Vladimir Nabokov said great writing is
"a merging of the precision of poetry and the intuition of science.”
A few days ago, I had a dream. It seemed very strange, because people and things from one part of my life were interacting in another part of my life. Like seeing your Mom sitting at your boss' desk at work, writing a letter on an ipad by pressing physically on the pad with a boat oar.
In the morning, I relayed the highlights of this Dali-esque bizarro nightmare to my wife, and she responded simply: "that makes sense." Uh, how? She recalled how we had talked the previous day about my mother's coming birthday, how I had forgotten my ipad when I went out of town, ..and of course that we live on a boat.
What does this have to do with narrative? Everything.
Our brains need narrative, and our dreams are powerful evidence. When we dream, we CONNECT diverse things from our memories -- they do not simply sit in little display boxes in our mind. Our mind weaves them together. With narrative -- a story line, action, interaction, flow. It is fundamental to the way our minds process the world: we connect things with stories.
And, why is this important? When we communicate with narrative, we put knowledge into context. That's important, because our audience's brains like to get a rolling start before being smacked with a fact. Further, when we communicate with narrative, our audience's brains don't work to provide the narrative themselves -- so more cycles are available to focus on what we are saying. Also, narrative is a mnemonic; it helps your audience remember and recall your facts. And, finally, narrative is extensible -- meaning your audience can more easily see potential new/additional/related issues or applications, even beyond what you anticipated yourself.
Unfortunately, the world of bullet points and dashboards and twitter and IM has dulled our storytelling chops. The offers of speed and ease and simplicity are temptingly convenient. But, they are no substitute for a good storyline. So, smuggle in a few …OMG…complete sentences to your powerpoint slides. Use animation in your data visualizations. Remind the audience what was going on before/causing your observations and what you think might/could/should happen after/because of your observations. Re-connect your data to the real-world …to the people and processes within and around the firm.
Remember: data are representations of the real-world, which is ultimately what you are trying to affect. And the real-world involves people in a setting with a purpose, confronted by dramatic tensions or dragons or what-not…saved when they rally to bold action around a clear and compelling plan. (Ok, so that was a little over-the-top, but you get the picture.) There's a reason you still remember the morality tales you heard in kindergarten. Narrative works.
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