The Art of Communicating Data

Have to re-represent to a different audience? Learn strategies to adapt your presentation for a new target audience.

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What makes a data presentation successful? People have different answers for this but in this episode, I'll tell you the 3 key qualities of a successful data presentation.

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I share some reflections from Austin Kleon's book, Steal Like an Artist, that are relevant to data professionals, particularly those who make data visualizations.

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Are you being strategic with your data viz titles? I share 3 types of effective data visualization titles that I recommend you use, depending on your audience and message.

Join the free Data Professionals community I created on Discord by clicking here.

I discuss the pros and cons of using a pie chart, share alternative charts to use instead and then tell you when and how to use pie charts (if you must!).

Recommended resource:

• Stephen Few's Save the Pies for Dessert

Before you skip this episode because it sounds boring, hear me out! An agenda can be a helpful roadmap for your audience and also bring you some benefits. Listen to this episode to understand the benefits of having an agenda during your presentation and how to create a good one.

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E-mail me here: [email protected]

Sounds meta, I know. In this episode, I'm going to share metrics that I recommend you look at in order to measure how effective your dashboard is. This will help you make decisions like: does my dashboard need to be changed? Does it need to be retired? And more...

In this episode, we uncover common practice mistakes that might be undermining your presentations. From only practicing once to neglecting equipment rehearsals, we explore these pitfalls and offer practical solutions to help you elevate your presentation game. Don't miss this insightful guide to refining your presentation practice techniques.

• Download this free roadmap to learn what steps you need to take to make effective presentations
• If you want more help with presentations, you can check out my course, Present Data with Confidence.

I got a request to share more data visualization mistakes to avoid. If you did not listen to the episode where I share the first 5 mistakes, you can listen to it here.

If you have questions or want to request I cover a topic on a future episode, you can email me at [email protected]. I read and personally reply to every email.

Well-designed slides can be a powerful tool to communicate effectively. In this episode, we explore the secrets to designing visually captivating slides that enhance your message and captivate your audience.

Courses mentioned in the episode:

• Present Data with Confidence
• Engage and Captivate in your Virtual Presentations

I asked my followers on the Threads app what their presentation tip is to capture their audience's attention. In this episode, I share the responses I got. There were some really interesting advice that I had never heard of before, so definitely give this a listen!

Re-publishing this episode because last time there was an audio issue. In this episode, we explore how introverted data professionals can leverage their unique strengths to become confident and effective communicators. Discover the power of active listening and thoughtful reflection as essential tools in successful communication, and learn how to embrace your introverted superpowers to enhance your impact in the data field.

In this episode, you'll learn the art of reading academic papers. As data professionals, understanding how to effectively read and analyze papers is crucial for staying informed, regardless if you're working in the industry or academia.

In this episode, we explore the art of academic paper writing for data professionals. From effectively managing your time to successfully collaborating with co-authors, I'll share tips to help you write academic papers.

In this episode, we explore how introverted data professionals can leverage their unique strengths to become confident and effective communicators. Discover the power of active listening and thoughtful reflection as essential tools in successful communication, and learn how to embrace your introverted superpowers to enhance your impact in the data field.

It is crucial for data professionals to adhere to ethical principles and best practices in their data communication. Join me as I discuss the ethical considerations, responsible data communication practices, and actionable recommendations for data professionals to ensure responsible and ethical data communication.

Our guest for this episode, Joe Karlsson, shares his expertise about building dashboards with real-time data. We discuss what are the core components of an effective real-time dashboard, how it can be used to improve user engagement, some challenges with real-time data and some examples of successful real-time dashboards across different industries.

As a data professional, it's crucial to communicate your insights clearly and persuasively to senior management. In this episode, we will discuss effective strategies for presenting data to executives.

The data visualization tool you choose to use can significantly impact the success of your visualizations. I discuss key questions to ask when deciding on which tool and provide practical recommendations to help you make an informed decision.

Here are 5 dashboard mistakes that I think you should avoid and how you can do that.

Are you making these mistakes with your data visualization? Even seasoned data professionals can unintentionally make these mistakes.

If you want to learn more about data viz essentials, you can take my free course Data Viz Like a Boss.

Did you know that you can prepare for your next presentation's Q&A portion, without having your audience submit a question in advance? In this episode, I share my tips on how you can feel more prepared for this often nerve-wrecking portion of the presentation.

Did you know that it’s possible to deliver great presentations even if your nerves show? Even if you stutter, stumble, forget your words, you can still have a successful presentation. I’ll explain how in this episode.

In this short episode I debunk 3 myths about data presentations.

Ioana shares so many amazing gems on how to present yourself and your data work to non-technical or mixed audience members.

You can connect with Ioana on Linked In and Instagram. You can also work with Ioana here to improve your data presentation skills.

Show notes for this episode can be found here.

Learn from Fatemah Mirza, the founder of CareerTuners.com, on how to position yourself and your data experience (even if you think you don't have any) to help yo land a data job. She shares tips on resumes, data portfolios, how to stand out from other applicants, whiteboard interviews, live coding sessions, how to deal with a bad interviewer and much more.

Download the free resources she talks here and connect with Fatemah on Linked In and Instagram.

Checkout the show notes for this episode here.

Are you trying to eliminate filler words from your presentations or speech? I share tips on how to avoid using them as well some good news that no one will tell you about filler words.

I share 5 mistakes I see people make with data presentations and what you can do to avoid making them as well. 

In this episode we'll be setting your data communication goals for this year. I'll help you figure out what you should focus on and what's important to you for your data career. 

Best-selling author Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic joins us on this episode to talk about her latest book: Storytelling with You: Plan, Create, and Deliver a Stellar Presentation. She shares lots of helpful advice on making effective and successful presentations. 

