Presenting Data Effectively to Inform and Inspire

Learn how to find the story in your data, focus on what matters, make the story flow, use visuals to maximize impact, and present data insights to an audience.

Introduction

• Presentations with greater impact

1. Plan

• Develop your data literacy
• Find the "so what" in your data
• Three key priorities for data communications
• Make clear predictions and recommendations
• Define your audience

2. Storytelling

• Forget the data
• Tell stories
• What is a story?
• Story frameworks
• Inject emotion and humanity
• Outline a story

3. Put It in Writing

• Make your presentation flow logically
• Title slides thoughtfully
• One big idea per slide
• Make every presentation actionable

4. Pictures

• Why make it visual?
• Your audience’s pre-attentive brain
• Pick the right visual
• Make the numbers relatable
• Strategic annotations and labeling
• Redundancy can be useful
• Aesthetics matter in visual experiences
• Readable, without being read
• The appendix is your friend

5. Pre-Presentation

• Ruthless editing
• Test your presentation
• Predict questions, prepare answers
• Practice, practice, practice

6. Present

• Speak your audience's language
• Skip the methodology
• Say the "so what," not the data points
• Say more and less than your slides
• Talk to your audience, not the screen
• Bring in live data
• Love the data

Conclusion

• Additional resources for great presentations