Special Guest Session

Storytelling with Data

Thursday, October 27  •  11:20 a.m.–12:20 p.m.
Capitol Ballroom

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, storytellingwithdata.com

Stories resonate and stick with your audience in ways that data alone does not. Why wouldn’t you leverage the power of story when communicating with data? Join this engaging session, during which Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic discusses the untapped potential of combining the magic of story with best practices in data visualization for communicating effectively with data. Being able to tell stories with data is a critical skill in our world of ever-increasing data and desire for data-driven decision making. An effective data story can mean the difference between success and failure when it comes to communicating the findings of your study, raising money for your non-profit, presenting to your board, or simply getting your point across to your audience. You’ll leave the session ready and excited to tell stories with your data.

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic tells stories with data. She is the author of Storytelling with Data: a Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals (Wiley, October 2015) and writes the popular blog www.storytellingwithdata.com. Her well-regarded workshops and presentations are highly sought after by data-minded individuals, companies, and philanthropic organizations all over the world.

Her unique talent was honed over the past decade through analytical roles in banking, private equity, and most recently as a manager on the Google People Analytics team. At Google, she used a data-driven approach to inform innovative people programs and management practices, ensuring that Google attracted, developed, and retained great talent and that the organization was best aligned to meet business needs. Cole traveled to Google offices throughout the US and Europe to teach the course she developed on data visualization. She has also acted as an adjunct faculty member at MICA, where she taught Introduction to Information Visualization.

Cole has a BS in Applied Math and an MBA, both from the University of Washington. When she isn’t ridding the world of ineffective graphs one pie at a time, she is baking them, traveling, and embarking on adventures with her husband and two young sons in San Francisco.