It is an undisputed fact that most people love to hear a good story. Just like how you are conveying stories to your friends, and passing them on from one generation to the next. Another testament to good storytelling is how films and novels have stood the test of time. And this should also be the case when it comes to how we convey data through data storytelling.
We all know that storytelling is a vivacious and inventive medium through which we are able to convey information and offer a snippet of a certain point in time in which the story not only took place but was being told from person to another.
Storytelling has become a big part of our daily lives, in fact, we can see, hear, and read a lot of stories each day, we see it in the movie theaters, the printed pages of magazines and newspapers, the internet, the radio and television, and a whole lot more. Whatever that we consume and digest, all of that has the potential to inform, just like the labels that we see on our food or the different methods of advertising that we are encounter every day.
It is undeniable that storytelling has been with us from generation to generation, and our brains have been hardwired to respond to those stories. However, when it comes to data, it can become chilling, complicated, and unfamiliar. But little did we know that the best stories, especially when it is about the most interesting topics and issues, is more compelling when it is being backed up with authentic and sufficient data.
Data always played a powerful role in our society and culture because it has been part of our entertainment, information, education, and it had also served as a marketing tool among other purposes of data that have been common and popular. The role that content has in the methods as to how companies have been marketing their products and businesses, big and small, towards achieving a wider range of visibility through organic search engine results has been significant. As such, SEO campaigns have been relying on stories so that they will be able to let consumers find brands and products easily when they go online.
It is the goal of creating a story to inform others, and indeed this has made civilizations become reliant on information since the dawn of man. But right now, there are already a lot of advances in technology and expansion of peoples’ collective imagination which have made the power of story to grow exponentially more vital and useful in every modern. Marketplaces, in particular, have even grown to be more crowded making the importance of finding and reaching an audience more critical than ever.
When telling a good story, it should be that which everyone will remember. Although we might not be able to really remember every detail from the narrative, and there might be details which might get forgotten when the story is retold over time, the major plot points, the theme of the story, and the structure of the narrative are usually recognized and are well-remembered by those who have engaged with the story even at least once.
All of these things should be kept in check when it comes to the gathering and analysis of data in the daily operations of a business enterprise. This is because data is an essential tool in the toolbox of any business, regardless of its size or industry. This is why data storytelling is indeed an effective and compelling solution for the success of a business.
How to Understand Data Storytelling
With the sheer amount of data that is now being made available, data storytelling has brought a greater human element to the world of data analysis which makes data becomes easier to digest.
There are key components when it comes to data storytelling and this incorporates three specific methodologies for its communication. By combining all of these into one clear and succinct format for the dissemination of information, this can make the task of assessing and transmitting the data for wider consumption simpler and more compelling.
Key Components of Data Storytelling
First Key Component – Data Sciences
The data science is the first of the three key components when it comes to data storytelling. Data science is where data is interpreted and the scientists who are populating this field are also going to be able to gain knowledge directly coming from it. There are already a lot of technologies that are working wonders in the background of data sciences, but, individually, the approach of data science takes towards the auditing of data to be mostly clinical.
Data science on its own will not be able to tell a story about all those data because this is solely focused on the gathering of vital data and does not delve much further in truly dissecting it.
Second Key Component – Visualization
This component considers all the ways in which how data can be viewed and determined. There are countless charts and graphs. And now, with the development of more complex online and digital resources, the dashboard has now become something of an industry-standard in just about every type of industry where data is paramount.
Third Key Component – Narrative Elements
This is the most important component in the mix for the creation of a story around the data that has been gathered. Here, the art of language comes into play and the words that are being employed are now going to create a narrative that must be chosen cautiously.
The narrative component is going to rely on the data sciences of crunching numbers and also with the visualization aspect of the organization of such data to become familiar and easy to read visual aid. The narrative elements of data storytelling are going to be centered around taking both of these factors into consideration to be able to build a narrative that will be able to explain and offer some manner of insight or interpretation that surrounds the key points of the data.
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