EPISODE 2
what is story?

TIMESTAMPS

04:00 | The focus of today’s podcast
04:40 | A couple different ways I think about story
05:01 | Story with a lower case “s”
05:51 | Story with a capital “S”
08:04 | Stories have this structure that allows them to stick with us
09:29 | The future of storytelling
11:06 | A typical business presentation
12:16 | The biggest component of story that we overlook
12:57 | What can come from considering the audience
13:56 | How do I build my story?
15:13 | My absolute favorite tool!
18:45 | What does my audience need to know?
20:38 | Putting yourself in a different physical space can be freeing
21:54 | 10. 10. 10. Short, 30-minute approach to create your plan of attack
23:29 | When shouldn’t we tell a story?
26:53 | What tactics does it take to tell a good story?
27:42 | How is storytelling different from data visualization?
29:58 | Do you agree with the NFL’s approach to showing statistics?
31:23 | What’s the best way to know when a visualization is complete?
34:09 | How did you start Storytelling with data?

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:03] Welcome to storytelling with data. The podcast where listeners around the world learn to be better storytellers and presenters with best selling author speaker and workshop guru Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. We'll cover a wide range of topics that will help you effectively show and tell your data stories. So get ready to separate yourself from the mess of 3-D exploding pie charts and deliver knockout presentations. And with that here's Cole.

[00:00:31] Hello and thanks for tuning in. So today I want to kick us off with a story, so for this one have to imagine ourselves back in time.

[00:00:40] It's just about two years ago and I, at this point in time, am nearly eight months pregnant. So, imagine me looking like a boat. Feeling like a boat. My husband and I are on our way to what we thought would be a routine doctor appointment. Side note: at this point we had two little boys at home and hadn't yet found out the gender for the baby to come and there was a heated debate going on at our house of whether we'd be adding a third boy to the family which is what my husband swore was going to happen or if we might be adding a little girl to the mix. Back at the doctor's office the nurse says, “Have you been feeling all these contractions?” and my husband and I look at each other, we've just been sitting there chit chatting, expecting to be in and out pretty quickly. She says, “Well, we're actually going to need to do some more testing.” 

They move us to another room a hook me up to these machines. and I'm watching with great interest as this machine to my left is spitting out paper and as it spits out the paper it's drawing a graph. This graph has a lot of peaks and valleys on it: it goes up it goes down it goes up it goes down. That's an interesting data visualization. The doctor walks in takes a look at the same graph and says, “Well folks, this is what active labor looks like!”

[00:02:03] My husband and I look at each other in shock. We were not planning on this. It's not time yet. Right? We're not ready.

[00:02:09] It was actually a short two hours later that we are looking down at this beautiful baby girl.

[00:02:20] And actually it's funny because when the baby was born, my husband was actually so convinced that it was going to be a boy that he actually thought it was a boy. And when the doctors told him otherwise it took a bit of back and forth for them to convince him that it actually is a little girl. And now our daughter—Eloise—was born and she was early, needed a little help at first, so she spent a bit of time in the hospital. But over time, all of the scary machines went away and eventually were able to bring her home to her brothers who absolutely adore her as do of course her father and I.

[00:02:55] Fast forward to today and she is this almost two year old babbling toddler perfectly healthy. And we're a happy family of five.

[00:03:08] Sort of a magical story, right? And believe it or not there are components of that same sort of magic that we can make use of when we're communicating with data.

