Learning Visual Analytics

I've read enough stuff now to begin to understand how far I have to go. There are lots of resources out there and twice as many opinions. Visual Analytics is truly a nascent space with, in my opinion, more energy historically given to the "visual" than the "analytics".

That said, I am beginning to structure my education thusly:

• Technologies - What technologies must one master?
• Contributors - Who are the organizations and individuals that are contributing to this space?
• Economics - How the industry is shaping up in terms of monetization options, packages, margins, etc.?
• History - What has gone before and what we can learn from it?

First historical perspective next.