Brent Dykes - Effective Data Storytelling: How to Drive Change with Data, Narrative and Visuals

Brent Dykes

Cover design: Brent Dykes and Wiley
Cover illustration: Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

Copyright 2020 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Names: Dykes, Brent, author.
Title: Effective data storytelling : how to drive change with data,
narrative and visuals / Brent Dykes.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley and Sons, Inc., [2020] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019032934 (print) | LCCN 2019032935 (ebook) | ISBN
9781119615712 (hardback) | ISBN 9781119615736 (adobe pdf) | ISBN
9781119615729 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Business communication. | Information visualization. |
Storytelling.
Classification: LCC HF5718 .D95 2020 (print) | LCC HF5718 (ebook) | DDC
658.4/5dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032934
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019032935

To my family (and Jackson, who we miss dearly)

To Dad, Stan, and Hansthanks for sharing
the power of storytelling

Today, data has become one of the most valuable business assets. The companies that are best able to turn their data into insights, and their insights into knowledge, will outsmart and outperform their competition. In this data-driven world, storytelling is a vital enabler that will help organizations succeed.

We now live in a world with more data than ever before. Our data volumes are measured in zettabytes, which is an unimaginably vast quantity. One zettabyte is a number with 21 zeros at the end and contains one billion terabytes (one terabyte being the capacity of a state-of-the-art home computer). It is predicted that by 2025, we will have more than 175 zettabytes of data in the world, an exponential growth from the around 10 zettabytes we have in the world today. But all of that data is worthless unless businesses are able to gain insights from the data that allows them to act, make better decisions, and initiate change.

In order to make the most of the unprecedented opportunities presented by data, businesses and the individuals within them need the right skillsthey need to be data literate. From my work helping companies all over the globe make better use of data, I know that the ability to tell a story from data is a core pillar of data literacy.

Storytelling has been ingrained in the human way of life for hundreds of thousands of years. Throughout history, humans have used stories as an essential tool to capture peoples attention, engage them, ignite their imagination, and pass on knowledgeand that ability to tell stories is as important, if not more important, in todays data-driven world as it was when our ancestors dwelled in caves.

Those who use storytelling effectively dont just present facts, they present stories that will persuade, be remembered, and told and retold within an organization. The ability to tell stories from data is a skill that will become increasingly valuable in the job market of tomorrow.

Brent Dykes has done an outstanding job of creating a practical and engaging book that will help to improve your data storytelling skills. You will learn how to take the key ingredients of data, narratives, and visuals to help explain, enlighten, and engage people, leading to better decision making and initiating change.

I am sure that after you have finished reading Effective Data Storytelling: How to Drive Change with Data, Narrative, and Visuals, the book will remain on your shelf as an invaluable resource and reference guide to dive back into when you need a reminder of how to make better use of data and present data in a way that makes a real difference.

Bernard Marr

Futurist and author of The Intelligent Company, Big Data, Big Data in Practice, and Artificial Intelligence in Practice

While many data visualization principles are covered in this book, it is not a data visualization book. I want to set that expectation upfront, or else you may be disappointed. However, if youre looking to communicate your insights more effectively to others, youve found the right book. If you want to better understand why data storytelling is so effective, againthis is the book. If youre seeking to drive positive change with data, this book will equip you with everything youll need (at least, from a communication perspective). As you go through each chapter in this book, youll notice I start each one with a storybecause thats how much I believe in the power of storytelling. Let us begin this adventure together, once upon an insight

* * * *

After more than two years of intense research and writing, Im excited to share my perspective on data storytelling. My journey toward writing this book began in 2013 when I convinced Adobes event team to let me deliver a breakout session on data storytelling at our upcoming customer conference. At the time, it was an emerging topic that resonated with me. Having worked with data for the better part of my careerover 15 years in enterprise analyticsI experienced daily how critical effective data communication was. This session was my first formal opportunity to share some of the early concepts and frameworks I had developed. When the presentation went extremely well and I was asked to repeat the session, I knew I was onto something.