Defining Your Story
Lesson 18 from: Data Storytelling: Deliver Insights via Compelling StoriesBill Shander
Defining Your Story
Lesson 18 from: Data Storytelling: Deliver Insights via Compelling StoriesBill Shander
Lessons
Introduction
1Class Introduction
03:29 2Do The Exercises
00:37 3Communication Challenges and Solutions
05:20 4Exercise: 4X4 Model
04:31 5Exercise Solution: 4X4 Model
03:25 6Introduction - Quiz
Thinking Like a Communicator
The Power of Story
06:48 8Six Ways to Tap Into Your Inner Storyteller
12:32 9The Importance of Understanding Your Audience
03:42 10How to Understand Your Audience
04:35 11How to Embrace Emotion (to review)
04:38 12How to Tap Into Your Inherent Creativity
05:55 13Exercise: An Emotional Story
01:29 14Exercise Solution: An Emotional Story
01:12 15Thinking Like a Communicator - Quiz
Telling Data Stories
16Basic Data Analytics Tactics
08:54 17Basic Journalism Tactics
04:56 18Defining Your Story
05:37 19Sketching and Storyboarding
07:05 20Use Your Words
04:20 21Telling Data Stories - Quiz
Essential Design Principles
22The Power of Visuals
07:44 23How to Pick the Right Chart for Your Data
05:19 24Exercise: Chart Selection
06:27 25Exercise: Visualization
02:59 26Basic Chart Designs Principles
08:21 27Research Driven Design Principles
06:27 28Exercise: A Data Story
03:50 29Essential Design Principles - Quiz
And Now What?
30Great Data Stories for Your Inspiration
05:53 31Tips and Tricks
03:53 32How to Sell Data Storytelling Services
03:56 33A Conversation Guide for Talking to Prospects About Data Storytelling Projects
05:30 34Course Summary
02:48Final Quiz
35Final Quiz
Lesson Info
Defining Your Story
you've done your data analysis and you're ready to start pulling your story together. You know what your data says and you know, the overarching plan for your story. But how do you pull it all together? There's an ongoing data visualization challenge called Makeover Monday, which takes existing works and encourages people to rethink them. So let's take this piece. Looking at arms trading around the world title The militarization of the Middle Eastern numbers. It looks at data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showing the flow of arms around the world. The conclusion is focused on the fact that over the past five years imports of arms are up in the Middle East compared to the prior five years. Looking through the spreadsheet of data, I found a lot of interesting things that I thought might be different angles for a story. For instance, it's clear when you look at the entire data set that the militarization of the Middle East really peaked in the seventies, eighti...
es and nineties and those peaks had clear historical causes. For instance, the impacts of oil production. Opec US influence in the region, which was huge in the seventies and eighties after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Kuwait had an understandable surgeon arms imports. There's also a lot that's not in this data that would be worth understanding. For instance, it clearly shows here that Iran's arms imports cratered over the past 40 years. Is that because they're shrinking away from military power? No, it's because of the Islamic revolution and their relative isolation from the majority of Western arms dealers for much of the past 40 years. They're producing more of their own weapons. One would guess perhaps the most striking thing in this data is that the story throughout the entire Middle East really isn't crystal clear really. The clear story Is that certain Gulf countries are arming themselves and that Saudi Arabia stands alone as the single country that has been building up its military most consistently for the entire time period in the data and has the highest spending by far as well as the most dramatic rise over the past 10 years. And it's worth hypothesizing that this build up has a lot less to do with 9- in Syria than it does with Iran In the Middle East. No issues are isolated and Iran's power is as much tied to the post-9-11 world and the instability of Iraq and Syria as anything else. But the Gulf has had a long standing conflict with Iran for religious and political reasons. My review of the data mixed with some experience in the region leads me to want to focus on that part of the story. So here are the buckets of content for my story. Saudi Arabia has been steadily and massively increasing its military capabilities for the past 10 years. I'll Shorthand this as Saudi build up several of Saudis, gulf neighbors have also been heavily investing in their militaries as evidenced by arms imports, I'll shorthand this as gulf friends build up the gulf countries are not just increasing their spending, but they're spending more than anyone in the region on a per capita basis. They're nervous about something. I'll shorthand this as per capita. The gulf considers itself a counterbalance to Iranian power, which might explain some of that nervousness. This data doesn't reveal Iran's military increases. So I might want to find data to tell the story of Iran's military expansions. That might explain the gulf's motivations. This is the heart of the story. So I'm relying on finding some new data to bring this story home. I'll shorthand this as Iran build up and this could end up being multiple buckets depending on what I find. I would conclude by making the point that this data is missing a lot several of these countries were in the thick of the arab spring during recent years and or in the middle of war. So the data may be skewed up or down based on those events. Time will tell whether this is a long term trend or if this militarization will be just another spike in a region that has been a volatile place for decades. I'll shorthand this as missing data. Now, when it comes to arranging these, there are a lot of options. If I were creating a story for a Saudi audience. I might start with the Iran bucket. I want to set the context for the story around the audiences perceived threat. That would then logically flow into the next bit, which could focus on Saturdays response building up to balance against that threat logically next I might talk about Saudis neighbors like kuwait United Arab Emirates and Oman who are also building up their capabilities in support of the fight against Iran. And then I might conclude with the caveats about the data, notice that I left out the per capita story entirely for a US audience. I might start with Saudi and its friends then explain Iran and the caveats and I would include per capita spending since the U. S. Audience isn't as aware of the regional numbers without that context or if my data were an actual makeover monday response which I ended up not having time to do. I might start with the overall media story like it was in the original piece that would be a new bucket for my story. Maybe then I'd focus on Saudi Arabia then talk about per capita spending to help support the point that the gulf is different from the rest of the region. Then I might talk about the other gulf countries within that context and then talk about Iran the why the point here is that the same buckets can be arranged in different ways to make differently flowing stories for different audiences. It's all about having a clear focus for the story, understanding my audience and having a really great flow, the more you do this, the easier it gets with our story to find in broad strokes. It's time to storyboard it, which we'll cover in the next video.