032 - How and Why Talented Analytical Minds Leave People Scratching Their Head Around Data with Nancy Duarte

Nancy Duarte is a communication expert and the leader of the largest design firm in Silicon Valley, Duarte, Inc. She has more than 30 years of experience working with global companies and counts eight of the top ten Fortune 500 brands in her clientele. She is the author of six books, and her work as appeared in Fortune, Time Magazine, Forbes, Wired, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan Magazine, and CNN.

In this episode, Nancy and I discussed some of the reasons analytics and data experts fail to effectively communicate the insights and value around data. She drew from her key findings in her work as a communication expert that she details in her new book, Data Story, and the importance of communicating data through the natural structure of storytelling.

In our chat, we covered:

• How empathy is tied to effective communication.
• Biases that cloud our own understanding of our communication skills
• How to communicate an enormous amount of data effectively and engagingly
• What’s wrong with sharing traditional presentations as a reading asset and Nancy’s improved replacement for them in the enterprise
• The difference in presenting data in business versus scientific settings
• Why STEAM, not STEM, is relevant to effective communication for data professionals and what happens when creativity and communication aren’t taught
• How the brain reacts differently when it is engaged through a story

Resources and Links:

Nancy Duarte on LinkedIn

Twitter: @nancyduarte

Slidedocs

Duarte DataStory

Quotes from Today’s Episode

“I think the biggest struggle for analysts is they see a lot of data.”  —Nancy

“In a business context, the goal is not to do perfect research most of the time. It’s actually to probably help inform someone else’s decision-making.” —Nancy

“Really understand empathy, become a bit of a student of story, and when you start to apply.”  these, you’ll see a lot of traction around your ideas.” — Nancy

“We’ve gone so heavily rewarded the analytical mindset that now we can’t back out of that and be dual-modal about being an analytical mindset and then also really having discipline around a creative mindset.” — Nancy

“There’s a bunch of supporting data, but there’s also all this intuition and other stuff that goes into it. And so I think just learning to accept the ambiguity as part of that human experience, even in business.”  — Brian

“If your software application doesn’t produce meaningful decision support, then you didn’t do anything. The data is just sitting there and it’s not actually activating.”  — Brian

“People can’t draw a direct line from what art class or band does for you, and it’s the first thing that gets cut. Then we complain on the backend when people are working in professional settings that they can’t talk to us.”  — Brian