Data is the new soil, because for me, it feels like a fertile, creative medium. Over the years, online, we've laid down a huge amount of information and data, and we irrigate it with networks and connectivity, and it's been worked and tilled by unpaid workers and governments.

Visualizing information is a form of knowledge compression.

By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map. And when you’re lost in information, an information map is kind of useful.

I have a computational quality to my mind, I suppose. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with video games. I reprogrammed games, and this eventually landed me a column in a magazine. That's how I got into print journalism: writing about video games.

There's a tendency in graphics to allow the trimming of certain parts. But I think that if you're open about your process, your methodology, such as introducing thresholds, introducing filters, techniques people use in research and data management, it's legitimate. It's legitimate to say, "We're only going to show data above this level, or between levels."

If you want to visualize something in its fullness you have to look at every perspective and every angle, and that means - sometimes uncomfortably - looking at things you don't want to look at.

I think it's good practice, if you're a writer, or anyone who's shaping narrative, to be flexible and open with the direction of the narrative.