 [00:03:19] Now doesn't have to be a personal story like the one that I told here and actually the way I'll talk about story today is not in a personal story sort of way though I think there can be a place for this when it comes to creating connection with our audience or resonating with them right humanizing ourselves. I've used for example versions of that story when I've had audiences of physicians in the past or once when I had an audience where I knew there'd be a ton of parents there. Anybody who's been through a birth can relate to a birth story, but that's not the way we'll talk about story today. Rather, we'll talk about how we can structure the presentation of our data using story. [00:04:01] So the focus of today's podcast is what is story and why should those who work with data care. [6.1] 

[00:04:09] Storytelling has become a bit of a buzz word which I have mixed feelings about. To be honest I love the attention that it's getting. And there's this recognition I think generally that the ability to tell a story is a powerful thing. But anytime something becomes a buzz word it means it's getting overused and often misused. And I feel like when we asked this question What is story are we try to answer the story question. There's a lot of misuse here. [00:04:40] When I step back and think about the question What is story I think about it in a couple of different ways. [7.2] When it comes to how we use story when we communicate with data and I differentiate this through story with a lowercase s and story with a capital S. So it's like about each of these a little bit it's a [00:05:01] story with lowercase s [1.3] we asked this question a ton. What's the story here. When we really don't mean story at all we mean what's the point. What's the takeaway. What's the so what. And my strong view is any time we are showing data for explanatory purposes we should clearly answer this question of letting our audience know why are they looking at the data that we're putting in front of them and that can be through our spoken narrative. If we're talking through it in a live setting or through words that are physically there on the page when the data needs to stand on its own. So every graph needs a clear. So what.

[00:05:44] So that story with a lowercase s which isn't even really story at all because then there's [00:05:51] story with a capital S [2.5] and this is the story. Like what I talked about with Elouise it has a shape. There is a plot tension is introduced this tension builds. It reaches a point of climax there's a falling action resolution and this narrative arc actually do this arc with my hands when I'm talking through the different pieces of story. There's a shape. Children's stories are fantastic examples of this and I find myself using children's stories a ton when I'm teaching about story one because I have three small children and I read a ton to them we read a ton of stories and so that's inspiring. I think also I'm inspired from stories that I remember from my own childhood. Actually that's a good thought exercise exercises pause here and I want you to recall for yourself your favorite book growing up I have it in your head. Now imagine if you were going to tell someone else about this book about the story in it. What would you describe? You'd maybe talk about the plot and the characters. I would bet there was some sort of tension right there. Something was not right in the world and then at some point that tension was resolved. So you get these components of stories and now consider when is the last time you thought about that story or told that story. It's probably been some amount of time and yet there are components of that that are still there still in your head. And that's the really cool thing about stories.

[00:07:41] If you think of facts on a slide right you can read those and right after you read them you can remember them probably. But what happens when an hour goes by or a week goes by less there is something really personally interesting or relevant. It's not often that we use our brain power to really hold on to facts. In that way and yet [00:08:04] stories have this structure that allow them to just stick with us. [5.4]

[00:08:10] You can recall your favorite childhood book and the general plotline. Probably that was there or you can remember this story I just told you about Eloise and that I think is the really interesting piece when it comes to thinking about the structure of stories. I use children's stories a lot because when we step back and think about them the narrative arc is usually so apparent in the different pieces of the story stories I use or have used Red Riding Hood and the Larry Gets Lost series. I love this one it's a series by John Skewes where every single time the characters are exactly the same the plot is exactly the same. But they're in a different setting a different environment. And so it also leverages this idea of repetition which is another thing that helps things stick with us. The Cat In The Hat is a story that I've used before or Wizard of Oz is one that my kids are still a little too young for but that I have fond memories of from childhood. So can we have aspects of that into illustrating the components of story and how we can use these components when we talk about data. And actually there's a video that I used to use regularly in my workshops called [00:09:29] the future of storytelling [1.5] and in it they talk about this story where it's a father and his young son is dying of cancer and it's a highly emotional story.

