Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic - Storytelling with Data: Lets Practice!

Cover image: Catherine Madden
Cover design: Flight Design Co.

Copyright 2020 by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.

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ISBN 978-1-119-62149-2 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-119-62150-8 (ePub)
ISBN 978-1-1196-2158-4 (ePDF)

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic tells stories with data. She is the founder and CEO of storytelling with data (SWD) and author of the best-selling book, storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals (Wiley, 2015), which has been translated into a dozen languages, is used as a textbook by more than 100 universities, and serves as the course book for tens of thousands of SWD workshop participants. For nearly a decade, Cole and her team have delivered knockout interactive learning sessions highly sought after by data-minded individuals, companies, and philanthropic organizations all over the world. They also help people create graphs that make sense and weave them into compelling stories through the popular SWD blog, podcast, and monthly challenge.

Prior to SWD, Coles unique talent was honed through analytical roles in banking, private equity, and as a manager on the Google People Analytics team. At Google, she used a data-driven approach to inform innovative people programs and management practices and traveled to Google offices throughout the US and Europe to teach the course she developed on data visualization. Cole has acted as an adjunct faculty member at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), where she taught Introduction to Information Visualization, and regularly guest lectures at prominent universities in the US and beyond.

Cole has a BS in Applied Math and an MBA from the University of Washington. When she isnt ridding the world of ineffective graphs, Cole is undertaking the adventures of parenting three young children with her husband at home in the Midwest and on travels abroad.

I often receive emails from people who have read my first book, storytelling with data, or attended one of our workshops by the same name. There are notes of encouragement, support for the work were doing, and plenty of questions and requests. I especially love hearing the success stories: reports of having influenced a key business decision, spurred an overdue budget conversation, or prompted an action that positively impacted an organizations bottom line. The most inspiring accounts are those of personal growth and recognition. One grateful reader applied storytelling with data principles during an interview, helping him land a new job. All of this success is the result of people from different industries, functions, and roles committing time to improve their ability to communicate with data.

I also hear regularly from people who want more. Theyve read the book and understand the potential impact of telling stories with data, but struggle with the practical application to their own work. They have additional questions or feel they are facing nuanced situations that are keeping them from having the desired impact. Its clear that people crave more guidance and practice to help fully develop their data storytelling skills.

Others reach out who areor would like to beteaching the lessons outlined in storytelling with data. In many cases, they are university instructors (its amazing to think that storytelling with data is used as a textbook at more than 100 universities around the world!) or they are a part of a learning and development function within an organization, interested in building an in-house course or training program. There are also leaders, managers, and individual contributors who want to upskill their teams or provide good coaching and feedback to others.

This book addresses all of these needs for individuals, teachers, and leaders. By sharing invaluable insight through many practical examples, guided practice, and open-ended exercises, I will help build your confidence and credibility when it comes to applying and teaching others to apply the storytelling with data lessons.

Each chapter starts with a brief recap of the key lessons that are covered in storytelling with data. This is followed by:

practice with Cole: exercises based on real-world examples posed for you to consider and solve, accompanied by detailed step-by-step illustration and explanation

practice on your own: more exercises and thought-provoking questions for you to work through individually without prescribed solutions

practice at work: thoughtful guidance and hands-on exercises for applying the lessons learned on the job, including practical instruction on when and how to solicit useful feedback and iterate to refine your work from good to great

Much of the content youll encounter here is inspired by our storytelling with data workshops. Because these sessions span many industries, so do the examples upon which Ill draw. Well navigate between different topicsfrom digital marketing to pet adoption to sales traininggiving you a rich and varied set of situations to learn from as you hone your data storytelling skills.