Speak at Unwrapped, the Datawrapper conference!

Update January 15: Thanks to everyone who submitted a talk! We got quite a few submissions, so we’ll discuss each one in the coming days and then get back to those who filled out the survey. You can expect the first speaker announcements and information about how to attend the conference in a week or two.

We have some very exciting news to share: We’re planning a Datawrapper conference for next March! It’s called Unwrapped, because that’s what it will be: The conference will open up and unwrap how others are making the most out of Datawrapper. It will be a space for advanced Datawrapper users to learn from each other — and for beginners to get to the next level.

What’s your experience with Datawrapper? We’d love for you to share. Tell us your idea for a talk by January 12, 2024.

When and how the conference is happening

The conference will happen on March 14th and 15th, 2024 — in the morning for Americans and the afternoon for Europe and Africa. Everything will take place online, to make it possible for all our users to attend.

The audience is other Datawrapper users. You won’t need to explain how to upload data and that Datawrapper offers annotations. For those who need a refresher or are completely new to Datawrapper, we’ll offer a “Getting started with Datawrapper” workshop the day before the conference starts.

What you could talk about

All of these kinds of topics, we believe, would be really valuable for other Datawrapper users to hear:

• How you make heavy use of a certain Datawrapper feature. PDF/SVG export, custom themes, print settings, dark mode, live updates, data download, the River…? We’d love to see what you do with it.
• An original workflow. Are you using folder structures or custom fields for an specialized editing process? Or integrating Datawrapper into your CMS? Or something else entirely? Tell us more.
• Bringing Datawrapper to your organization. How did you onboard coworkers? How do you collaborate? What worked well, what didn’t? Share what you’ve learned.
• Where your Datawrapper visualizations end up. Do you use them in dashboards? On your private blog? In PDF reports? Or include them in scrollytelling projects? Please show us.
• Creative tricks for Datawrapper visualizations. You’ve embedded images into bar charts? Used links in your tables? Made a chart title into a color key? Share your screen, walk us through, and inspire others with what’s possible.
• Creating good charts, maps, and tables. Datawrapper’s mission is to help the world create better visualizations. Have you learned a few lessons about good visualization design in general? Share them with us all.

Not every topic needs the same time to be talked about, so you can decide on the length of your talk yourself. We’ll offer 5, 10, and 20 minute slots.

Do you have other ideas? We’re looking forward to hearing them.

Why you should give a talk

There’s lots of reasons to be interested in giving a talk — maybe you want to train your speaking skills, or help others, or build your network. This is what you’ll get out of it exactly:

• Your work in a blog post on the Datawrapper blog. We’ll showcase the best Datawrapper visualizations from you or your organization and publish a short interview (~3 questions) with you before the conference. We’ll also announce you and your talk on our website, blog, and social media.
• Compensation. We’d like to thank you by treating you to a nice dinner (or whatever else makes you happy) and will pay you between 80 and 500 euros for your talk, depending on its length and your speaker experience. We can make alternative forms of compensation happen, too — think gift cards or donations.
• A way to share your ideas. We’ll upload all talk recordings to our YouTube channel. We can also provide you with an mp4, so you can share your talk within your organization in the format you prefer.
• Help. You’re interested, but haven’t given a talk yet… ever? Or just want to get some feedback? I, Lisa, am happy to help on every step of the way. We can brainstorm a topic together, you can run thoughts or slides by me, and I’ll give feedback to help you polish your ideas.
• And, of course, you’ll get the warm feeling of helping others succeed with data visualization and Datawrapper.

How to tell us that you’d like to give a talk

Please use this form to let us know what you’d like to talk about by January 12, 2024. Do you know somebody who should definitely speak at this conference? Share a link to this blog post with them.

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We’ll share more information about attending Unwrapped as the date gets closer. If you have any questions about speaking at the conference, please get in touch with me at lisa@datawrapper.de. I’m looking forward to hearing from you — and to seeing you in March.