“Data Rockstar”

Have a look at the video “Hans Rosling and the magic washing machine”  via the link at the bottom of this webpage for an example of Rosling’s stunning way to present statistics. Or look at his fabulous return from the old digital age to the “new analogue age” of IKEA boxes.

He demonstrates that even statistics can be presented in a thrilling way in humorous, action-packed, live performances.

Not everybody has the “energy of 1.000 suns” that the TED staff attributed to Hans Rosling, when he died in 2017.  But we all can learn from him what makes good edutainment.  Let me pick a few aspects:

– Use physical objects to visualize your argument. It sticks even better than pictures.

– Bring something unexpected to the stage (it does not have to be as heavy as a washing machine, it can be rolls of toilet paper).

– Link it to personal history and experience, if not your own, then of your family, neighbours or friends.

– Coin some easy to understand new concepts (such as the “Air Line” separating the flying happy few  from the rest of the world’s population as the opposite to the people below the “Poverty Line”).

– Use of humor:  people who laugh keep paying attention.

– Come with an unfamiliar – or even paradoxically sounding – hypothesis, like “Only more child survival will stop population growth”.

Somebody said “In Hans Rosling’s hands, data sing”.  Let’s at least hum along with him.