Moving from data to insight and from insight to action

There are different types of organisations in this world and those different types of organisations – be they businesses, charities, third-sector bodies, or Government departments – spawn fundamentally different cultures that endure. In my space – where we work to empower organisations to make smarter use of data, to drive evidence-based decision-making – there’s a […]
ANSWERS TO “2023 QUIZ”

“2023: The Year In Numbers” , the annual data storyteller’s New Year quiz So, if you’ve got here, you’re after the answers to the 2023 quiz, The Year In Numbers. But if you’re still working on those answers using your memory and brainpower, click here to go back to the question page now! . . […]
“2023: The Year In Numbers”

The annual data storyteller’s New Year quiz Every Christmas Eve, my family and two others gather together for a seasonal celebration. Like other families across the country, right across the world. We’re brought together by long and deep ties. Ties made of ham, egg, and chips. Of champagne, panettone, and all sorts of ice cream. […]
Why insight and analytics professionals aren’t doomed by AI

For years, many knowledge economy workers have felt a sense of unease about the prospect of artificial intelligence taking their jobs. But the threat was vague and non-specific, the realm of dystopian science fiction and not any kind of real and present danger. Then, in November last year, OpenAI made its AI chatbot, ChatGPT widely […]
Podnosticators are go!

Good things often come about from happy accidents. The Small Data Forum is one of those things. Thrown together for a chance, corporate, fire-side chat in May 2016, my fellow podcasters Neville Hobson, Thomas Stoeckle and I had such a good time chatting at a data industry event that – at Neville’s suggestion – we […]
The Home Secretary’s repeated data storytelling fails

There are many things one could say about Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, and her carefully-chosen words, designed to capture headlines in the more hysterical sections of the right-wing media. Many – including Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker – have drawn parallels between Braverman’s inflammatory language and that used by historical political regimes looking […]
ChatGPT – the perfect apprentice for the data storyteller

There’s a whole lot of panic going on about ChatGPT, particularly among those who write for a living. Those who write copy, those who write strategies, and those who write training courses. There’s a sudden, ice-in-the-bowels terror among purveyors of HI or Human Intelligence that OpenAI’s Generative Pre-training Transformer will soon put them out of […]
How can I improve my data storytelling?

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Guest blog by Hannah Howes, Sussex Innovation Centre’s Catalyst scheme Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying my hand at a new data storytelling app. DATAacademy is an app designed to help learners make smarter use of data. The app could be used by individuals or teams in a range of professions and […]
The megaphone solution to grab COVID headlines?

Press conferences held at Downing Street during the pandemic will provide future generations of researchers with a rich vein of evidence on which to base journal articles, dissertations, and theses.
A nightmare on Downing Street

A cautionary tale of how to fail at data storytelling – with a few jokes thrown in During the hastily cobbled-together press conference to announce and justify lockdown 2.0 on Halloween, I could tell something strange was happening. At the time, I was watching Liverpool nervously climb back to the top of the Premiership in […]