Bill: So, once we've analyzed our data
and we've really bubbled up the true So Whats,
it's time to put it all together,
think about how we're gonna really tell the story
to our stakeholders,
whoever they may be.
And before we do that,
I think it's worth asking ourselves my favorite question,
which is, once again, why?
Why storytelling?
Is that even the right word to use?
Listen, "Harvard Business Review"
tells us storytelling is a strategic business tool.
That's good.
If you look for storytelling in business on Amazon,
you'll find a couple few thousand books on the subject,
also promising.
"Nonprofit Quarterly" tells us
it's a not a magic bullet, though,
and "CBS MoneyWatch" says it's a total scam.
So, which is it, what do we do?
Well, listen, the fact is,
these different headlines that I've just showed you
are from different time periods.
Storytelling in business is a total fad.
Yes, it is hot right now, but it is a fad for a reason.
It serves a purpose
and it goes back to what we talked about earlier.
Storytelling is required.
We crave it, we need it.
We must learn from each other via story.
Now, this book, "Wired for Story",
is a really good argument for this, okay?
Lisa Cron writes about storytelling
and what we can learn
from how the brain responds to story
in order to write better stories, okay?
She makes a very compelling case,
among many people, she's not the only one,
that storytelling is critical
for the survival of the human species.
She makes the case
that it's more important than opposable thumbs
as a survival mechanism, as an evolutionary imperative.
Now, that book,
what she's writing about is fictional storytelling.
What about us?
We're not doing fiction, right?
That's okay.
This study proves the point that documentary storytelling,
also very, very powerful and important.
The most influential scientists
and influences measured by when those scientists
are cited by other scientists in their research.
The ones who are most influential
are those that use narrative techniques in their research.
So, yes, storytelling matters.
Okay, you believe me?
If you do, we should probably define story, right?
What is a story?
A story is two parts, all right?
Part number one, my definition of story's two parts, okay?
Part number one is stories are linear experiences.
A story starts somewhere
and it progresses one idea at a time,
step by step by step by step,
until eventually, it ends up somewhere else.
There's no such thing as a non-linear story.
You cannot hear more than one thing at a time.
You can't do more than one thing at a time.
Stories are linear.
Okay, now before I get to part two in the definition,
I wanna talk a little bit more about that,
because here's the thing.
A PowerPoint deck is clearly a linear experience,
slide one, two, three, four, five, et cetera.
But I would also make the case that each individual slide
is its own little micro-story within that macro-story.
Now, if you look at this slide,
all black and white and gray,
not a lot of visually interesting stuff going on,
but there's that one bright yellow blob.
And by the way, little tangent here,
it's an important tangent.
Human beings, by default,
will look in the center of an image first.
We know this from eye tracking studies.
So, if I looked at this fairly bland slide
and I looked in the center of that chart first,
almost guaranteed I'm gonna look
at that bright yellow blob next, right?
Design can encourage people
to consume content in a certain order.
You cannot force them, though.
So, let's say I looked at the bright yellow blob.
That contains the climax of the story.
Ooh, something interesting happened here!
Now, if there's any complexity to that story whatsoever,
just reading the climax is not enough.
It's not a complete micro-story.
If there's any complexity,
I'll keep looking around for more information.
So, maybe I'll look at the title next.
The title might be the conclusion, the end of the story.
So, I've read the climax, I've read the end.
How did I get here, I don't know.
If there's any complexity, I'll keep looking.
Maybe I'll read the body copy.
Maybe I'll read the call-out text.
As long as all of the ingredients for story are there,
I will not be confused, annoyed, et cetera.
So, include an entire micro-story
within your larger macro-story.
And maybe it doesn't always have to be
literally each slide is a micro-story.
Maybe you have a couple few slides that go together
that perform, essentially create a micro-story.
Okay, that might be fair.
But make sure you have micro-stories
within your macro-story.
Okay, now we're creating an overall linear experience.
Forget about the micro-story for the moment.
We're gonna focus back on the macro.
A linear experience, how do I get there?
You have to outline it.
We all were told to outline our essays
when we were in seventh grade, okay?
When I was in seventh grade, I was a total wiseass.
I was 12 years old.
I thought I knew everything, and I didn't do it.
I never outlined a single essay in that class.
And you know what?
I got pretty bad grades in that class.
It took me 30 years to finally recognize
my English teacher knew what she was talking about.
I outline everything now.
The way I outline specifically,
I draw boxes on a whiteboard.
Each box gets one or two words in it
that just summarizes what that section of content is about.
I also refer to these as my buckets of content.
So, if we use the Hans Rosling story,
remember the video we watched earlier?
Let's think about the outline of his story.
What are the buckets of content?
Well, he talked about Ethiopia for a little while.
He talked about the future.
He talked about how things had changed,
and he talked about the past,
the old, divided world, rich and poor.
