The subject of my master’s project are visual tools for the exploration, evaluation and communication of financial information. I will explore how interactive and dynamic mapping of complex structures and processes can support understanding and thereby lead to a more critical examination of your financials. My goal is provide you with a set of tools to better understand where your money is coming from, where it is stored and where it is going. As a bonus, I’d like to help you understand what impact your money has on society, economy and our environment.

I will be mentored by Prof. Dr. Gerhard M. Buurman. He established the Interaction Design course at the ZHdK in 2000 and co-founded the Swiss Design Institute for Finance and Banking (SDFB) in 2007 and is currently the director of the Institute for Design Research. The proximity to the SDFB provides a repository of experience and expertise, which allows me to build on a well-established foundation and existing results.

During my studies I will continue to work at Interactive Things where I handle communication and coordination. My master’s project can be considered an internal research project for us, where we have the opportunity to focus on a user-centric approach to design and implementation without the limitations in time and budget. This will allow us to bring together theory and practice in one comprehensive piece of work.

If you’re interested in learning more about my project and follow my research findings and work results, I will publish updates on master.benjaminwiederkehr.com.

South By, as the cool kids call it, is one of the biggest festivals and features five packed days of presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, networking events and special programs showcasing the best new digital works, video games and innovative ideas the international community has to offer.

Invited by the good folks at JESS3, I will join Adam Bly of Visualizing.org, Eric Friedman of Foursquare and our moderator Robin Richards on the panel entitled Social Media Data Visualization: Mapping the World’s Conversations. Together, we will explore the significance of visualization in relation to the expanding reach and uses of social media as not just tellers of social media stories, but part of larger communications strategies. The panel takes place on Saturday March 12, 3:30pm at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, TX.

As individuals and companies across the world rely more and more heavily on social media, data visualization has become sine qua non in not only displaying analytics and metrics, but also in understanding macro and micro trends by platform, network and individual. This panel will explore information design, data visualization, relationship mapping and statistics — and how they all fit together to create compelling infographics, data visualizations and dynamic dashboards in hot pursuit of the holy grail of information design: make it more digestible and more human.

The four of us will share insights, discuss measurements of success & qualities and propose strategies on how to implement these in the day to day work. My focus lies on how we as practitioners can ensure integrity, underline relevance and maintain clarity in form & function while striving for impact and immersion. Ideally, we will have different views on these points and therefore a vivid discussion can emerge. At this point I want to wish Robin, the moderator of this panel, the best of luck and to thank him for making this possible.

A short word about my fellow panelists:

Adam Bly is the founder and CEO of Seed Media Group, an integrated media and technology company committed to helping advance science and its potential to improve the state of the world. He has lectured at the World Economic Forum, The Museum of Modern Art, Harvard, MIT, The Royal Society on the future of science and its role in society.

Eric Friedman is Director of Client Services at Foursquare.  Eric was formerly the analyst at Union Square Ventures, a VC firm focussed on early stage technology companies.  Eric has combined his entrepreneurial interests and experience in product management, finance, IT, marketing, and account management in his work.

Robin Richards is Art Director of JESS3, where he is responsible for overseeing their infographic output, while also working on data visualizations across web and mobile platforms. His work has been featured on Techcrunch, Flowing Data, Fast Company, Gizmodo, BBC, Guardian, Alltop, and Information Is Beautiful.

Needless to say that I look forward to this event — and the date is approaching very fast. If you happen to be at South By please let me know, I would love to meet up with you and have a chat.

This is the question that will be answered by more than 100 students of the Design Department of the Zurich University of the Arts. In an interdisciplinary project, students from fields like Visual Communication, Industrial Design, Scientific Visualization or Interaction Design will collaborate to explore concepts and approaches on how to utilize the new possibilities provided by tablet computers like the iPad or Galaxy Tab. The course will take place in the spring semester 2011 from March to April and will kick off with the DDE Symposium on March 21st.

I was asked to step in as a lecturer and I’m very excited to join the head of the Interaction Design program and my former professor Dr. Gerhard M. Buurman on this assignment. Together with our students we will focus on potential dialogic collaboration between the reader and the editor. We call this Crowd Editing.

We will guide and advise the students to answer questions like: How do we build an open and accessible editorial office? Which new workflows will be established? What kind of tools and channels will be needed to form vibrant and inspiring interactions between the participants?

I am more than happy to be back at this great institution and to be able to work with such bright minds. It will be an intense undertaking and I look forward to learn as much from my students as I will be of service to them.

You can learn more about it here: http://ixt.gs/aqZx1o

Refine

The new design is based on the same grid as before. A new color palette and some small adjustments served the goal of creating a simple, elegant and friendly interface. To replace the characteristic Clarendon headlines I’ve used the excellent Netto by Daniel Utz — a simple and simply beautiful font. It’s also our corporate font at Interactive Things, thus creating a bridge between the two domains.

Unify

I applied the fundation of the new design to my Tumblr and Twitter account. The consistent look ties the three domains neatly together. Each one has specific requirements though, that I addressed in the design for the application at hand.

Rename

The domain Artillery.ch served as my brand for freelance work in times before Interactive Things. With the establishment of our company, the freelance times are gone and the name became superfluous. As I still need a space to share the things that keep me busy at daytime and up at night, I took the chance to get my personal domain BenjaminWiederkehr.com.

Allocate

Given the fact that my stuff on this site could be irrelevant to someone in search of me, I came to the conclusion that I need a central hub that helps direct the visitor to the right place to interact with me. This could be the corporate site of Interactive Things, my professional CV at LinkedIn or maybe my profile on Facebook. That’s why I built the tiny one-pager at benjaminwiederkehr.com and moved the site that you’re currently reading to blog.benjaminwiederkehr.com.

I goes without saying that changing the top-level domain (and my main e-mail address) takes some time and a lot of “Change Account Settings” link clicking. It’s a work-in-progress and if you see something quirky, please let me know.

Beside our own continuing research in this field, we document the newest creations by some of the smartes people around. While you’re there be sure to check out the dashboard we’ve built to monitor this agile community and stay on top of the cutting edge of information.