Services

For years now, I've struggled to explain to people what I do as a data journalist. It's a niche within a huge industry that sits at the intersection of editorial, art, engineering and research, often with scant help available from those departments. Over the years, I've learned how to do every step of the process. I'd broadly characterize the work as "interactive storytelling."

This can take a lot of shapes – so to speak! – and I’m always eager to work with clients on bespoke projects that delight and engage their audiences.

The gallery is a good spot to get a sense for what I’ve done in the past. I can also help with a specific tasks in the data visualization pipeline. Here are a few broad categories of services I can render, in descending order of glamour if not importance:

• Games and interactive simulations, with or without AI involvement.
• Interactive maps, charts and other visualizations that bring datasets to life
• Quizzes and scientific surveys — Whatever SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics can't do (like auto-graded drawing!)
• Analysis of datasets for public presentation
• Gathering and organizing unstructured data, typically from the Web via custom crawling
• Consulting on how to harness interactive content on your site in ways that effectively promote whatever it is you're doing. (No gimmicks!)
• Consulting on how to use AI in ways that enrich your content without needling your audience
• Consulting on how to prove that you didn’t use AI
• Consulting on how to add new types of content to your site or app.

This last one is free if you’ve already hired me to produce something and need a hand embedding it. I promise it's easier than you think. I spent my last two years at Time in the Engineering department shoring up my self-taught coding credentials, so I can happily work with the digital gatekeepers to make sure that nothing we're doing is a security threat.

If you're interested in any of this, please reach out! You can choose a time here or write to me at wilson@mechanicalscribe.com (which goes straight to my personal Gmail–I’ll get it). Or LinkedIn is fine too–happy to connect.