Data Storytelling 2 - Context Context Context
Exploratory vs Explanatory, Basic Comms 101, Who, What,
Context, just had to get it in there 1 more time.
If you learn nothing from this post, then just learn this:
Success in data visualization doesn’t start with the visualization. It starts with understanding the context of the *real* problem.
Basically the above is saying if you don’t know the real problem that you are being paid to solve, how will you know what to put an emphasis on, and what not to. Once you figure out the real question they want answered, you can then easily work backwards and figure out what evidence (visuals) to present to the key decision makers to not only persuade them, but to also get them to trust your process.
1 - Exploratory vs Explanatory
Exploratory analysis is what you do to understand the data, and figure out some key highlights. Explanatory analysis is what you do when you are trying to find an answer to a problem, and EXPLAIN IT. Because explanation is key, it basically means you technically have thousands of possible ways to approach the problem, but only a few will *actually* get the job done.
If you’ve ever sat down in a presentation with a rookie data team, and the C-Suites on the side, you know in the first few seconds, everyone starts off with the exploratory analysis, and they stay there, and then they go straight into the modelling side.
Let me ask you something, do you think the suites care more about:
Option A: Here’s the question we wanted to answer. So, let’s start from the beginning: number of samples, where the data came from, visual line graph of the data, number of outliers, mean, median, etc…
Option B: Here’s the question we wanted to answer. Here is the data we found that can answer the question, and here’s the visual graphs that explain what’s happening.
Needless to say, if you’ve ever sat down with a data team, and the suites, you know the suites only want to see Option B, but for whatever reason, most data teams do option A, and then are surprised the suites don’t listen to them…
2 - Basic Communication 101
Recall a while back I made a post showing you how to get to $300k in about 3 yrs. At the end, I recommended everyone not to go the drug/alcohol addict route, but instead to go the productive route by taking care of your personal health.
One thing that I’ll want to add is that you’ll also want to start implementing BowTiedSocial’s Photoshoot idea (
). Not only will this help your social circle advance 1 or 2 levels, but the quality of people you can date will also go up.Now, let’s come back to data story telling as well. The communication skills you build up after the photoshoots will basically link with the data story telling skills that you will build up at work. And, both of these skills are linked to each other. Here’s a quick demonstration:
When you are first talking to someone, the first thing you want to do is to remember “To whom are you communicating with” - aka understand your audience.
Suites: make half a mill a yr, no technical knowledge, addicted to droogs, usually a boring life, life is run by their wife, just wants to make his money and move on
Social: could be homeless, could make a mill a yr (if you know, u know), no technical knowledge, usually a boring life, bank account close to empty, just wants to have fun and move on
3 - Who
Your Audience
When you are trying to define your audience you generally want to get as granular as possible. You should avoid generality here because if you tweak your presentation to try to cater to everyone, you’ll basically end up leaving a “meh” impression on everyone. Instead, what you’ll want to do is identify the key decision makers, and the important figure heads, and only cater your presentation to them. You’ll want to make sure that you speak in a language that they understand.
You
Think about the relationship that you have with your audience, and how you think they perceive you. Is there an established relationship between you and your audience, or is this the first time you’re meeting them? Do they already trust your judgement, and your expertise, or do you still need to establish credibility? Knowing this information is important beforehand, because it’ll tell you whether you need to spend more time establishing your credibility/explanations, or going straight to the point.
Suites Example: Try to figure out if your credibility is already established, or if you have to do so. Try to figure out who the key decision makers are, and only focus on them. Try to figure out just how technical they are, and what they really actually care about.
Social: Try to figure out if your high status is already established, or if you have to do so. Try to figure out which girls are free to keep venue hopping vs which ones have to leave quickly. Try to figure out her primary interest, aka why an attractive girl is here hanging out with you, even though you are not paying her, and she has 100s of dudes hitting on her on IG.
Needless to say, you can very easily start to see the commonality between having good data story telling skills, and having good social skills when hosting a get together with a bunch of attractive girls.
4 - What
Action
Action can basically be summed as this:
What do you think your audience needs to know?
A lot of times when new data professionals join the field, they generally tend to have a passive voice instead of an active one. This is because deep down, they believe that the audience (the suites) know better than the presenter (the analyst), and assumes the suites just wants a quick summary of the data, and can make their own conclusions.
This ends up wrecking a lot of the new hires’ reputation very quickly, and they have to go through the grinder to slowly bring it back up. Take a look at it from the suites’ perspective, you are paying a guy 100k/yr in order to analyze thousands of data points you have collected in order to get some insights. The one thing you want is for the analyst to take ownership of the project and tell you what he thinks you should do to further increase the business’ profits.
Remember, after your presentation you want your audience to either take a specific action, or start discussion towards taking it. The last thing you want them to say is “Dang, that’s interesting, I’ll ask my secretary to get back to you on it”.
Hint: They never do…
Environment
Another thing you need to keep in mind is what environment you want to use when presenting. The reason why this is important is because in certain environments, your credibility is already pre-established, and in others, you have none. Also, in certain environments you have a lot of control over what your audience sees, and in others you are basically at their mercy. Here’s an example:
Suites: If you were to give a presentation over MS Teams, and use a PPT slideshow, you basically have FULL control over what they see, and what direction the conversation flows into. Now, if you just gave them a word doc, you have 0 control whatsoever.
Social: If you have a solid IG page, and you were talking to someone in person, if you give them your IG page, they only see the stuff about you that you want them to see. If you give them your phone number, and expect them to call you…. You’ll be at their mercy.
Hopefully at this point, you can start to see the importance of data storytelling coming out, and just how much it relates to your personal social life too.