DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story

One of my mantras, as a leadership and presentation coach -- as well as in my role as an NYU and Columbia leadership professor -- is that numbers, in and of themselves, are completely meaningless. What really matters is: the story that those numbers tell. Too many business people -- especially those in data-driven fields -- tend to drown and to bore their audiences with numbers without providing context...and without effectively targeting their story to their audience. But Nancy Duarte, in her wonderful and indispensable new book, demonstrates why -- and how -- we can all do a more effective job of presenting our data, and inspiring people, by leveraging the power of story. DataStory will join Duarte's other amazing, bestselling books -- especially Slide:ology and Resonate -- not up on my bookshelf as a trophy, but on my desk, within arm's reach at all times, for ready reference.

All we hear about is DATA, DATA, DATA anymore and how there's so much POWER IN DATA. Big data! Valuable data! Organized data! But what does any of that matter... unless something's being done with the data. Unless someone (you, maybe?!) takes the data and makes a recommendation based off of that data. This book takes the guesswork out of crafting recommendations. It gives you step by step instructions to help you move from just exploring data... to explaining it in such a way that moves someone to action. Sound risky? Sure... it could be... but the fact is: Unless you're willing to move from EXPLORER OF DATA to RECOMMENDER BASED OFF OF DATA, you'll never advance in your career. Seriously. You'll just be seen as a an analyst. You don't want to settle for analyst, do you? You want to be something more. This book is a solid, challenging, but entertaining read. If you've liked (or loved, as millions have) Nancy Duarte's past books, you'll get a huge kick out of this one, too.

Having read a few other Duarte books (see my reviews of “Persuasive Business Presentations” and “Illuminate”) and preparing for an upcoming data related presentation, I wanted to get some tips in this regard. In her typical fashion, the author does provide some useful frameworks and suggestions, however, the book seems to be a very quick read which has its own benefits and limitations. As one might put it, Duarte wades into vast data forest, deals with many info overload brambles and thorny decision issues, and emerges with a tale and key lessons to help others of us who are facing similar journeys and challenges. More specifically, the book consists of an Introduction, 4 Major Sections with 11 Chapters: I. Communicate Data to Others: (1) Becoming a Communicator of Data, and (2) Communicating Data to Decision-makers; II. Bring Clarity Through Story Structure: (3) Crafting a Data Point of View, (4) Creating Action through Analytical Structure, (5) Structuring an Executive Summary as a DataStory; III. Make Clear Charts and Slides: (6) Choosing Charts and Writing Observations, (7) Annotating Insights onto Charts, and (8) Building a Skimmable Slidedoc; then IV. Make Data Stick: (9) Marveling at the Magnitude, (10) Humanizing Data, and (11) Storytelling with Data. At the end there is a Summary. My favorite aspect of the books is its overall message and its three-part framework. As Duarte states early on that “By transforming your data into vivid scenes and structuring your delivery in the shape of a story, you will make your audience care about what your data says.” She goes on to indicate that “A significant skill threshold stands between exploring, explaining, and inspiring with data.” To address these skill needs she suggests a “DataStory structure . . . [that] follows the three-act structure . . . [a] first act . . . [with the] problem to solve or an opportunity to pursue . . . [a] second act . . . [with the] conflict and complication . . . measurable symptoms . . . messy statistic that needs to change . . . [and a] third act [that] describes how the story would end if people took action to change it.” To my edification, the three areas seem to correspond with the branches of classical learning such described in Sr. Miriam Joseph’s “The Trivium” (see my review). I took heart from the way Duarte seems to be advocating such an integrated approach. On the one hand, there are the many nuggets of sage advice and practical tips along the way. For instance, she counsels “Due to the subjective nature of assumptions, it’s crucial to be transparent about all of those you’ve made.” She also indicates “Addressing potential counterarguments may be the most persuasive part of your recommendation.” Pointers such use of observation statements/headlines to frame charts, examples of particular layouts or arrangements of information to consider, as well as delivery hints like revealing one aspect of a bar chart at a time are helpful. I also was pleased to see her allusion to Vonnegut and the Guttenberg Project related to storylines (see my reviews of Archer & Jockers “Best Seller Code”) On the other hand, the book itself seems to read like the “pyramid structure” with one slide per thought that Duarte describes and it is over before you know it. It seems that it would have been useful to have more detail in a number of respects. For instance, there could been further reference to business intelligence tools and their use (see my review of Davenport’s “Keeping Up with the Quants”) as well as more attention to presentation difficulties such as dealing with data method questioners and so on. Also, the Kindle version suffers without the use of color and the charts and tables are small and difficult to read. Despite these challenges and the shortcoming of the book/e-book format, Duarte has provide another useful guide.

I am a marketer, and I have to share data all the time, in all different sorts of ways, to all different sorts of people. I have read all of Nancy’s books and this one does not disappoint! It helps you keep a fresh eye on the perspective of who your audience is, the journey you need to take them on, and even with data, how you can create a compelling vision and journey for them. I read it once as an enjoyable tell all, then devoured the second time around, complete with highlighter pen, to get all I could from it. Really smart stuff!

In a world where data is the new oil, Nancy Duarte brings a timely and game-changing book to help a new generation of rising leaders. By leveraging the power of storytelling with data-driven mindset to inspire action and enhance decision-making for advisors, leader, or executive. She not only weaves into the best of those concepts of visualization, narration and persuasion from her decades of experience. Duarte also expands helping readers on fundamentals, from selection of powerful words, to advanced concepts, such as leveraging temporal dimensions in presentations. As someone who has been successful with data, but struggles sometimes overwhelming others, I truly feel this will be an asset with the walk-through, examples, and resources to elevate my verbal and visual storytelling skills.

This book was an easy read, and I really appreciated how simple the thoughts were organized. I would recommend this to anyone presenting data, especially to help you organize the presentation and make it come alive so that the audience responds.

This is an amazing resource. In this book Nancy Duarte once again shows herself to be the master of creating effective presentations. The level of detail offered in combining these two elements of effective presentation, data and storytelling, is incredible. Whether you present frequently or only occasionally your presentation will communicate your message more effectively if you implement the ideas in this book. I highly recommend this wonderful resource.

I am a fan of Nancy Duarte's work, having seen her keynote on speech deconstruction 6-7 years ago. She's clearly an expert in her field and I've read one of her other books. Data Story is nicely put together. Excellent formatting and graphics and easy to read. Despite being 200+ pages long, it was a surprisingly quick read -- I was expecting it to take a week to read but instead finished half on a flight from Chicago to Orange County and the rest on a flight from New Jersey to Chicago. Many of the pages are only 10-50% filled, and it seems this was done to keep each page reserved for only one or a small number of points. Duarte disclaims early on (and I respect this disclaimer): "This book is about how data is communicated, not formulated." This should be understood by anyone considering reading this book. I was hoping for more explanation of communication styles, cognitive science, and explanation of communication approaches through examples. I'm a financial and data analysis professional and I didn't feel the book addressed these topics thoroughly. Instead, Data Story is more focused on the structure of a presentation and why the human brain is attracted to story (hence, I suppose, the book being called Data Story), comparing the presentation of data with hero/villian-type stories and movies. In this way, I feel the book would be far better received by an entrepreneur making a pitch for start-up funding to a VC than a corporate professional making a presentation to internal executives. I still enjoyed the book but would've enjoyed more detailed examples.