Anthony Onesto (Burn the Box) discusses the importance of storytelling with data, reporting insights from a Story IQ training and citing research (Stanford, Marketing Institute, Harvard Business) that narratives make data far more memorable and actionable. He gives practical guidance: know your audience, define the goal, select relevant and accurate data, construct a coherent narrative (why → data → solution), use visual storytelling, refine with feedback, and practice. He also lists common pitfalls to avoid (audience mismatch, incorrect/outdated data, poor visuals, and information overload).
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Anthony Onesto
Story IQ
January 27, 2024
Up to 22 times more memorable
70% more inclined
Chapters
I think we all know that data really speaks for itself. So the idea of storytelling with data becomes really, really important. Everyone, it's Anthony Honesto, and this is my burn the box drop for this week. I am talking about data storytelling. Just went through a training with Story iq, which is a great vendor for training around storytelling with data. A couple of things popped out as I was going through this training. One is there was a saying that says data rarely speaks for itself. And it's true. When you're looking at whether it's a dashboard or a report, information never really pops out at you. There's always a narrative that needs to happen. So we, as business professionals, we are often tasked with turning this incredible amount of data. I mean, we have unprecedented amount of data from all these different systems into coherent insights. Kind of like for, you know, organizing a family reunion. You bring everyone together, but you look around, you're like, okay, a lot of chaos. Same thing. In terms of our data and our storytelling, we have dashboards, we have colors, lines, charts, whatever it is. It's just every. All these different tools narrate what the data is saying. But oftentimes we look at these things and go, I don't even know what I'm looking at right now. So let's first look at the data first and foremost, because that's a fourth wall break. We want to talk about storytelling with data with data with data storytelling. But there's actually research from the Stanford Graduate School of Business that underscores the really importance of storytelling, indicating that narratives make up make data up to 22 times more memorable than facts. Again, let me repeat that. Narratives make data up to 22 times more memorable than facts alone. The importance of narrative content Marketing Institute highlights that blending storytelling with data presentation amplifies. Amplifies audience engagement. Again, same point. Memorable in engagement. Harvard Business study revealed that executives are 70% more inclined. 77,0 more inclined to consider information credible and actionable. When data is presented within a narrative framework. We know all this, right? Data and storytelling super important. So what holds us back? Well, it's. It's not really what holds us back, but what can we do to make sure that we're doing this in the right. Well, first of all, let's know our audience need to really define your goal. Understand the data narrative. Who is it for and what do you want them to glean from it? You need to identify and analyze the real important data. Select the data that's relevant to this narrative, make sure it's accurate. Have to be really important. About that, ensure it supports your storyline. Then weave a compelling narrative. Construct a narrative that is coherent, logical structure. Includes traditional storytelling elements like setting. Like, here's the why, here's the data, and here's the solution. It's visual storytelling. Oh. Graphs, charts, videos, whatever it is, create a really memorable storyline. Continuously refine your narrative based on your feedback, enhancing it, making sure it's clear. Marry data with storytelling. Blending the precision of data analysts with the allure of storytelling really unlocks the potential of your, of your data. Last but not least, and this is good for everything in your life, practice, iterate, improve. Sure that you're practicing presenting things with data. So here are some pitfalls. These are the things that you want. These are common missteps that you really want to avoid when telling a story with data. One, don't lose sight of your audience, right? You have to make sure, like we suggested before, that you know your audience and that could lead to disconnection, data misinterpretation. So whether you're using relevant or outdated or really just incorrect data can really, really erode your whole narrative. Visual mistakes, mistakes. I think story IQ does a really good job of sort of showing folks how to build charts that are memorable, that aren't confusing. Too much information is always a key. And then of course, contextual, right? Like if it's not relevant to your storyline, omit it. There's no, there's. It's more confusing. Have too much data than there is to have not enough data. So when you're, whether you're constructing a dashboard or compiling data or even just building a report or doing a keynote, make sure that you bring in all of these elements. Knowing your audience, identifying, making sure that the data is correct. Create a story around the data and making. Again, I can't, I can't say it enough. Making sure you really, truly understand your audience. Who are you trying to convey a message to? What is that message? And how are you conveying that message? That's my quick drop around storytelling with data this week. We'll see you next time.
