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 […]

Facebook, GDPR, brand safety – suddenly it’s 2018 all over again

This blog was originally post on www.smalldataforum.com — For understandable reasons, the last four, regular monthly episodes of the Small Data Forum podcast have been focused – almost to the point of obsession – on coronavirus. From the uncertain first fumblings of life under lockdown, through escalating mortality and morbidity, and on to a fundamental […]

Welcome to the world, “How To Be Insightful”

How to be insightful by Sam Knowles

Today, Tuesday 26 May 2020, marks the official publication date of my new book – How To Be Insightful: Unlocking the Superpower that Drives Innovation. As the world blinks and thinks about recreating and re-establishing itself in the wake of the first global pandemic of the age of globalisation, we have never needed more urgently the […]

Learning from those you train

It was my privilege last week to train a baker’s dozen of some the brightest and best in market research. A new client for me, a household name well beyond the industry, and in a sector I’m really only now just starting to explore. As I have before with market researchers, I found a very […]

Why yes/no questions can yield surprising answers

Donald and Boris

Was the Iraq war caused by the West’s desire to control access to Middle Eastern oil? Do you want this man or that woman as your leader for the next four to eight years? Should we stay or should we go? There’s been a lot of soul searching in the past month about the wisdom […]

3 clues that Big Data might be Old News #SmallDataForum

I had the very great pleasure of co-hosting a roundtable on data and insight for LexisNexis yesterday with one of pioneers of podcasting and all things digital, Neville Hobson, @jangles, now an integral part of IBM’s social consulting team. Refreshingly in a world where we’re routinely made to feel insignificant and overwhelmed by the very […]

Timeout: the key to killer ideas

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I was impressed to read last week of a bold initiative from ad agency Wieden + Kennedy. The agency – or at least the London office of W+K – has banned email in the evenings and weekends, and meetings can only be booked between 10am and 4pm. They’re doing this because – in the words […]

Storytelling and archetypes around climate change #Paris2015

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Starting today, the United Nations Paris Conference on Climate change is taking place. The threat of global warming is, and will continue to be, an issue of primary importance for life on our planet as we know it. However, the environment still remains on the periphery of the international public eye, battling for coverage within […]

The four Es of effective storytelling

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I’ve always loved English. It’s such a rich language with gloriously diverse ways of saying the same thing. In one form or another, English has been around for more than a millennium. In that time, many other languages – of conquerors and the conquered, of allies and foes – have left their trace. That’s why […]

Being decontrolled

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I had a new experience on Sunday. My colleague Luke and I were trying to go to Dublin. We were headed there to debrief a favourite new client on a brand language project we’ve been running for the past couple of months. But it wasn’t to be. At least, not in person. The first inkling […]