We are delighted to see Scott Berinato of Harvard Business Review catching onto and up to the Visual SenseMaking revolution underway that includes significant advances in data visualization. This wave is occurring in parallel with the increasingly open sources of massive data sets not formerly available and in some case never before in existence.

Data visualization represents a significant application of visualization in the context of understanding business through better understanding of human behavior embedded in data.

“Clark, like many data visualizers, believes we’re on the front end of a revolution in information presentation. “There’s a lot of work done called scientific visualization or business intelligence graphics,” he says. “And it’s pragmatic, trying to solve practical problem. It’s all standard, a bar chart or pie. But those standard ways are not adequate when you’re trying to mine a richer data space. The world is full of complex data and we’re just starting to get the tools to make sense of it. We’re looking for new ways of presenting data.”’

While the commercial business application of data visualization is obvious, we are, at Humantific, also interested in how data visualization can be used in the context of social change ie: making the world a better place.

See more here on Harvard Business Review Blog: Four Ways of Looking at Twitter

GK VanPatter pitched in to help with group navigation at the exploratory Design Thinking UnConference in New York last friday. Just another afternoon in Complexity Navigation Land.

In his new book The Hidden Brain, science writer Shankar Vedantam explains his perspective on what he describes as our brains two modes: conscious and unconscious, pilot and autopilot. Are you constantly switching back and forth between the two?

“Most of us think of ourselves as being conscious, intentional, deliberate creatures,” Vedantam says. “I know that I think of myself that way: I know why I like this movie star, or why I voted for this president, or why I prefer this political party to that….Doing research for this book changed all that.“

“I have become, in some ways, much more humble about my views and much less certain about myself. And it may well be that the hidden brain is much more in charge of what we do than our conscious mind’s intentions.”

Listen to Shankar talk about The Hidden Brain concept on NPR.

Humantific CoFounder Elizabeth Pastor has begun collaborating with the European Institute of Design in Madrid on a new Master of Design Innovation Program.

Go here to learn more and to become a fan of the new Master of Design Innovation Program on Facebook:

If you would like to learn more about how Humantific can help your graduate school adapt and change send an email to programs (at) humantific (dot) com.

Another example of Social SenseMaking we saw this Recession Map by created by Latoya Egwuuekwe and liked it alot.