EagerEyes is Robert Kosara's place to reflect on the world of information visualization and visual communication of data. The goal is to help digest things that are happening in the field and discuss developments that may be tangential or early, but that are likely to have an impact.
The original idea for the site involved the interplay of art and science in visualization. While the focus has shifted, questions of representation are touched upon regularly. In fact, I believe that visualization can be vastly improved by a better understanding issues of representation and reading of data.
Other topics of interest include visualization for the masses, open data, and where the field of visualization is heading. Criticism of visualization techniques and applications, websites, and books is also a regular feature. Discussions of visualization techniques provide insights into the thinking behind them. During conferences (VisWeek, in particular), the site is also used for live micro-blogging.
Carlos Lizarraga Celaya on 21 Dec 11Futurists and innovators can teach each other lessons to help their ideas succeed. Innovators and futurists ought to have a symbiotic relationship. Often, they do not. The futurist aims to help us understand how trends and events will shape the future, so that we can chart our business and policy courses to bring us to a future that most appeals to us. The innovator, on the other hand, aims to realize a possible future by getting ideas (i.e., possibilities for the future) adopted as practice in our communities. Many would-be innovators ask in frustration, Why do my own good ideas often go by the wayside and other people's bad ideas get adopted? Why do I invest enormous time and resources to systematically generate new ideas, only to see much of my effort go to waste? Leaders in all fields fret and fume over these questions. They want to improve their innovation success rates. Increasing success and reducing wasted effort on the path to innovation are very important goals. Many people believe innovation is the key to economic development, technological progress, competitiveness, and business survival. Policies that enhance a nation's ability to be innovative are constantly in public discussion and are hot topics among politicians and business leaders. Futurists collaborating with innovators can contribute to these goals. I have been investigating these questions for many years and have learned many things that I wish I knew when I was younger. Based on these investigations, my colleague, Robert Dunham, and I wrote a book, The Innovator's Way (MIT Press, 2010, innovators-way.com). I will share here some excerpts from the book as a guide for innovators-and futurists-who are trying to get their ideas adopted.