Hi all, Ben Jones here. I hope you’ve enjoyed our wonderful guest blog posts lately! We’ve been fortunate to get contributions from some very talented people. I encourage you to reach out to us if you’d like to write one of your own! We’re looking for data people like you to help us on our mission to help people read, write, speak and think data.

I’m going to ditch the “announcement blog post” tone a bit, because this one means a lot to me. I won’t be long-winded, and I won’t bury the lede – I’m beyond proud to announce that we’ve partnered with the Data Visualization Society in conjunction with their recent membership launch.

Now, I have to say, we changed our approach on Day One of this partnership. We had started off by providing all DVS members with an exclusive 25% discount offer for their paying members.

And then we noticed this, a no-questions-asked “Income Conscious” subscription option:

First of all, how great is that?! Bravo to Amanda Makulec and the entire DVS leadership team – board and council. We were so inspired by this generous step they took that we decided to follow suit with the discounts we provide them. If membership rates are lower for those in need of financial assistance, then we decided that our discounts would be steeper for those individuals, too. We created a second discount code for Income Conscious DVS members, who can use it to get 50% off of all of the books and training offerings available on our site.

In our first two years of operation, we’ve rolled out our courses to tens of thousands of people around the world who work for forward-thinking organizations who are willing to pay for them. But we don’t want to only help people who have access to such funds and support. Our hope is that this 50% off discount means that a more diverse and balanced group of learners can use our content to learn the language of data. Our world will only improve if everyone becomes more data literate. We have more announcements in this vein to make soon!

If you haven’t heard of the Data Visualization Society, then you should really check out their site. They are turning the field and discipline of data visualization into a bonafide profession, complete with an annual survey, a blog and now print publication called Nightingale, community Slack channels, links to resources, events like their new Outlier Conference, a jobs board, and more. Amazing stuff, and those who are passionate about this field are fortunate that DVS exists. Even their logo is a data visualization, and you can read all about it here:

I have a personal connection to the birth of this society. Back in 2018, I was co-chairing the Tapestry Conference in Miami. It was my very last weekend as an employee of Tableau Software. Two days after the conference ended, I was to leave the company and start my own here at Data Literacy. It was at that same conference that Mollie Pettit, Elijah Meeks, and Amy Cesal put their heads together and came up with a plan. Discussions between sessions popped up about the need for a more formal professional society. A few short months later, DVS was born. You can read the origin story here.

The Tapestry Conference hasn’t been held since the 2018 event, but in many ways DVS picked up the torch, and then they turned it into a bonfire. It has been great to watch this society flourish and grow, and we’re excited to be a part of it. We’ll all benefit from a world in which data literacy rates are higher across the board. Part of building that world is giving data professionals access to helpful resources and important networking opportunities.

In other words, Data Literacy and the Data Visualization Society are very natural partners because our missions are closely aligned. Become a DVS member! I am. If you decide to try out our courses or recommend them to friends or coworkers, we’d be delighted to part of the learning journey.

Thanks for reading,

Ben