[00:09:42] But the video discusses how they've used this story and participants in the study and looked at brain imagery and bio metrics to understand what do people actually experience when they when they go through a story or when they hear a story or see a story. And what they've found suggests that actually when we have our audience experience a story that they resonate with that can it can actually change brain chemistry and potentially change behavior in really interesting ways. So we step back and think about how we might use some of that when it comes to telling stories with our data. It's this really interesting space. The video itself is also a really I think interesting example of telling a story like the story of their study and they do a nice job of combining images with the story. So by the end of the video they can show an image of money changing hands and you're brought back to the point within the study where they describe how they tested some of these behaviors that are linked to that in the show notes for anyone who wants to take a closer look. And now if we sit back and think about how do we relate this more specifically to our data and communicating with data if we think of [00:11:06] a typical business presentation [2.1] typical business presentation follows a linear path where I maybe start off with a hypothesis.

[00:11:16] Here's the question that we set out to answer and then maybe I talk about the data. Here is what we looked at and what we did to clean it and look at it then the analysis right. What did we actually do to the data and then I might know some findings. What did we learn from our analysis of the data. This is the path that comes most naturally because it's the path that we as analysts go through when we're analyzing the data. So it makes sense that we would just go through that path again with our audience. But when we step back and think about it it's actually a very selfish path because at no point does this typical linear path. At no point do I really have to step back and consider my audience or what matters to them and for me that's the biggest shift that happens when we consider moving away from this typical linear path to framing our data in story. And for me [00:12:16] the biggest component that exists with story [2.8] that we can completely overlook otherwise is this idea of there being conflict or tension right there is something that is not right with the world and identifying that conflict because this is not the conflict from our point of view right this is not what matters to me. Rather it's from our audiences point of view what is the conflict or tension that exists for our audience.

[00:12:43] And then we can think about how we frame the resolution in terms of what can our audience do to resolve that tension and you know it could be to take an action or it could be to have a discussion about something. [00:12:57] And again this shift from thinking about our path from our point of view to considering our audience can have such impact. I think when it comes to getting her audience to pay attention to the data that we want to show and using our data to really drive understanding and ultimately drive some sort of action. [22.2] Now I'm certainly not the only person to be talking about story and asking the question what story is and how it relates to how we communicate with data. John schottische did a series on his blog on story earlier in the year. Robert Cassara has talked about this a number of times and these are just a couple off the top of my head I'm sure there are others but I'll be sure to include some links to other perspectives on story as it relates to data in the show notes.

[00:13:51] Now you might be saying OK that's interesting right. This idea of using story when we communicate with data. [00:13:56] But how do I actually go about building my story. [3.8] So let's take a quick break. When we come back we'll talk about my favorite tool for building stories. Welcome back. So so far we've talked about story and how we can use it generally when communicating with data. But how do you actually go about building your story.

 [00:15:13] My absolute favorite tool when it comes to figuring out how do I structured my story how do I build my story what components should be there is a stack of post it notes and there's the step I start off with and actually let me step back so my husband and I took a trip last week of a pre holiday couple day break and one of the things that we did on this trip was storyboard. My husband is getting ready to start a new project and was needing to put some structure around it and really frame it out and so the first step for me and storyboarding is taking a pilot post and you just start writing down an idea proposed it and start making a pilot those and this can be without any concern for order or whether the idea that you're writing down ends up in the final deck or the final report or whatever it is that you're creating and you write the ideas down with the idea that maybe each becomes a piece of content or a slide or a section in the report and things you write down can be examples or data that you may want to include different topics or content and at first it's just this cathartic process of writing down everything that's in your head getting that all out there. And then it's about rearranging. You step back once you get your ideas down or most your ideas down and you lay them all out in front of you.

[00:16:46] And then you start thinking about how might a group these together where there are commonalities or how could I put a structure around this that will help all of these potentially disparate things make sense to someone else. And you start rearranging and you have a discard pile and this is a super important point because I think there's something really interesting about this idea of when it comes to intentional discard that when we go straight to our tools and start trying to build our communication there's something about doing that that makes it feel like we need to answer every possible question that could come up where as when we're storyboarding we're writing down ideas on posted. We can consider a specific piece of content or point of data and decide you know what. This isn't central to my story or it's not going to help me get my point across and intentionally not include it. Now we still probably need to know the answer to it right especially if it's data that we looked into but it doesn't mean it has to be a core part of our content. And I think there's something really interesting about that process both in terms of having a more focused story but then also we can be more strategic with how we spend our time because storyboarding often leads us to shorter slide decks shorter reports that we have more time making the content of those shorter communications really effective. And so the path that usually I initially land on when I storyboard personally is it looks similar to that linear path that we talked about a little bit earlier on this.

