Hans Rosling makes data tell a story

There are many ways to tell a good story, but enumerating figures isn't one of them. So we think. Data and figures make us yawn. Unless you do something special with it. Professor Hans Rosling from Sweden does. Actually, he devellopped an extraordinary set of tools to visualize data in order to make them tell the story behind them.

Rosling is a 67-year old physician, professor and entrepreneur. As director of the Gapminder Foundation he experimented with new ways to handle big datasets and visualize them. He developped new standards and tools to make data understandable to the public. Many will recognize the moving-balls graphs that he developped.

Must said, Rosling is also a compelling speaker, funny too. His vocal resemblance to the Swedish Chef from The Muppets is helping...

As a medical researcher in various countries, Rosling developped his own views on the relations between demographic changes and other variables like economic growth and socio-economic factors. Het constructed his particular way to make major historic movements on a global scale visible.

Watch this video, several years old, where he shows a new way he just developped to combine his speech talent with his datavislualizations.

Roslings datavisualization methods became state of the art in many stories that needed the help from figures. In his way, het teaches us that data don't need to be boring, they can tell a compelling story as well - if properly visualized.