The leadership blogging series on this site will continue to dance around what is essentially a single point: That blogs are good for getting others to help you describe a problem (the essential prelude to solving it effectively).
People who have thought about this potential for any length of time have concluded that an effective infographic is an essential tool for doing this. If we make a problem navigable and engaging, more people will get involved in trying to solve it.A good infographic costs money and time to produce, and this is important. If we price other people’s participation at £0, we will only get responses from the time-rich, as this posting illustrates.
So infographics are a phenomenon that is valued by exponents of participatory decision-making. And if government is prepared to put as much of it’s data into the public domain, more infographics can be made and a huge array of unconsidered problems can be solved. There are some great infographics, but I saw this illustration (from here) having a bit of a laugh at some of the clichés that are beginning emerge in this idiom:
… and on a more positive note, here’s a promo from John Tolva of IBM illustrating the potential of open data:
Further reading:
- Information is Beautiful
- The Cool Infographics blog
- Good Magazine’s infographics page (the whole site is worth regular visits)
- The Infographics Showcase
- 40 useful & creative infographics
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