Data Storytelling with Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
One of the first books on data that host Kate Strachnyi read was Storytelling with Data. The author, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, is the guest in this episode. Cole has always described what she does as telling stories with data. So she founded a company called Storytelling with Data. Listen in to learn more about Cole’s mission to communicate effectively with data, make graphs that make sense, and weave those into compelling stories.
Teaching beyond the data
Storytelling with Data helps organizations by teaching and practicing how to visualize data effectively. The company also focuses beyond the visual. They consider how data can be communicated effectively regarding who audiences are and how the company will be sharing with them. In particular, the company thinks about how it can use storytelling to get the message across. This process is taught mainly through workshops, which are now led virtually.
Choosing the best chart
No chart is inherently good or bad, and each one has a perfect use case. The challenge is in venturing too far from that ideal use case. Then the situation can get tricky quickly. Storytelling with Data has a monthly challenge where, typically, the community is asked to focus on a particular type of graph. Last month, the company surprised people by asking them to make a perfect pie chart.
Overcomplicating charts is inadvisable. The third dimension doesn’t plot any data, so exploding 3D charts actually distort data. While it may look cool and attention-grabbing, it does a poor job of reflecting the information. Embellishments make data more difficult for people to estimate and make comparisons. The graph doesn’t make data interesting. Data is interesting because of the way it’s represented and communicated.
Communicating data effectively
Those who work with data usually come from a quantitative background where the data aspect is comfortable. It can be easy to forget the importance of communicating that data effectively. Because someone is familiar with the data, they can pass along a few charts that make total sense to them. Many things can be done to make that tacit knowledge explicit by carefully choosing the graphs made with it.
People often say that data storytelling makes sense. But when they look at their work, there’s a gap between where things are and going through a full-blown story presentation. Effectively storytelling with data doesn’t have to happen immediately. It’s something to work towards that is integrated in small ways at first. Those small successes will build people’s confidence and build credibility with the people around them.
Resources & People Mentioned
- Storytelling with Data Website
- Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide
- Storytelling with Data: Let’s Practice!
- An Illustrated Tour of the Pie Chart Study Results
- Adam Ribaudo — VP, Data Activation — Velir | LinkedIn
- How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information: Cairo, Alberto
Connect with Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
Connect with DATAcated
- http://www.datacated.com/
- DATAcated on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/datacated1/
- Kate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-strachnyi-data/
- DATAcated on Twitter: https://twitter.com/datacated_
- DATAcated on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/datacated
