Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Tech Networks of Boston (TNB)  and The United Way of Mass Bay & Merrimack Valley (UWMBMV) invite philanthropic professionals and United Way grantees to participate in an introduction to data visualization and the Weave platform.

In the information age, grantmakers are increasingly challenged to use many kinds of data for both internal and external purposes: to understand local challenges, to track their progress toward specific goals, to make course corrections, to measure regional impact, and to brief stakeholders about their successes. In many cases, we find that grantmakers have plenty of data, but are in need of finding ways to derive more useful insights from it and to convey those insights more succinctly.  Data visualization is one of the most promising practices for grantmakers who are seeking to understand the essential meaning of a story and to tell that story to others.

We are very fortunate that Georges Grinstein, one of the creators of the open source Weave data visualization platform, has volunteered to lead this workshop.  He will walk us through an overview of what data visualization means, and use the Weave platform to show how it can be done.  Workshop participants will have an opportunity to explore a sample data set provided by the United Way of Mass Bay and Merrimack Valley, and to create their own impromptu visualizations.

Here's is a little more about Georges:

Georges Grinstein is is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, head of its Bioinformatics Program, Director of its Institute for Visualization and Perception Research, and CSO of Weave Visual Analytics.  He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1978. His work is broad and interdisciplinary, covering the perceptual and cognitive foundations of visualization, very high-dimensional data visualization, visual analytics and applications. The emphasis is on the modeling, visualization, and analysis of complex information data and systems. He has over 40 years in academia with extensive consulting, over 300 research grants, products in use nationally and internationally, several patents, numerous publications in journals and conferences, a book on interactive data visualization, founded several companies, been the organizer or chair of national and international conferences and workshops in computer graphics, in visualization, and in data mining.

Please note:

1) The open source Weave platform will be used to introduce workshop participants to the basics of data visualization.  It is one of several data visualization tools; information about other tools will be available to those who request it.

2) This session will NOT be a sales pitch for any product or service.  It will be a professional development opportunity for philanthropic professionals who want to learn with and from their peers in other organizations.

3) This session is designed exclusively for employees of philanthropic organizations and United Way grantees. Vendors, volunteers, students, consultants, job-seekers, and others are not eligible to register.

4) Participation in this session is free of charge for philanthropic professionals and United Way grantees. However, you must have a confirmed reservation in order to attend.

5) If this session is booked to capacity by the time you seek to register for it, please go ahead and put yourself on the waiting list. We have a good track record of finding seats for those on the waiting list.

We hope that you can join us for a session that will enable you to fulfill your mission in new ways.

Best regards from Deborah

Deborah Elizabeth Finn | Senior Strategist
Tech Networks of Boston
1 Wadleigh Place | South Boston, MA 02127
Phone: 617.504.8188 | Fax: 888.527.9333
deborah@techboston.com | techboston.com
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