Storytelling with Data: Let's Practice!

by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Influence action through data!

This is not a book. It is a one-of-a-kind immersive learning experience through which you can become—or teach others to be—a powerful data storyteller.

Let’s practice! helps you build confidence and credibility to create graphs and visualizations that make sense and weave them into action-inspiring stories. Expanding upon best seller storytelling with data’s foundational lessons, Let’s practice! delivers fresh content, a plethora of new examples, and over 100 hands-on exercises. Author and data storytelling maven Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic guides you along the path to hone core skills and become a well-practiced data communicator. Each chapter includes:

● Practice with Cole: exercises based on real-world examples first posed for you to consider and solve, followed by detailed step-by-step illustration and explanation

● Practice on your own: thought-provoking questions and even more exercises to be assigned or worked through individually, without prescribed solutions

● Practice at work: practical guidance and hands-on exercises for applying storytelling with data lessons on the job, including instruction on when and how to solicit useful feedback and refine for greater impact

The lessons and exercises found within this comprehensive guide will empower you to master—or develop in others—data storytelling skills and transition your work from acceptable to exceptional. By investing in these skills for ourselves and our teams, we can all tell inspiring and influential data stories!

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Design, Technical, Computer Science, Communication, Technology

428 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 9, 2019

Reviews

[Eloisa Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

My knowledge of art, design, and how to craft compelling stories pales in comparison to my technical knowledge. As a data scientist, I found the lessons in this book invaluable. No longer shall I waste endless hours toying /testing graph layouts, I now have a systematic approach to communicate results.

[GleeGMJournal · Rating 5 out of 5]

ahhhh this is such a good Data Visulization textbook!
This one was released after the 1st book "Storytelling with Data (2015)" and actually can read along with the first book as this book represents itself as a workbook. Though, I read it as a sequel due to finish the first book long time ago.

Each module has a clear explanation with cute graphic! and good exercises that help you practice along the way. Not only in theory, but the book also accentuates how to incorporate the principle in your workplace. How thoughtful!

For those who work in Data industry and want to craft a data visualization skill, I would say two books in this series is plentiful.

[Raka Adrianto · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read her first book without investing so much effort to test out the ideas prescribed or to write down again the takeaways. I guess it could be that there were no tangible exercises that I can play along while reading every chapter. But the second one (this book) is different. It can absolutely serve as a stand-alone book, which is filled with so many tips yet highly effective to make graphs clearer to general audience. Why makes graphs to sap readers' brain power, if it can be made simpler?

The gist:
- Decluttering charts should come as priority. The step-by-step in many chapters really help solidify understandings, especially when we need to present live or to annotate key points in the plot.
- story-telling to build tension. While business nowadays seeks high efficiency in its operations (meaning, presentation must cut to the chase), I find the story arc from into-build up-climax-cool down-and closure very eye opening. The applicability, however, is still a bit abstract for me (never done that intentionally for data-driven talks). Nonetheless, I think this idea could be the additional bullet to prepare during my presentation outlining phase.

Bravo to SWD team!

[Ngô Thị Ngát · Rating 4 out of 5]

Đây là cuốn thứ hai tớ mua của tác giả Cole
Bối cảnh tớ hồi ấy hình như suýt vào nhóm phân tích dữ liệu.
Thế là nghĩ mình cần giỏi hơn môn này.
Cái duyên nào đó dẫn tớ đến SWD cuốn 1
Sau này thực tế không làm công việc data nữa nhưng tớ gặp cuốn 2 của cô Cole trên tiki. Không ngần ngại đặt luôn vì chất lượng cuốn 1 làm mình rất tin tưởng.
Cuốn 2 này tập trung vào hướng dẫn người đọc cách thực hình tìm lỗi và cải tiến các vẫn đề rối rắm hay gặp phải
Xin cảm ơn cô Cole

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book, probably because it felt like I had written she. She stood on all my soapboxes, including ones I've never heard mentioned in all the other data viz books I've read - you don't actually have to graph all your data! Think carefully about including elements, about color, about size! Prepare different visuals for a presentation (including building in) vs. a static paper! I also love the downloadable data.

[Yuanrou Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great practical guide to apply swd concepts. Glean guidance on how to plan & conceptualise a story from data that leads to an action plan.

[QQ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concrete and well organized.
demonstrate the concepts with clear examples, highly recommended.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of data storytelling and best practices for data visualisation. Read this book for a class.

[Tian Foo Chou · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can understand why some colleges use this as infographics textbook/workbook. Solid framework illustrate ed with good examples and reinforced with open ended exercises. One takeaway that's ingrained with me after working through the book: very often, you can actually achieve much more with much less!