I want to think in the open about this:

What is a “hot topic” anyway?

In my view there are four criteria for any topic to be “hot”:

1. the news value
2. actuality
3. amount of discussion in the community
4. touching “high-level aspects”

The news value

The news value is a very hard to identify aspect. Some topics may be news to some and outdated to others. There is no “topic map” that shows the age of topics – hardly even an identified list yet (while there is a list of research fields and areas of expertise). So the news value pretty much comes down to a statistical evaluation of demand and interest in certain topics.

Actuality

In contrast to news value the actuality can also be high for older topics that have regained some attention recently. It can also be interesting, because it is reflecting about new developments and “game changing” or disruptive topics.

Amount & intensity of discussion

To define “amount of discussion” one needs to look at two things: the quantity of participation (e.g. the postings in discussion forums and mailing lists) and the level of dissent above consensus. Both values are hard to track.

Touching high-level aspects

Any submission in the “hot topic” section should focus on the identification and reflection about the topic itself — and its location in the overall topology of topics. So the direction of a submission should be “looking from inside out” or trying to define a bird’s eye view onto the subject.

Possible candidates

I went through some monographs, magazines, conference sites and journals and tried to identify an initial list of hot topics. This list is nothing more than a starting point – a first step.

• Multi-touch user interface design
• Making sense of the mobile technology
• Visualizing complex matters
• Visualization as political propaganda
• Open government
• Aligning sound and visuals in UI
• Improving public transport
• Intercultural communication

More steps will follow and this list will change.

Do you think there is a “hot topic” not in this list? I am constantly collecting material — do not hesitate to e-Mail or twitter-message me.

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If we’re going to live in a world driven by data, the thinking goes, we need a simple means of digesting it all. We are increasingly a visual society, and our understanding of the world is increasingly made possible by this new visual language.

… and …

Designers have historically excelled at finding insightful ways of looking at complex problems. Visualization will likely play a prominent role as design evolves beyond the consumer economy (selling $2,000 poufs and other high-end furnishings) and helps create efficient new forms of buildings, food distribution and transportation.

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And even now — as the information is presented to legislators – it seems that politicians come to very different conclusions about wether or not there should be a bailout of the failing banks. And the matter is so complex, that obviously only few people understand the issues and the pro’s and con’s of all options.

There have been other desasters where information has been presented in a fashion that allowed it to be ignored or misinterpreted too easily. I assume that the pretext of the current financial crisis is full of examples of such kind.

People seemed to be surprised by the financial crisis. But market experts have been ringing bells for quite some time.

For instance Thorsten Polleit from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. In an article about the increasing “credit crisis” he wrote in early Februrary 2008 for the Ludwig von Mises Institute:

A crisis must be feared, however, if it has been caused by government action, and if the obvious signs of the crisis provoke ever greater doses of government intervention. In this case, the market would be prevented from doing its job properly. Bad decisions would be perpetuated, and the ultimate crisis may become nasty.

Polleit has written many other very interesting articles for the Mises Institute. Many reflect on the theories of Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. For instance an article from early August 2008 about the problems of a government money-supply monopoly:

There is no escape from the costs of correcting the damage inflicted by government paper-money standards. However, when looking for monetary-reform proposals, Mises’s work must be given highest public attention: he proposed ending the government money-supply monopoly — which he identified as the root of the problem — and returning money to the free market. Only in this way can the costs of the final monetary and economic collapse be prevented from becoming disastrously high. Mises wrote, “The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

I found this site through a clip from a Duck Tales episode on YouTube that may be understandable for kids as well:

Why is the Duck Tale episode so relevant?

There have been apologets of free market and sound money whose theories seem to be neglected by the Bailout Bill suggested by the US administration. Here is a 42 minute documentary about the US monetary system and the Federal Reserve:

You want more?

The Ludwig von Mises Institute has compiled a good Bailout Reader with articles related to the financial crisis.

If you really want to be up to date what happens in the US the site cpsanjunkie.org collects the most important video clips.

Private control over the monetary system?

If you are leaning towards conspiracy theories — you may think how private control about the money system came into being:

Corrupt Federal Reserve:
Part 1: Robbing Americans since 1913
Part 2: The Secret Government
Part 3: The Media’s Main Stranglehold

Ron Paul has recently interacted with Bernard Bernake, the chairman of the Federal Reserve during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee. When questioned about the powers of the Fed to create money Bernake only responds with the 1913 Federal Reserve Act:

But as you can see in this video here, Ron Paul thinks that this Act is against the US consitution:

My current question here now is: Would better design of the information needed in the context help to make better decisions in the future?

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I got interested in the Hiroshima topic last year when I accdidentally crossed a website of the “Children of the Manhatten Project”. It kicked of a long web research that really totally amazed me.

The Deforestation topic is a tribute to two things: a) the famous Knowledge Navigator video by Apple and b) the software EarthBrowser which I recently obtained and which was improved with stunning high-res images of the earth surface. Here is are two samples – the second shows a zoom to the center of the first view:

Anyway I am convinced that both topics serve perfectly as context for exploring data visualization and information mapping experiments. Generally I am not sticking to topics like these, if students want to work on things to explore that have more appeal to them.

The course starts on March, 23rd. See course weblog.

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