9/2 Ted Talk Tuesday--Jonathan Harris "The art of collecting stories"

Today’s talk was by Jonathan Harris, an artist, computer scientist, storyteller, and internet anthropologist. Harris makes online art that captures the world’s emotions. In this talk he spoke on a topic near and dear to HealthEd, the art of collecting stories. See for yourself at the link below.

Jonathan Harris: The art of collecting stories

Harris looks for stories on and offline and presents them as unique interfaces. He leverages images, words and graphics to tell stories in linear and non-linear formats.

In this talk he presented a few of his projects including the website ‘We Feel Fine’ (http://www.wefeelfine.org/index.html) which searches the internet for instances of the words ‘I feel…’ and then presents those instances in a graphical way, displaying levels of happiness or sadness around the world. Corresponding images associated with these expressions were also displayed on the site. The resulting stories were simple, compelling one line narratives and images.

‘The Whale Hunt’ (http://thewhalehunt.org/) another of Harris’ projects, displays photographs of a whale hunt taken at regular intervals. Harris created unique interfaces to display these images as a timeline or in a grid. Users can sort by character, topic, or even color. This allows the viewer to absorb the linear story in a non-linear format by skipping from place to place within the timeline, and focusing on those details which they find the most interesting.

To see more of Harris’s work check out his website: http://www.number27.org/

The group in attendance today agreed that Harris’ presentation of the stories he collects is exceptional. In each of his sites there is inspiration for presenting information in unique ways, which could accommodate a variety of adult learning styles, something that we constantly aspire to do.

Also, everyone who skipped today’s talk missed Barb regaling us with the story of her near death experience at the foot of Mt. Everest in which she was heroically rescued by a Yak in a blizzard…seriously it was a crazy story…ask her about it.

"Jonathan Harris [is] a New York artist and storyteller working primarily on the Internet. His work involves the exploration and understanding of humans, on a global scale, through the artifacts they leave behind on the Web."

Edge.org

8/26 Ted Talk Tuesday--Jill Bolte Taylor "My stroke of insight”

“Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight”

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded and she realized she was having a massive stroke. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding, self-awareness -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story of recovery and awareness -- of how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. Jill started studying the brain as her brother had schizophrenia.

Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right.

As she went through this experience, she spoke about going back and forth between the sides of her brain…”la-la land” and conscious thought that something was going wrong and she should get help. As a group, we wondered if she consciously jeopardized her health to go through this experience as she had several warning signs and never called 911. When she finally tried to get help (after exercising, showering and dressing), it took quite a while as she waited for her stream of consciousness to come back each time as it swung like a pendulum. It took her 45 minutes to find a colleagues business card on her desk and then she still had to dial the phone number. It was amazing to hear her thoughts and feelings as she went through this process and that she remembered them to be able to relate them back to us. Once she finally called her colleague, she remembered him sounding like a golden retriever…sound was not processing into words.

"How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career."

Jill Bolte Taylor

8/19 Ted Talk Tuesday--Hans Rosling "New Insights on Poverty and Life Around the World"

For those of you who were unable to attend this week’s session, I highly encourage you to visit the TED web site and watch the video when you have some extra time – it truly is intriguing:

Hans Rosling Talks: New Insights on Poverty and Life Around the World
Researcher Hans Rosling uses his cool data tools to show how countries are pulling themselves out of poverty.

Most everyone in the session agreed that we have never seen information presented like this!! The software Hans has created takes data showing to another level so that it is even more engaging, easy-to-understand, to-the-point, and artistic…all characteristics our team strives to achieve in our projects in order properly educate different audience types in unique ways. So…how can we apply this to what we do here at HealthEd?

Main discussion points / follow-up ideas:

· Can we leverage similar story telling and presentation techniques when presenting our capabilities to clients?

· Is there a way we can show brand ROI in a similarly engaging fashion?

o Show patient participation in programs from sign-up through Rx redemption

o Show patient behavior change modeling (reach trends)

More information on Hans:

Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. A professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, his current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which (he points out) is no longer worlds away from the west. In fact, most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did.

What sets Rosling apart isn’t just his apt observations of broad social and economic trends, but the stunning way he presents them. Guaranteed: You’ve never seen data presented like this. By any logic, a presentation that tracks global health and poverty trends should be, in a word: boring. But in Rosling’s hands, data sings. Trends come to life. And the big picture — usually hazy at best — snaps into sharp focus.

Rosling’s presentations are grounded in solid statistics (often drawn from United Nations data), illustrated by the visualization software he developed. The animations transform development statistics into moving bubbles and flowing curves that make global trends clear, intuitive and even playful. During his legendary presentations, Rosling takes this one step farther, narrating the animations with a sportscaster’s flair.

Rosling developed the breakthrough software behind his visualizations through his nonprofit Gapminder, founded with his son and daughter-in-law. The free software — which can be loaded with any data — was purchased by Google in March 2007. (Rosling met the Google founders at TED.)

"Rosling believes that making information more accessible has the potential to change the quality of the information itself."

Business Week Online