Heather Fitzgerald manages a crew that places rivers of knowledge to work.
Fitzgerald, the senior vp of distribution intelligence and buyer relationship administration technique at Jackson Nationwide Life Distributors, Jackson’s annuity distribution arm, and members of her crew flip chaotic torrents into useful streams that Jackson can use to assist customers put together for retirement.
She has a bachelor’s diploma from Michigan State and a grasp’s diploma in enterprise from the College of Detroit Mercy. She labored in knowledge analytics in Chicago, Detroit and Silicon Valley earlier than becoming a member of Jackson in 2019.
Fitzgerald not too long ago answered questions, by way of e-mail, about her view that the guts of what her crew does is knowledge storytelling. The interview has been edited.
THINKADVISOR: What’s knowledge storytelling?
HEATHER FITZGERALD: Information storytelling is the method and skill to translate usually advanced and disparate knowledge into easy, business-oriented phrases to influence a choice or motion.
Information storytelling can be utilized to raised visualize knowledge in a means that enhances viewers engagement and influences massive and small-scale enterprise actions akin to gross sales and pipeline reporting, new product introductions, aggressive evaluation, buyer habits and workforce productiveness, amongst others.
Telling a narrative with knowledge might help audiences get from Level A (the place they’re) to Level B, which is the place they’ve the ‘aha’ second that can change all the things.
What may an instance of knowledge storytelling appear to be?
Information storytelling can take many varieties, and it really will depend on the viewers, subject, business and even the strategy of presentation (report, dialogue, PowerPoint presentation, dashboard, and many others.). Briefly, there is no such thing as a proper or incorrect option to share the info, however figuring out your viewers and the strategic decisioning that can happen due to your knowledge story ought to dictate the shape.
The next three elements are crucial — the info, the narrative and the visible — and people might be very totally different based mostly on the use case or the issue you are attempting to unravel or reply.
What sources does an organization want to arrange an efficient knowledge storytelling effort?
Information storytelling might be profitable in a company based mostly on 4 major elements: folks, processes, platforms and knowledge.
The folks side is paramount to drive an influential enterprise intelligence/analytics operate, and sometimes these persons are exhausting to seek out.
They have to be capable to converse the language of the enterprise whereas understanding the know-how aspect as nicely. In addition they must develop the story surrounding the info and the enterprise downside through the use of not solely numbers, but in addition visualization and a compelling and fascinating narrative — all on the similar time.
It’s not straightforward to seek out this skillset, however when you do, you notice how crucial it’s to the enterprise.
Who tends to do nicely in knowledge storytelling?
Though it’s important to have classically educated analytics crew members (together with those that embrace the predictive and prescriptive nature of the place knowledge has advanced to), having a real pure curiosity concerning the numbers, the enterprise and the aggressive panorama actually units candidates aside from each other.