be judged based on the following criteria:

• Thoughtfulness of Utilizing Civic Data
• Quality of Concept
• Analysis of Community Need
• Collaboration with Local Leaders
• Incorporation of Diverse Skill Sets
• User Experience
• Quality of Design
• Ultimate Utility of the Product

Special consideration will be given to entries that incorporate Knight Foundation Soul of the Community data.

Prizes

The prizes have not been announced yet, but past prizes for the Civic Data Challenge have been valued at $100,000 and included:

• Cash
• Conference Passes
• High-Profile Blog Features
• Access to Data Expertise and Consulting Services

2013 Prizes will be announced throughout the Challenge. Prizes will be available for finalists at the end of Creation phase, as well as for overall grand prize winners at the end of the Implementation phase.

The full rules and criteria for entering can be found here.

Visually is thrilled to be helping to judge the challenge, and we hope to see some amazing applications and visualizations produced. So, what are you waiting for? Get out there and get brainstorming!

In a little more than two short years, Visually has become the largest platform for distributing infographics on the web. We are proud to serve our ever-expanding community of information designers, data journalists and web users, and connect data visualization professionals with companies seeking the creative talent for their next data visualization or infographic project.

If you are a Visually fan or simply a fan of infographics and data visualization, we would be honored to have your vote!

The good news is that voting is as easy as 1-2-3 and should take no more than a couple of minutes of your time!

1. Click here to go directly to the page with Web Services and Applications People’s Choice awards.

2. If you already have an account, sign in. If not, you can create a new account or login with Facebook or Twitter to save some time:

3. You will then see all the nominees in the category. We are proud to be in such distinguished company!

After you vote, please help us get the word out by sharing with your family, friends and social networks. Thank you!

Visually has created a community around data visualization and infographics. We have done our best to nurture this community and help it to thrive. The presentation covers some of what we’ve done to try to help build the ecosystem that supports the community.

That explains why we recently turned our attention to Google Analytics. More than 10 million people rely on this free tool daily to keep track of their website’s performance. It works well and we use it ourselves. But, with our experience in designing data-rich visual experiences, we knew it could be better.

Instead of requiring you to log-in to a website, Visually Google Analytics Report is automatically delivered to your inbox each week. And instead of an intimidating dashboard approach to analytics, it tells the story of key metrics such as the number of page views, social engagement, SEO, and bounce rate in a more visual way — highlighting the areas a site administrator needs to focus on in order to see improvement. Visually Google Analytics Report isn’t intended to replace your existing dashboard. But we think it’ll save you plenty of time and (at least if your numbers are up) put a smile on your face.

We’re seeing more companies turn to tools like this to make their internal data more understandable. Whether you want to illustrate a research paper, explain a business process with visuals, or produce a motion graphic, Visually can help.

Visually Google Analytics Report is just the latest example of the kind of infographic available in Visual.ly Create, our free tool that generates automated infographics from social media and other kinds of data. Visit Visual.ly Create to get started.

Nearly 100 people came to the Trulia offices in SOMA, San Francisco (many thanks for being our host!) and we kicked off the evening with beer, pizza (and even some ping pong).

Of course, we weren’t there just to have fun, but also hear two very smart and talented people talk about what they think are the top trends in interactive visualizations and motion graphics.

Scott Murray, a code artist, and Assistant Professor of Design at University of San Francisco, gave a presentation on the top trends in interactive visualization. A self-professed “process junkie,” Murray believes process will be a big conversation in the field this year.

You can watch his talk (and presentation) here:

Mike Jeter, a Co-founder and Creative Director of IShotHim, spoke about trends in animation and motion graphics. His take: the most important topics in the field this year will be:

• The importance of storytelling

… where clients often have a lot to say and you have to help them say it in a way that people want to listen.


• The importance of sharing

… where it all comes down to egos (and the hierarchy of cool)


• And not least, the impact that motion graphics can have on our society (and the rest of the world).

A powerful example: after releasing iShotHim’s latest video (produced together with Visually), Mike received a phone call from the Open Society Foundations, with a powerful message. They had been trying to tell the story of the drug cartels in Mexico for years, and no one would listen. Within two weeks of its publication, the video had more than 300,000 views on YouTube, provoking a heated discussion with more than 1,000 comments.

You can view the video below:

A video of Mike’s presentation will be available shortly.

Today’s workforce switches jobs and entire careers much more often than the previous generation. And many people now work alone, running small businesses from their local Starbucks. This dynamism is not reflected in the staid ages-old resume format, which really tells you very little about whether that person will be a good fit for your company.

And most people now rely more on their online social media profiles than on mailing out physical resumes. If you received a physical resume, you’d probably think that person was some kind of neanderthal who doesn’t even know how to use a computer.

Today Visually has partnered with Kelly Services, a leader in providing workforce solutions, to provide a visual tool that creates a resume infographic based entirely on a person’s LinkedIn profile. The resumes generated by this tool have been designed by professional graphic designers and data visualization experts, the same people that have been uploading thousands of infographics to the Visual.ly marketplace. Not only are these resumes beautiful, they can be generated on-the-fly as the data changes

Visually Visual Resumes are the latest kind of infographics available in Visual.ly Create, our free tool that generates automated infographics from social media and other kinds of data. Visit Visual.ly Create to get started.

Making infographics is hard. We want to make it easy. That’s why we’re taking our community to the next level today with the beta launch of Visually Marketplace. Marketplace creates a one-stop shop for data visualization projects by bringing together marketing gurus, data nerds and design junkies.

If one of those descriptions applies to you, then we think you’ll find Marketplace of interest. Marketplace can automatically match designers with projects from infographic commissioners. We’re starting with designers but we hope to soon branch out and include additional creative resources like data analysts, researchers and journalists.

 
It is the perfect place to flex your creative chops and get paid for doing it. Any Visually designer can apply to become a certified designer and be offered work through the Visually Marketplace.

 
There’s some serious technology behind the Marketplace, too. Besides its auto matching algorithm (based on such criteria as preferred style, desired layout, and geographic location), Visually is building on the recently introduced social networking features to make it easier to manage a project, from creative brief through to completion.

 
Project management features include the ability to upload and approve drafts, share feedback and track the progress of the project in real time. A program timeline is available to show you where your project stands and alerts are sent when due dates are approaching to ensure that projects come in on time and on budget. Say goodbye to scope creep.

As a public beta, Visually Marketplace supports the creation of static infographics. In the coming months, Marketplace will support interactive and motion graphics, access to third-party data feeds and connections to additional creative resources like data analysts, researchers, and journalists.

If you like the Visual.ly blog and would like to support us, please vote here. Thank you!

More importantly, however, we’d like to take this opportunity to ask you, the readers, what you think of the blog. We’ve been working hard to help the community of designers, developers, journalists, and data researchers within the data visualizations and infographics fields, and we’d like to know how we’re doing. We’d love to get your thoughts on the type of content you like (or dislike!) most and what we could do to improve the blog. Would you like to see more educational and best-practices blog posts? How about featuring specific works — and the process behind them? Do you like our chalk charts?

Write to us at blog@visual.ly and tell us what you think. And if you’re a data visualization professional and would like to be featured on our blog, whether with a blog post about a specific project of yours or around a more general topic, be sure to let us know!