I Believe in Miracles...

Because that's probably what it's going to take to get someone to make the flowers grow. Unless you're a classmate, you've no idea what I'm talking about. Here, watch this...



First of all, I love his narration of all of the changes on the graph. His enthusiasm is contagious, certainly, but more than that, he actually makes the changes make sense.

I was completely amazed to see the disparities in the data on various African countries. I was especially appreciative of his use of trailing on one particular graph to show just how fast and how far the countries were moving, and to really highlight the various speeds at which those countries were making their progress.

"Improvement must be highly contextualized." If ever there was a truer phrase uttered, I'm sure I don't know. In affecting attitudes, there are three main components, the credibility of the person delivering the message, the manner in which the message is delivered, and the current attitudes of the person viewing/receiving the message.

Hans Rosling is a genius, I think... not because he has all of this data, or because he understands it. Though he argues that the data is hardly accessible, I see it as no great feat that he has the data, and I have never found data all that particularly difficult to understand. No, he's a genius because he recognizes that publicizing this information is the key to real change. He sees that we need to take the information that we already have, and turn it into something that the world can see. I mean really see. Thank goodness it's not officially impossible anymore. Now if only we can find someone who can do it.

Now I'm off to check out the graphs at Gapminder.org

Thanks for reading,
Katie May