Deez Interviews: Meet the CEO of The Pudding, who got into data viz from obsessively designing slides

Happy Friday, Deezers!

Mayhaps you remember when we linked out to this beauteous data viz and got really into The Pudding’s whole deal as the internet cool kid (like literally the url is pudding.cool) of “visual essays” — so we interviewed their CEO, Matt Daniels, about where his obsession with visuals comes from and the site’s plans for 2k19. Enjoy!

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The interviewee: Matt Daniels (follow him @matthew_daniels)

The gig: CEO of The Pudding

The day to day:

Since much of my job is operations based, most of my day is split up into numerous tasks that are mostly "back-office." This can range from basic planning, accounting, responding to inbound emails, organizing meetings, weekly check-ins with clients, etc. About 2-3 days per week are very meeting heavy, with 5-7 hours of meetings from 9-6pm. Other days can be completely clear to focus on editorial.

The Pudding is the editorial arm of Polygraph, which is more of a straight-up data visualizations agency. What drew you to the world of data viz, and what inspired you to branch out into The Pudding?

I used to work in consulting for a digital strategy agency. We'd get really into designing slides for client presentations. I'd spend hours designing a slide to communicate a point. This essentially translated into an obsession with visual storytelling.

The agency side actually grew out of the editorial side. Essentially Polygraph was doing both, and then we forked the operations in January 2017 so that we'd have one business doing client work and another doing just editorial.

What's one of your favorite visualizations published on The Pudding, and why?

I think one of my favorite projects is the re-draft project by Russell Goldenberg, which he produced during a freelance period with the team. It was one of the first times someone came in a completely crushed a visual story solo, and very much helped create the editorial voice and rubric we have today for the team and other contributors.

One thing we noticed is how The Pudding is pretty transparent on its website about how it’s funded, and even how its employee pay structure works. What was your thinking about being so up front with this kind of info?

My last employer was very much into a form of corporate governance called Holacracy. That came with a sense of organizational transparency, so much of that was brought over to The Pudding. I also think it's great for building a community.

This is The Pudding's 3rd year running since its founding in January 2017. What are your hopes and dreams for the site this year?

From my perspective, I'm hoping that we experiment more with our editorial, not because it will help us grow the site but help us grow as storytellers — it's really easy to get burned out by doing the same thing over and over.

We're also bringing on interns this summer, which will be our first experience with a team size larger than 6, presenting new organizational/operational challenges for us.

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Don’t forget to follow Matt on Twitter, check out their latest ~visual essays~ here, and have a mellow weekend!