The struggle is real! Good analysis doesn't simply lead to smarter decisions. Even the perfect data story is only a part of the answer. Bridging the "Last Mile of Data" requires a commitment to communicating and selling insights to people who have many barriers that make your data bounce off. This infographic outlines some of the key steps required to cross that last mile ..read more

To receive meaningful data, sometimes we have to give it first.  This is what we focus on everyday with our customers. In this season of giving, we wanted share some of our favorite ideas for sharing the data love and encourage more effective data storytelling.  The following list is a fragrant mix of self improvement, everyday products with visualizations, data art, and data books for kids. Happy Holidays! A huge thanks to Michel Guillet, former Juicer, good friend, and data product leader, who compiled much of this list. For the Data Enthusiast We all have peopl ..read more

We’re pleased to share a short guest post from our long-time friend Ted Cuzzillo, author of the excellent Substack Data Doodle (“I traverse the faultline between data and the people who use it.”) …At least according to a new horde I've found of genuine practitioners I had written off data storytelling as a fraud. All I could see was a parade of visualized data. Then I took another look. I used to tell people to search for “data stories.” Look at the sentence, I said. “Visualization” would be found within a few words of “story.” The two are compatible but not exclusive. But I had given up too ..read more

"Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there." The State Farm tagline — like so many advertisements — does more than connect with new customers. It also wants to convince existing customers that they made the right decision in choosing State Farm for their insurance. The same is true about delivering data to your customers. Reporting is more than a feature of your product, it is an opportunity to remind customers of the value your solution provides. Some product companies understand this concept well. For example, Spotify’s Wrapped is an annual report sent to listeners to summarized their music ..read more

Data insights are the essential unit of value in analytics. They are the moment when we’ve squeezed the juice from data, extracting something useful. “An INSIGHT goes way beyond just founding something "interesting" in the data. An insight is an unexpected shift in the way we understand things that inspires us to act.” — João António Sousa, Director of Growth at Kausa.ai Brent Dykes + Joao SHIFT in UNDERSTANDING UNEXPECTED REASON ALIGNS with what the target audience CARES ABOUT EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATED Why Data Insights? We use data as a medium for communication. It isn’t that differ ..read more

Let the data run free! Government organizations, academic institutions, non-profits, and even passionate sports fans are gathering and sharing valuable data sets with the public. The topics are wide ranging, from climate change to health to inequality to happiness. It is a powerful way to support a cause and encourage data-driven analysis. These open data sets are set loose on a website in hopes that interested visitors will come flocking. How do you make that site as effective as possible? Simply posting the data in a searchable format isn’t enough. To achieve impact, you need to make it easy ..read more

I’m a long-time advocate for adding specificity into data presentation as a way to humanize your message. After all, we know that “specificity is the soul of narrative” according to John Hodgman. Specific examples are a way to zoom in to the details while connecting your audience to the big picture ideas. I ran into a couple of great examples recently that help bring specificity to this general concept (see what I did there?): Example 1: The Hope Summit I recently attended a workshop put on by the Belmont Data Collaborative, part of a wider Belmont event focused on “Data-Informed Social Innova ..read more

What does it take to bridge the “Last Mile of Data”? In this presentation, shared at Cayuse’s Connect Conference, provides a simple framework to help focus your efforts. It was inspired by the analysts who are constantly frustrated in their attempts to deliver data insights to make an impact ..read more

“Why don’t my customers use their reporting dashboard?” This question is so common it is a cliche. Frequently the answer is that the customer-facing dashboard was not treated like a product. Basic questions were missed in the rush to make the data available: What are my users pain points? How do we make their life better? The essential elements to a good data product aren’t a huge mystery. But they do take an empathetic, customer-focused perspective that is often lacking. I’ve been involved with designing and launching dozens of data products. Here are some of my key lessons: The Right Mental ..read more

Once there was a data visualization professional who worried that translating data into intuitive visuals wasn’t enough to make him relevant. Too often, the villagers gave him slyly-condescending compliments like: “We love how you make data pretty.” The Data Visualizer sat on a tree stump deep in the woods and thought, How can I be more than a ‘drawer of pictures’? A picture was worth a thousand words…but the saying offers nothing about how those thousand words change how people think. Dispirited, his gaze wandered to a fallen apple nearby, his mind wandered to the story of Sir Isaac Newton’s ..read more