Pictures are worth a thousand, err, really endless number of words.

I recently came across the following video which purports to be world air traffic over a 24-hour period. Although I have no idea where it came from, nor whether it is accurate, and despite the fact that it comes with no commentary, I have already watched it five times, noticing different points each time.



Obviously, visuals like this contain an immense amount of information. Personally, I love graphics like this as they can be recycled for different audiences at various times to tell different stories.

For instance, initially, you can notice that air traffic revolves around North America, Western Europe and East Asia. However, what does this mean? Are we talking about how these are the centers of commerce in the world with air traffic related to international commerce? Are we discussing culture and sharing of ideas and how there appears to be a great deal of interaction between these regions but far less when it comes to areas such as Africa and South America?

Do you want to discuss inequality around the world? Does the fact that you can virtually count the number of flights coming into Africa each day whereas you would do well to track the activity over an hour out of an airport such as London's Heathrow or Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the latter which handles nearly 250,000 passengers each day? Do you want to note development in the eastern coast of China compared to that in the central and western regions?

Finally, when thinking of the story you want to tell, as yourself if traditional slides, using titles and bullets and subtitles and bullets and charts and more bullets would have been more effective, more understandable or more memorable.