[00:18:27] This comes most naturally because it's the path that we went through when we were considering the problem we're answering our problem with data and I think there's something useful about starting there but then stepping back and thinking about this idea of story right. And this narrative arc that we've talked about and consider you know what is the plot. [00:18:45] What does my audience need to know. [1.7] So they are in the right frame of mind for what I'm going to tell them. What is the tension that exists. And again this is not the tension for me but the tension for my audience what's not right with the world. How might I use that to get their attention and maintain their attention when and how does data have a place in all of this. Where can data help me convince someone of something or counteract a bias that my audience might come in with. And how can I order my overall structure in a way that's going to work for my audience. And when we think about ordering you I describe this narrative arc where you start off with a plot then you introduce some tension it builds to this climax you a falling action or resolution. For me when we're telling stories it's essential that all of those components be there in some form. It's not though essential that they go through that specific path or that specific order. And actually when we think of stories generally write movies books there are all of these different tactics that are used right.

[00:19:53] Everybody's seen the movie where you start off and you see the person you know is dead or gets killed upfront. So they've given away the ending. But then the rest of the movie helps you figure out who did it right. And so there's still this tension that can be introduced and so we can think about how do we use foreshadowing or flashbacks or some of these tactics of stories depending on how we want to get our story across to our audience. And depending on how we're going to be doing it right are we there in a live presentation so we can reveal things piece by piece. Or is it something that has to stand on its own in which case those components of story can still be there. They need to be physically written down on the pages. [00:20:38] And now thinking back this idea of storyboarding I think putting ourselves in a different physical space for this part of the process can actually be really interesting and freeing. [10.9]

[00:20:50] I for example I work at this tall desk and I sit on one side of the desk with my computer and when I storyboard which I do pretty much any time I'm going to be delivering new content or telling a story or giving a new presentation I actually physically stand up and walk around to the other side of the desk and it's this big empty black space and I have my pile of post it notes and I just start writing down ideas and then step back and figure out how to order them how to move them around and there's something I think both about standing something about having different perspective of being on the other side of the room. These were minor changes but changing up our environment can I think free up the way that we think about things especially if you're feeling stuck or in a rut that that can be a useful thing to do particularly during the storyboarding process when you're trying to land on what is that right order and flow. What are the components that need to be there and then if you can imagine at the end of this storyboarding process and it doesn't take that long.

[00:21:54] By the way so you know ten minutes maybe to write down all your ideas on post it notes another 10 minutes or so to rearrange those and then I'd suggest take a break and go do something else take a walk around the block then come back spend another 10 minutes or so making some modifications there and at the end of that half an hour you now have a plan of attack and that plan of attack helps cut down on iterations throughout the rest of the process. [27.1] And as I talked about often leads to shorter communications that you have an opportunity to really make those shorter communications really effective. And this can be a step by the way if it makes sense to get client or stakeholder feedback at this point that can be really awesome. Because if you can spend half an hour storyboarding and you take it to your stakeholder and say hey this is rough but here's what I'm thinking and you get the feedback of. No this isn't quite right because of this or that. Now you've not taken the time to put together an entire draft deck in order to get that feedback. So it makes sense to get feedback at this point can be really useful. We've talked about story. What it is this idea of using components of story. When we communicate data talked about storyboarding as a strategy for building the story or planning the story. Now you could take this all to mean we should be using the story every single time we communicate with data. But actually I don't think that's the case.