Resources talked about on the show:

• Storytelling with You: Plan, Create, and Deliver a Stellar Presentation
• Upcoming workshops Cole is hosting (one in London coming up on October 26th)
• Check out this episode's show notes for additional resources

Having a 3-minute story and Big Idea can help you tremendously with preparing for the rest of your data presentation as well as during the delivery itself. Listen to this episode to learn what these are and how to craft them for your next presentation.

The work we do as data practitioners often plays a key role in decision-making. In this episode, we talk about how we can foster critical thinking in teams and create captivating 3-minute data stories to help with data decision-making.

So you got the basics of data visualizations covered, what's next? Here are my recommendations on how to build on your data visualization foundation.

Here's my take on what a beginner’s data visualization curriculum looks like. This is for data practitioners or aspiring ones who want to get a solid foundation in data visualization and don’t know what they should be learning at this stage.

Paulina Davila started her journey as an analyst and recently became a VP and the Head of Data Visualization & Storytelling at JP Morgan. She shares her tips on how to build effective data visualizations and presentations, as well as how to take initiative to help you climb the ranks at work.

Do you work with data and are in academia? Tune into this episode to get advice from Dr. Sarah Treit, founder of Figures First, on how to communicate with data in academia. We also talk about the common forms of communication, predict how that will change in academia, and more.

Learn how to make a data portfolio that will work in your favor rather than hurt you (because they can!). Our guest, Juliana McMillan-Wilhoit, shares her thoughts on geospatial data analysis, why you shouldn't trust maps, and data portfolios. 

In this episode, we talk about the struggles data scientists face with communicating their work and tips on how to address this. Our guest is Avery Smith, founder of Data Career Jumpstart, and he also shares his thoughts on how to use certain data science terms when talking to non-technical audience members.

Do you get anxious presenting your work? If so, you don't want to miss this interview with Susan Gatura, a senior data analyst working in the media and entertainment industry. Suzie shares her experience with conquering presentation anxiety while also being an introvert.

To kick-off the 2nd season, listen to our guest, Britney Lovett, share her advice and tips on how to improve your data communication skills as an industry professional. She's a lead data analyst and has also started a free mentorship program to help data professionals.

Have you heard about these 7 different types of data stories? In this week's episode, I review this data storytelling framework with you so you can use this anytime you feel stuck on what story to tell with your data. I've also linked a helpful article with data visualization examples for each of these in the show notes.

Are you starting a new data role? Or maybe you are new to the data viz world? If either is true, listen to this interview with BI Analyst Mujahed Syed, a Phoenix Tableau User Group co-lead and former Tableau Ambassador. He shares his communication tips as well as how he presents his dashboards to his clients. 

Katie is a data analyst in the healthcare industry with an educational background in math. In this episode she shares her tips on how to confidently communicate your data work. We also have a segment where she advises on how to present certain data terms. You can find ways to connect with her listed in the show notes associated with this episode.

Are you "drive-by" critiquing or have witnessed others do this online publicly? In this episode, I share advice on how to tactfully provide feedback to people sharing their data work online...as well as how to ask for it for your own work.

I'm sharing 5 ways you can improve your data visualizations. It doesn’t matter which tool you use to make your charts since these tips apply to most tools. This isn't an exhaustive list so let me know if you want to hear more tips. You can email me at [email protected].

In today’s episode you'll learn how to start your virtual presentation in a way that engages and captivates your audience’s attention from the very beginning. This is actually one of the lessons from my new course on virtual presentations. Enroll today to get it at a discount: https://trending-analytics.com/virtual-presentations/.

In this episode I’m going to explain why you should take opportunities to improve your audience’s graphicacy and some suggestions on how you can start doing so. I'll also share why *not* showing unfamiliar charts to your audience can sometimes be a bad thing.

In this episode I open up more and share about my communication struggles and journey. I also share lessons I've learned more recently working in the data field about these skills.

In this episode, I provide an overview of data visualization as an effective form of communicating data. We also talk about exploratory vs explanatory visualizations and when providing visualizations can help your audience vs showing them all the data. 

You can find show notes here: https://trending-analytics.com/episode-5-why-you-should-visualize-your-data/

We are going to be talking about data storytelling predictions for the coming 5 years. There are two particular predictions that have stuck out to me and grabbed my interest. So I’ll focus on these two for this episode. As always, I'm curious to hear what you think so give this a listen and message me with your thoughts at [email protected].

You can find show notes here: https://trending-analytics.com/episode-2-data-storytelling-predictions-for-2022-and-beyond/

Let's discuss the different ways you as someone who works with data could be expected (if not already) to communicate data with others. You can find show notes here: https://trending-analytics.com/episode-3-know-these-different-types-of-data-communication/

We’ll be talking about how to put your audience first when communicating to them, whether it’s through reports, data viz, presentations or whatever other form of communication.

I gave a version of this training to the Phoenix Tableau User Group in Dec 2021 (the training covered more than just this topic) but I think you can benefit from this material as well.

You can find show notes here: https://trending-analytics.com/episode-4-how-to-put-your-audience-first-when-communicating-data/

In this first episode, I want to share why this show focuses on data communication skills and why you should be honing them to help you with your data career. I also share the light bulb moment I had in graduate school that made me realize the importance of such skills.

You can find show notes here: https://trending-analytics.com/why-focus-on-data-communication-skills/

I was inspired to start this podcast because you didn’t ask me to. Most people who reached out to me asking if I can teach them how to use data viz software or create a course on the latest data tool everyone is talking about.

It’s precisely because of these requests that I created a show dedicated to communication skills for data people because we obsess over technical skills and do not work enough on these other so-called “soft” skills. So I decided to create this podcast to help you hone these skills.

If you want to come on the show as a guest or submit your experience for me to share, feel free to email me at [email protected].