.. developing written reports that are put on shelves and never looked at. Did you know that infographics can help you improve your communication strategy? Do you take time to learn from failure on data analysis?

I am currently at the NTEN conference and want to share a fantastic session I just watched on data visualization. Beth Kanter, well known author, Johanna Morariu from Innonet and Brian Kennedy of ChildrenNow. I had the chance to understand data visualization from 3 different lenses:
- Data visualization as a component of learning and measuring
- Learning some specific techniques for data assessment
- Hearing about Brian Kennedy and how his organization is using data visualization

5 steps to measurement acceptance
It is important to understand what stage your organization is in:
1. Denial
2. Fear: what if my strategy or program doesn’t show progress
3. Confusion: where do I get started? How do you define success?
4. Data delight (also called “data porn,” as quoted by Beth):
5. Data informed: you have meetings, discussion and processes around what the data says.

Twitter’s sphere and their take away from the session
Every timeI go to conferences, I am always amazed by how much is shared on Twitter during sessions. So here are a few tweets worth sharing:

@EdLabGroup People make “pretty pictures for decision makers”. Not thinking about what data actually means = data delight syndrome. #12ntcviz #12NTC
@jenn4good @dosomething is a great example of doing good with data visualization…of a staff of 42 they have 2 data folks on staff #12ntcviz
@annmillspaugh Don’t silo data anlysts. No “numbers” people – collaboration with all staff. #12ntcviz #12NTC
@chadw5Q&lt Human brains innately process audio and visual. We are trained to process the written word. Lead with visualization.
@Communic8nHowe #12NTCviz: Use classic graphic design principles.
@devonvsmith The @JESS3 Project site is also a great resource to see how to lay out dataviz presentations: http://bit.ly/HgyP9X #12ntcviz
@techsoupcanada Ongoing data collection & review helps you be more nimble, bc you can see trends & react
@ElysiaGuzik Collect a few good pieces of data, and fewer pieces of bad data. Facts are like apples – lousy data infects. #12ntcviz
@JoeSaidSo “We learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone.” #12ntcviz

My takeaways
- Learn from your failure
- Know the stage your organization is in. There are five stages of measurement acceptance: 1) Denial 2) Fear 3) confusion 4) Data delight 5) Data informed
- Infographics are useless if you don’t have data culture that uses the data to be informed & guide actions!
- Collect valuable data, don’t go crazy on collecting too much data. Because the cost of collecting data has gone down, there’s tons of bad data that people are throwing in.
- Fit what you are doing with what fits your audience: what do you want your constituents to learn?
- We learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone. Don’t be afraid of experimentation

Resources shared
- Measuring the Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter
- Drawing by the Numbers: A terrific resource for data visualization for nonprofit advocacy
- Designing with the Mind in Mind: Simple Guide to Understanding User Interface Design Rules by Jeff Johnson
- Johanna’s Resource Guide
Many other resources are available on Beth Kanter’s blog.

The whole presentation is available here.

Print Friendly Print Friendly

Tags: , , , , , ,