But this is not an outline.
This is just a bunch of stuff, right?
I have to put them in order.
A story is a linear experience.
So, let's put them in order.
Here is his outline.
Divided world, change over time,
Ethiopia, future possibilities, okay.
This is a great example of an outline that may be terrible.
I have no idea if this is a good story yet.
I mean, just look at it.
Divided world, change over time, Ethiopia?
Where did that come from?
That's a weird tangent, right?
Yeah, I don't know if this is gonna be a good story yet.
That's okay.
The outline is the structure,
which hopefully, I have an inkling
that I know how it's gonna make sense.
Obviously, I'm not randomly throwing these boxes together.
But it's not proof of a good story yet.
It's just structure to which I will attach
my narrative later.
That gets me to the second part
of my definition for stories.
Stories are linear experiences.
Got one now, I think, maybe, that flow.
Flow is the magic.
Flow is something I don't need to teach you.
You know flow.
You have 50,000 years of evolution
that have taught your ear,
taught your gut to recognize flow.
A bunch of random facts
just sounds like a bunch of random facts,
but something that really flows together
just feels different.
So, I'm not gonna define it, but I will tell you this.
The only way you can get to flow
is to use your words to actually think in sentences.
So, if we take the Hans Rosling story,
what I'm saying is we need to actually
use our words and tell his story
to make sure it's gonna be a good story.
So, I'm gonna do that.
And by the way,
the goal for this exercise is not to tell the entire story.
If you have an hour-long presentation next week,
you don't have to write your entire
hour-long presentation in words.
What it is, though,
is simply using your outline as your guide,
proving to your own ear
that you can make this structure flow.
In other words, all you have to do is tell
an abbreviated version of your story.
So, Hans Rosling's video is only three minutes, right?
But I can do a 30-second version of his story
that will prove to myself
that this is gonna work as a structure, okay?
So, here we go.
Back when I was a kid,
there was a divided world, rich and poor.
Poor countries had really high child mortality
and birth rate.
But over time, that changed.
All the poorest countries in the world,
their numbers on both those measures
came down and down and down.
One country that made some progress like that was Ethiopia.
And in the following 20, 25 years,
they made even more progress,
'til the majority of their people
were already halfway in between
what used to be the poorest versus the richest countries
by those two measures.
And if things keep going the way they've been going,
by 2030, there will no longer be any countries
stuck with high child mortality
and high birth rates like we used to see.
That make sense?
That's a good story.
Did it include every detail?
Nope.
I didn't even bother talking
about Addis Ababa versus the Somali region.
I didn't talk about a lot of specific things.
That's okay.
This isn't my final story.
This story only exists to prove to myself
that my story will flow,
and I think I proved it.
That story's gonna work.
Ethiopia is not a tangent.
Now, why did that work?
How do I know that that worked?
What is my ear picking up on?
Transition words.
"The world used to be a divided world, rich and poor,
"especially by these two measures."
"But," transition word,
"Over time, that changed."
Okay, now I see how I got from the first idea
to the second idea.
"Over time, things changed.
"It got better.
"Ethiopia is an example of that improvement.
"Now, let me tell you more about Ethiopia."
Boom, nice transition from this thing that happened
to talking about this specific example.
Blah, blah, blah, Ethiopia, Ethiopia, Ethiopia.
By the way, decent transition,
If things keep going the way they've been going,
it'll be all better in a few more years.
That's it.
It's truly that simple.
Now, it sounds like I'm saying
you could tell a story any which way you like
as long as you work on those transitions.
Shh, don't tell anybody!
Yeah, there's literally no right or wrong way
to tell a story.
As long as you can make it flow, it's gonna work.
In some contexts,
sometimes is it better to build a little anticipation
and then build up to a climax?
Yeah, sure.
Sometimes you get off,
get into the good stuff first
and then explain the details later?
Yeah, maybe.
But as long as you're comfortable doing it
the way you're doing it,
that's the most important thing,
'cause you'll tell the story more convincingly
if it feels comfortable to you.
Now, part of that is gut-checking your words
against that outline that you created.
Because, as an example, using Hans Rosling,
if you find yourself talking about Ethiopia
at the very beginning of the story
and you're not supposed to be doing that
until two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through,
maybe you've gotten confused, maybe not.
Maybe you're gonna tease Ethiopia and then come back to it.
That's cool, too, right?
But if you find yourself spending 10 minutes
talking about Ethiopia at the beginning,
maybe your outline has changed.
Maybe you've decided to start with Ethiopia, that's cool.
Just rejigger your outline so you don't confuse yourself.
That's all I'm saying.
Know what you're doing,
'cause then when you go to attach all your slides
to this presentation
when you do the full-blown version of it,
you don't wanna stick your Ethiopia slides
where they don't belong.
