Talking About Data, Part III

Aug 12, 2010 by Phil Simon in Data Quality

In the first two parts of the series (here and here), I discussed many best practices with respect to talking about data. This last piece is devoted to arguably the single biggest mistake that people make when giving a data- or information-oriented presentation. They think that it’s all about data.

I’m here to tell you that it’s not.

Learn from Gladwell

One of my favorite authors is Malcolm Gladwell. His books have sold millions of copies, and with good reason. I really enjoy the way that he ties together ostensibly disparate people or trends in books like Blink, Outliers, and The Tipping Point. He tells stories and stories resonate with people much more than bland facts and numbers.

Each of his books could contain roughly the same message, but, I’d argue, wouldn’t be nearly as popular if told in a different way. Consider Outliers for a moment. His central thesis in the book is that success is largely a function of circumstance. While he doesn’t minimize the effort involved in attaining status, money, or responsibility, he uses vivid and well-developed examples to buttress his point. Bill Gates is a really smart guy, but computers were gaining in popularity in the early 1980s. There was a void for a guy like Gates, and he stepped in to fill it, creating an enormous company in the process. If it wasn’t Gates, then it probably would have been someone else. That void was too big to leave unfilled for too long. Kudos to him for being in a position to seize the opportunity.

It’s a great story. Now imagine that Gladwell had attempted to make the same point by relying exclusively on dry statistics and charts. He could have found stats ostensibly proving that, for example, going to an Ivy League school results in a greater probability for success. To be sure, they would bore most people (well, maybe not Harvard and Yale graduates). They would probably irk others. In either event, relying on methods like that would make it extremely unlikely that he’d be considered one of the world’s best writers–never mind successful. His message wouldn’t be as vivid. What’s more, people don’t remember statistics as much as clear examples that “prove” (or at least support) a point.

And I’m not the only one who feels this way. Far from it, in fact. Check out Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath.

Simon Says: Balance Matters

Don’t take the opposite extreme here, especially if you’re presenting to a group of professionals at a conference or internal folks. Anecdotes have their limitations and it’s always best to have backup in the form of credible sources. One can make a topic as potentially banal as data quality much more interesting by citing examples of:

• how a problem happened
• the impact of that problem
• how it was resolved
• what was learned from the issue

It’s like boxing. Mix it up with jabs. Don’t just throw hay-makers. Stick and move. Spice it up and, I promise, you’ll reach more people than if you just lay back and do what’s expected.

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What say you?

Tags: Data Quality, public speaking