[00:23:25] I think another question that comes up out of this is [00:23:29] when shouldn't we tell a story with data. [2.8]

[00:23:33] So a few thoughts here. One scenario in which we shouldn't be telling a story with data is if we don't have sufficient context there is no bigger credibility killer then. If I go in with this fully baked story and I get partway into it and someone in my audience says hey yeah but have you considered this and that thing makes the whole outcome or the story that I was going to go through would not work any longer.

[00:24:03] This is one I think requirement of story working well is you have to know your stuff which means you know the context. You have done a robust analysis you've looked into alternative hypotheses. You've asked a colleague or someone to play devil's advocate and try to poke holes so that by the time if you're going in with a fully baked story you need to be pretty confident that that story is the right story to tell because you can imagine you take your audience through a story and it makes any other potential takeaways or other versions of stories harder to see. And you want to be aware of that and be strategic with where and how you tell stories. I think another case where we shouldn't tell a story is if we're still exploring the data or if we need the audience to explore the data with us. All right as I just mentioned we tell one story and it makes other stories harder to see. So if we're looking at data for exploratory or we there's not a solid recommendation or takeaway. I think we can still use components of story to frame up discussions but want to be careful about how we do that and particularly if there's still some exploration that needs to happen. I think another time we shouldn't tell a story with data is if it's going to feel to markety or flashy to our audience. And I should say I'm guilty of overdramatizing when I teach about this and when we use example business stories to illustrate a story telling with data that I get really animated and this is overdramatizing but it's to make a point right.

[00:25:50] And I think actually story we can use it in really subtle ways. There doesn't have to be this big tension that is crazy and earth shattering right that's not going to be the case every time. But the main point when it comes to conflict and tension specifically is that a story without these things is actually not a story at all. Right and there is usually something interesting about our data our unexpected or not quite right. And those are the pieces of tension that we can build on. But it can be done in a subtle way where we're not being flashy and markety in a way that could be off putting to some audiences. And I think more generally we step back if you don't think story is going to work for your specific situation or your specific audience then it probably won't. So we want to be thoughtful about when and how we use story. But I think I would encourage you to challenge yourself if you're immediately going to this place of note story is not going to work because that is the place we immediately go to because it's easier not to tell a story to tell a good story with our data. [00:26:53] It takes time and it takes thought and it takes planning. [4.2] I think there is tremendous value to be had here. When we do this in the right scenarios for the right audiences in the right way this is not a thorough answer to the question when shouldn't we tell a story. I'm actually super interested in other perspectives here about when should we tell a story with data. When should we not tell a story with data.

[00:27:23] So I invite perspectives and commentary.

[00:27:26] In answer to that question and actually speaking of questions [00:27:31] I think it's time now to shift over to some reader Q and A [3.5] let's start with one that's directly related to the storytelling focus of today's session. Alex asks [00:27:42] How is storytelling different from data visualization. [2.9] So I think for me data visualization is the picture it's the image and storytelling is something that you can potentially do with that image.

 [00:28:00] There's this magical combination I think that can happen when we tell a story and when we show an effective image of that story or write a graph being one potentially effective sort of image which is what I've told you my story and I've shown you my picture. Now not only can you remember what you heard but you can also remember what you saw. So I think taking data visualization and using it to tell a story as we've talked about in this episode can be really high impact and the form that a story takes for different scenarios will look different potentially. The two scenarios I most commonly encounter are on the one hand live right you're there to talk your audience through it and then secondly are on the other hand it's has to stand alone. It's something that's being sent out and I think there are different considerations with these right when it's live. You can use builds or animation you can show your audience just the piece of data you want them looking at that highlights the specific point you're making as you're making it. You have a ton of control there. And it's your voiceover Your narrative that tells a story you actually don't need many words on the slide when you're there to talk your audience through the story but then the second scenario where the data has to stand on its own. It's something that's being sent out that's where the words that you would say in your spoken narrative need to be written physically on the page and think about annotations here.

