Conversation with Heath Bunting

I had the great pleasure of meeting with Heath Bunting last night to talk through the rationale and techniques behind 'The Status Project'.

Heath's work is an exploration and documentation of identity and social mobility. He conducts all his own primary research, feeds it into a database, then outputs the maps that are both daunting in their scale and detail. The Status Project is the result of five years work, and it shows in the complexity and consideration.

You might ask how does this fit into the work we are doing here at Delib on the spending data? I was interested in the work that goes into producing the maps, the level of research required and the amount of corresponding connections he makes. I also felt it important to talk to someone who is not technical, from the Council or doing seemingly similar work. In effect the information included in the work could be loosely considered open data as it is readily available but needs intervention to make it meaningful.

Happily Heath confirmed the conclusions I had already drawn about putting the effort into getting useful data at the outset, shaping it usefully, and not just leaping to creating pretty patterns that look like they may say something insightful. So many visualizations appear to deliver great depth and insight, but deliver mini brain snacks instead which don't invite deep investigation. Our challenge will be to overcome that hurdle.

Thank you so much Heath for your generosity with your time and thoughts. I am really excited to encounter the next stage of your work.