member spotlight: Rob Radburn
This article is part of our Member Spotlight program where we aim to shine a spotlight on SWD community members who are contributing outstanding work. These are people who contribute in ways that foster an even more connected and diverse learning environment. Our goal is to help you get to know your fellow community members a little better and learn from one another.
This month, we’re shining our spotlight on Rob Radburn. Rob is a frequent participant in our monthly #SWDchallenges, and often delights us with his unique style of visualizing geographic data. He is one of few practitioners who has graced us (or anyone, really) with the “spatial treemap,” a hybrid chart type that can allow a reader to see geographically-relevant patterns in data, even when the size of the geographic areas might be quite varied or small. He is also skilled at producing tilemaps, in which those regions are re-organized into a regular pattern of squares, hexagons, or other tessellating shapes that imply geographic position, but serve as canvases for other small-multiple style charts. One particular sub-genre of the tilemap that Rob has shared with us is the “origin-destination (OD) map,” a challenging and dense but fascinating form that shows movement across geographic regions.
In partnership with his friend and colleague Chris Love, Rob also writes Data Beats, a fun and insightful collection of data-based inquiries into modern life, ranging from the silly (“Are all UK shopping centres the same?”) to the sobering (how England’s county councils have staved off bankruptcy by cutting local services). That Rob, a keen enthusiast and observer of popular culture, would be interested in silly topics like “35+ years of Now That’s What I Call Music! compilation albums” is unsurprising; his long career in business intelligence, supporting the Leicestershire County Council, gives us insight into why his commitment to bringing attention to socially-relevant topics is also unsurprising.
Here’s a bit more about Rob, in his own words:
“I’ve worked in local government for Leicestershire County Council (LCC) since 2000. This has been in the same team, currently called Business Intelligence (BI)…although its name has changed a few times! Leicestershire is slap bang in the middle of England, and the Council provides a range of local services for approximately 700,000 people. The BI team provides analytical support to the Council’s five departments. The work can be anything from writing literature reviews, to questionnaire design, providing government returns to running a Tableau COE.
“My data visualisation journey started around 2004. I was looking into ways to analyse data for the local crime audits using Excel (and Publisher!). I was, and still am, influenced by two books that I read then—Stephen Few’s Information Dashboard Design and Edward Tufte’s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. At the time, it seemed these were the only books that provided any specific guidance on how to visualise data.
“In 2008/2009 I took a sabbatical year to work as a data visualisation research fellow at the giCentre at City University London working alongside Professor Jason Dykes. My project was on novel ways of visualising local library book data using the interactive design package Processing. That’s where I discovered the ideas of spatial treemaps and OD Maps. It’s also where I learned I wasn’t the world’s best programmer.
“Recognising that I needed something more point and click, I started using Tableau at work in 2011, and at home with Tableau Public for practice in 2013. By 2016 the Council had seen the benefits of data visualization, and became the first local council in England to purchase a Tableau enterprise license. At that time, we also reorganised the BI team to maximise how we would get the most of the investment in Tableau. I became Team Leader of a new team, Business Intelligence Development. Five years later, we have grown to support more than 5,000 Tableau Server users.
“The Tableau community is a talented, diverse and welcoming environment. Since being part of it I’ve focused on participating on many of the community events such as #makeovermonday, #sportvizsunday, #vizforsocialgood and of course the #swdchallenge. You learn by doing! I became a Tableau Zen Master in 2015, a group of users selected each year for their mastery and evangelism of the product, and was inducted into the Tableau Zen Master Hall of Fame in 2021.”
To learn more from Rob’s work and experience, pop over to the community and chat with him. Feel free to ask him about maps, local councils, pop music of the 80s, or anything else you’d like to discuss. Ask your questions in the community conversation. And congratulations, Rob!
There are plenty of noteworthy members in the community—too many to spotlight at once. This program is part of our larger efforts to find new ways to share multiples voices and experiences. As you discover great work and ideas in the community, be sure to give appropriate kudos and spread the word!