[00:29:29] Right so the audience who's processing the data the story on their own they get that same sort of context and information and lead through the data that you would be able to do in a live setting and you are linked to one of my videos in the show notes that shows an example of this in action will for the live scenario as well as the thing that needs to get sent out and stand on his own afterwards.

[00:29:57] Josh writes [00:29:58] Do you watch NFL football. I've been noticing how they present analytics and it's almost always one to three pieces of information at a time. But there might be a dozen or so stats that they talk about over the course of the game. Do you agree with their approach [12.9] and I thought this is a fun question and I think actually this works really well.

[00:30:17] But if we step back and think about how these stats that are mentioned over the course of a football game are meant to be used. Think back to the facts on a slide that I talked about earlier or data in a spreadsheet. When you encounter a lot of facts or a lot of points of data they're not inherently memorable but when we're watching a football game we don't need to remember all of these stats. Rather these are more real time points of data to help us interpret what's happening in the game. But then there are also these ones that they really focus on.

[00:30:49] For example any Packers fan out there could probably tell you that Aaron Rodgers who just played his first game back after recovering from a broken collarbone had three interceptions in this most recent game and that's the first time that's happened since 2009. And so these ones that stick with us because we can relate to them in a very personal way.

[00:31:09] And so yeah I think ultimately though the way the stats are used in football it's very different from the way that we typically need to communicate with data in a business setting but that it can work here. Vince writes [00:31:23] What's the best way to know when a visualization is complete. [3.5] There always seemed to be boundless cornucopia of small details to tweak or fix. And this never ending spiral of edits can ultimately get me stuck in a loop that never actually produces a finished product. Any advice you can offer it would be great. So it's a first off practice. Here is a good thing the more you do it right. The more you visualize data the better fuel you'll have for. At what point it's going to be good enough to meet your audience's needs. Or if you don't have visibility of that anything you can do to get a feedback loop there will help provide insight to this over time in the 80 20 rule absolutely applies here very often where when you're visualizing data or creating a graph we can almost always do more but you want to step back and think about how would you weigh the benefit of continuing to refine against the time it's going to take to do so and make decisions in light of those tradeoffs. And when it comes a couple of specific strategies and think one starting with a blank piece of paper can be useful here. If I know my data well enough that I can step back and sketch what it will look like on a piece of paper then it's just about how do I recreate that in my tool.

[00:32:44] The nice thing when we're when we're drafting on paper we don't typically introduce clutter clutter is something that comes in a lot of times with our tools. So if I can get it right on paper then I just have to figure out how do I emulate that in my tools in a way that's going to work something else I think can be good when especially if you're getting caught in this never ending tweaking of your data visualization is force yourself to take a break step away from it. Go go for a walk go grab a coffee take some time away and then look back at it with fresh eyes and you will have a different perspective. After taking some time away that can help us figure out now what nuances do I need to continue to refine and where is it working well enough that it's going to meet my needs or meet my audiences needs. And I think anytime you onshore seeking feedback from someone else. Show them your graph and have them talk you through their thought process where they pay attention what questions they have what observations they make can be really useful for figuring out whether the visual we've created is doing its necessary job or if it isn't. Give us pointers on where we might need to concentrate those additional shifts and think about. Also when does it need to be perfect or close to perfect. And when is good enough going to be good enough. And the answer to that question will be different in different circumstances. Sarah

[00:34:09] asks [00:34:09] How did you start storytelling with data [2.5] and this is a fun question and it's been a crazy and incredible journey. This

[00:34:20] question actually inspired us to do a full episode that gives background on how I've built my company and some of my personal learnings along the way that I think will be interesting for those thinking about potentially starting something or building on an idea. So please stay tuned for more on that. And that brings us to the end of our podcast today where we've talked about story and why those who work with data should care. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast via your favorite podcast platform.