Put them in the part of the story where they make sense.
So, like I was just talking about,
there are a lot of different ways to tell stories,
different storytelling frameworks.
None is better than any others.
Use whatever feels most comfortable to you.
Hans Rosling even merged a couple of them together.
He used what I call a Make it Human story,
tell a general story
and then hone in on a specific or vice-a-versa.
He did that with Ethiopia, specific example, right?
But he also told a chronological story.
That's also a fine way to tell a story.
You can mush them together, great.
Point is, tell a story in a way that feels right to you,
which is a good reminder.
Data stories are stories.
Yes, we have the data.
The data is the core ingredient.
It is critical to this story.
But you don't wanna get so hung up on the data
that you forget to step back and find that flow.
That is the difference
between a story and a collection of facts.
So, when you're in this phase, all right,
you've already analyzed your data.
That's all about the data.
You've already discovered your So Whats,
which is starting to lean into story.
When you hit this moment where you're trying to figure out
how to put that narrative together,
you really have to step back from your data
and find that flow.
Once you've found the flow,
then you can go back to attaching all the details
and getting into the weeds again.
Also, when you're storytelling,
you should strive to disambiguate
the abstruse concepts you're espousing
even if your proclivity is to obfuscate.
Yes, you want to use simple words, okay?
We don't need to impress people with how smart we are.
We don't need to use tons of jargon.
Now, you may use more jargon
and more sophisticated terminology with an academic audience
versus a general audience, sure,
but only if it's gonna help them,
only if it's required to do what we need to do,
not just to feel smart, okay?
You also don't wanna suffer from the curse of knowledge.
That's when, as a communicator,
you forget what your audience
does or does not know about a subject,
so you tend to use too much jargon,
too much complexity, et cetera.
So, use the appropriate level of complexity
for your audience.
Now, as a quick example,
I just wanna show you a great data story
to illustrate all this together.
"The Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals"
from the World Bank
is a collection of data stories, 17 of them,
one for each of the Sustainable Development Goals.
So, I'm gonna click into this first one here,
No Poverty.
It starts off with a good title,
"The near future of global poverty".
So, I'm enticed to read this
because it's not just saying No Poverty,
which is the name of the SDG.
It's telling me why I should care.
Oh, I'm gonna learn about something
that's happening soon-ish, okay?
I'm curious.
Starts off with setting a little bit of context.
By the way, great opening line.
"SDG 1 aims to end poverty in all its forms everywhere."
Period.
Very confident opening line.
Okay, so, little bit of context setting,
and then boom, we get to the first bucket of content.
"Extreme poverty has declined over the past decades."
So, this is gonna be looking back.
Poverty has gone down.
That's the first bucket.
And so, the point that I'm trying to make here is this.
This is a great data story for a variety of reasons,
one of which,
it is clearly very thoughtfully outlined.
Bucket number one is about what has happened in the past,
poverty has gone down,
and I'll describe the other buckets as we get to them.
The second part is that these stories are very well-written.
They're nice, journalistic stories.
The ideas flow beautifully from one to the next to the next.
So, I'm not gonna really read through this entire story.
I'm just gonna quickly show a couple things.
So, first of all, poverty's declined over the past decades.
World's population has grown.
Many fewer people living in extreme poverty.
Chart title, by the way, that actually says something.
Research has shown if your titles,
slide titles and/or chart titles,
actually say something about your data,
your audience is more likely
to accurately remember your data.
So, say something.
Never again have a chart title
that just says "Survey results",
or like this one could have been,
"Population over time".
That's useless.
I can see it's population over time.
All right.
So, global population grew
from whatever, whatever over this time period.
At the same time, people in extreme poverty went down.
So, nice visualization, nice scrollytelling experience.
That's all nicely done.
But the point of this is the story for this example.
Bucket number two, distribution,
is uneven of extreme poverty.
So, I can see that there's a lot more
sub-Saharan African countries with more poverty
and a lot fewer of them over here,
and vice-versa,
certain regions depicted by color
are concentrated over here, not over here.
And this bucket continues
where they also say the concentration has shifted
from Asia to Africa.
So, they're making two primary points here.
The distribution is different or is clear,
and specifically, it went from Asia to Africa over time.
Nice visualizations,
but we're not here to talk about the visualizations.
The story continues,
and eventually we get to the next bucket,
which is about what it's gonna look like in the future.
And we get this brief thing about looking,
eliminating it by 2030 looks unlikely, but,
and then they go through different scenarios
and what it might look like, et cetera, et cetera.
So, long story short, good data storytelling.
Solid structure, clearly thoughtfully outlined,
and then, yes, flow.
This story flows.
Part of the flow,
part of the overall user experience is,
yes, the visualizations,
which are also beautifully done.
We'll talk more about that in a later module.
And I'll show another one of these SDG websites
as an example of it.