Dave Wells, my collaborator in a TDWI course on data storytelling, tears up a popular misconception about data storytelling and data analytics. On the surface, narrative storytelling appears to be the opposite of analytics – anecdotal instead of quantitative. But quantities aren’t the only way, or necessarily the ideal way to convey information. Not everyone […]
data storytelling
Data driven? No, you’re story driven, says German data scientist
Just when data seems to be approaching maturity as a touchstone in business, along comes a data scientist with doubts. Data is like the stone in stone soup, he says. It has not a single calorie of meaning. “The beef is in data fiction,” says Joerg Blumtritt, CEO of Munich-based Datarella and consultant to a […]
Scenarios for a Qlik Sense data story
Real data storytellers know that data framed in a story is much more effective than data standing all alone by its naked self. They also know that storytelling is a giant that can lose much of its power when tied down to a vendor’s product. We can applaud Qlik for respecting these facts. We can […]
“Big changes” in storytelling: simple and simplistic
The storytelling world shook this morning with this headline from Tableau: “Data storytelling is undergoing a big change.” The blog post lists three changes: scrolling with less clicking, simpler charts, and visualizations that weave into the narrative. What is really changing? Not much, and to call it “big changes” is worthy of a trashy tabloid […]
Andy Cotgreave on data without emotion
Tableau’s senior technical evangelist Andy Cotgreave has boarded the data storytelling wagon. Actually, I don’t know how long he’s been there, but an article he wrote caught my attention today. He says that data without emotion is “worthless.” I agree! Consider also the terrible Syrian refugee crisis affecting the Middle East and Europe. This tragedy […]