Data as a game changer Becoming a data guru
Presenting
data-driven insights as stories helps bring them to life for your audience, which statistics alone cannot.
7. Give your data a context. Lists of similar numbers and percentages quickly blur into one. People do not intuitively think in terms of percentages, averages and proportions. Giving numbers a usable context makes them easier to understand and remember.
Try saying “one out of two graduates want more on-the-job learning’ instead of ‘50% of graduates”. Or how about saying ‘we spent four more days per person on application admin this year’ instead of ‘admin time increased by 123%’.
A Smarty would ask: How can I make the data intuitive? How can I translate this in a way that makes everyday sense?
8. Know your audience. Consider the different levels at which the audience will engage with the data you are presenting to them. What point do you want to make and what do you want people to do with the information?
We’re sure that a 57 page detailed report on all aspects of the 2015 Graduate Experience could be really useful for an internal team to consider making changes to next year’s programme. But here’s the thing: a well-constructed one-page infographic may be more sensible to circulate around the business to inform them of the top level headlines.
A Smarty would ask: Who’s the audience for the data? What do they want and what are their needs?
14 Graduate Recruiter |
www.agr.org.uk
9. Use stories. Presenting data-driven insights as stories helps bring them to life for your audience, which statistics alone cannot. Additionally, studies show that people are much better at remembering stories than statistics. True story.
So when presenting back feedback results for a newly implemented training curriculum or reporting recruitment-related figures, don’t simply list the data in a table, describe the results in words and use real stories to bring the insights to life!
A Smarty would ask: What is the narrative that threads the data together?
10. Think hearts and minds. People are persuaded by both emotion (heart) and logic (mind). Start with a simple question: “Why does this data matter?” (or “So what?”). Now you’ll need to answer that question twice – once, using people and emotional stakes, and then using facts and figures. Now combine the two answers based on the needs of your audience. You are now using data to appeal to hearts and minds.
A Smarty would ask: Why does this matter? What does this mean for the people involved (heart) and what are the key facts (mind)? n
¹ Source: Buffersocial (
https://blog.bufferapp.com/how-and-why-to-write-persuasive-research-backed-content)
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