Testimonials

Working with Jon was a pleasure. He listened to our description of the audience and tailored a presentation to meet our needs. Somehow Jon managed to explain dataviz clearly to the totally uninitiated while engaging those who work in the field. Jon was incredibly responsive to questions, staying on past the hour, as did half of our 500 participants! Afterwards attendees were clamoring for the resources he mentioned during his presentation, which he immediately sent to us. Most importantly, his message about providing information clearly and without bias is crucial for people to hear. As I told a colleague who praised the presentation, “I want to clone Jon.”

Thanks for your tailored talk for our staff on diversity, equity, and inclusion in data viz. I’ve already been hearing takeaway ideas from your presentation folks are applying to dashboards-in-progress to make them more inclusive which for me is the greatest mark of success in a talk. 

Jonathan’s workshop was a perfect combination of unique knowledge, great visualization examples, and some humor to keep things fun. We had a variety of expertise and experience levels in the room and everyone came away from the workshop with something to improve upon and all left the workshop eager to get started on new projects. Highly recommend!

Jon Schwabish did an excellent job offering a custom data visualization workshop for my team.  He listened to our problems in advance, tailored his talk to our needs, and kept our diverse team–from analysts to teachers–engaged throughout the day.  He’s an excellent public speaker and teacher, and he really takes the time to get to know his audience.  I was impressed with the quality of the workshop as well as with how well we’ve been able to implement his clear, concise, and helpful recommendations.  I hope we have the chance to work with him again!

Jon came to one of our DC Tableau User Group meetings to present on better communication specifically in data visualizations. The response from the group exceeded my expectations!  [Our Tableau] users were informed and inspired by what they learned exclaiming that “Jon’s talk has been one of the most helpful presentations I’ve seen” and “I can’t wait to incorporate what I’ve learned into my work”. Thank you Jon for generating new ideas that will help us to effectively communicate in our presentations and data visualizations!

As a startup, we have a lot of talented and smart people working for us, but we needed some guidance on properly presenting data. Jon’s presentation on data visualization was exactly the training we were looking for. It was clear, informative, fun, and honestly inspiring. It helped all of us understand the power of data visualization and helped our teams really focus on rethinking the structure of their own departmental metrics and KPIs.

Jon’s presentation on data visualization was fun, concise, and easy to apply to my goal of making reports on app usage more compelling and informative. His takeaways were crystal clear. After the presentation, he happily entertained my request to present the flaws of my current reports to the group, so I might make better ones going forward. A few weeks later I emailed him new reports to show how I’d tried to implement his advice, and he greeted me warmly and even replied with additional feedback so I could improve further.

Jon Schwabish knows how to deliver an effective presentation. With humor and verve, he demonstrates how researchers and policy analysts often lose their audience by giving a talk as though they are writing an academic paper. His examples [of common presentation mistakes] are hilarious and yet all-too-familiar: text-heavy PowerPoint slides, indecipherable charts and figures, and irrelevant stock images. Jon offers some simple lessons on how to structure a presentation and use visual aids to make one’s points more memorable and persuasive. Researchers and policy analysts will do well to heed [Jon’s] advice – and will appreciate his lively lectures and workshops.

We asked Jon to present at a workshop on visualization around the time of the 2016 PAA conference in D.C. [Jon] wowed us with a clean, entertaining, and insightful presentation, and he was supportive throughout the rest of the workshop. Very approachable, and very good. We’d love to have him back!

Jon’s command of both the stage and the content was remarkable. The conference attendees were of the highest caliber and enjoyed exceptional presentations, but Jon stole the show with his pragmatic approach to data visualization. The continued buzz was palpable following the keynote and the content continued to be a topic of discussion throughout the rest of the summit.

Jon spoke about how to better visualize and present data during a data visualization workshop we held at PRB. Jon is one of the few people able to deliver key insights and information while also entertaining the audience. I would not hesitate to have Jon speak at other data visualization events.

I consistently find myself asking “What would Jon Schwabish do?” when I have data that I want to present in a compelling, nuanced way. I recommend his writings as a resource to all my students. When I served as Director at the Hamilton Project, our team spent a lot of time and effort thinking about how to effectively and clearly present statistical data and research findings. We booked a day-long training with Jon, and it turned out to be a terrific investment. Jon is the rare person who expertly understands the nuances of statistics and econometric findings, the appeal (or lack thereof) of certain data visualization options, and the technical aspects of creating visually compelling figures and tables in a variety of software. His presentation contained many important lessons and his presentation style kept everyone actively engaged throughout the day. I highly recommend his workshop!

Jon’s data visualization talk was entertaining, engaging, and informative. He brings important and unique insights into effectively communicating what the data is trying to tell us to explain the world around us. As an empirical economist and professor, this is at the very heart of what I do. His talk was invaluable for our undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff. Attendees walked away saying it was the most useful talk they have attended at the University.

Tremendous! That’s really all I can say about Jon’s presentations at our annual Customer Summit. Jon spoke at two of our Summits, which are attended by hundreds of people working in the fields of business, data, open data, and data visualization. His presentations are still talked about today and are considered two of our highest-ranking speeches at our events. He was easy to work with and he delivered great content in an entertaining and enthusiastic way. We can’t wait to have him back to our next event.

Thank you for your wonderful workshop! The attendees – a mix of researchers and community leaders – could not stop raving about your presentation. Your energy, use of specific examples, and lucid presentation style made the topic accessible and entertaining for our grantees. Your workshop got a mean score of 4.9 out of a 5.0 scale and the attendees commented that they especially liked the handouts, visual materials, and specific and actionable advice to improve their data communication.

I just wanted to thank you profusely for the incredibly informative and engaging presentation. Our group really benefitted from your insights. They were raving about your talk and your ideas. Your deep understanding of our work, the constraints we face, and your ability to show a feasible path forward were very valuable. Thank you again for taking the time to think through the challenges of presenting this information to all intended users