happy birthday to YOU
In the brief and informal internet research I did while writing this post, I learned a number of little known (and poorly cited) stats. The month of September contains some of the most popular birthdays in the US, however the most popular month for US births is August (in both cases, thought to be related to holidays in November and December). In India, September is the month with the most births, though many births occur in the June–September window (nine months after the popular time of the year for weddings). September 9th is apparently the most common single day for people in the US to celebrate their birthday, while it’s September 17th in Australia, and September 27th—today—in the UK.
Today also marks an anniversary of a different sort: it’s the 1-year anniversary of the publication of storytelling with you: plan, create, and deliver a stellar presentation.
People often ask me “What’s next?” after they read storytelling with data or attend one of our workshops on that topic. This book is my answer to that question. Once you have a decent handle on creating graphs that make sense, further developing those skills will eventually have diminishing returns. Instead, turn attention on yourself. In many situations, you make the difference between success and failure when it comes to communicating your data. storytelling with you maps out a process to help ensure success when it comes to planning, creating materials, and—most importantly—speaking adeptly in a way that inspires confidence, engages, and influences action. This isn’t just for people who will present formally from a stage. These skills are just as critical in important business meetings or for everyday communications with your colleagues.
If you’ve already purchased and read storytelling with you: thank you. I’d love to hear stories of how you are using what you have learned. I would also be very appreciative if you’d take a moment of your time to rate it and/or share your review to help others with their purchase decisions. If you haven’t yet read it, you can order it or download sample content.
The team and I have been having great fun creating expanded content on topics that are less data-centric, but still helpful to those communicating with data—as well as everyone else!
We developed a new half-day “storytelling with you” workshop (available for both teams and individuals) focused on designing and delivering effective presentations. Participants come with a project and leave the session having made concrete progress and exchanged feedback they can use to refine plus a repeatable process to use for future presentations. There’s just one more public virtual offering left this year on October 19th, join by registering here.
We’re supporting university instruction by sending copies of the book to university instructors interested in incorporating it as a text for their courses. As a companion piece, we’ve also developed a course project guide drawing on principles from the book (if you are a university instructor, visit our university page and join our instructor group).
We’ve created videos and podcasts covering strategies and tips related to planning, creating, and delivering presentations. You can view the final presentation to see the output of the case study used throughout the book and get a sense of what learnings can enable you to accomplish. Also check out the storytelling with cole YouTube playlist, full of short videos, each targeting a specific skill. We’ve also expanded our podcast content to include related topics. Check out episode 70, prepare to present, or episode 57, storytelling with you, if you’d like to hear more about the book and my experience writing it.
In related exciting news, the audio version of storytelling with you was released earlier this week. It was recorded right here in Milwaukee in our new studio (pics below!). I narrated it (optimizing for audio by verbalizing the visual components) and my talented husband, Randy, produced it. You can listen to a short clip by clicking the play button below. Find it on Audible or—for a limited time—you can get 50% off using this special promotion.
When it comes to books, we have a number of new exciting things planned for you. Stay tuned on that front. In the meantime, please join me in celebrating storytelling with you’s first year!
