Recently, I attended the first-ever Tapestry conference in Nashville, Tennessee. Sponsored by Tableau, a data visualization software company, Tapestry focused on the intersection of data and storytelling. Like the Italian Renaissance, we live in an age illuminated by a previously unimagined amount of information. Today, transparent information glows with a spark of potential—data accessed and activated by programmers, and made lucid with wise design. Those who can organize this information, manage it, and present it clearly, can help shape how we communicate with each other in an interconnected world.
Read MoreThough made of poured concrete instead of marble, a replica of the Parthenon resides in Nashville, Tennessee. Aristotle would have felt at home at the Tapestry Conference in Nashville, which focused on a vital new form of rhetoric in the information age: telling complex stories in visual form, with data as the source.