Page 396 - Using MIS

364 Chapter 9 Business Intelligence Systems

So
what? Data Storytelling

Social media, the Internet of Things, CRM, ERP, online business
transactions, Internet searches, and other activity have generated
an estimated 2.7 zettabytes of stored data, and 90 percent of that
data was generated in the past 2 years. 11
With all that data available, the creation of business
intelligence using traditional technologies like RFM and OLAP Source: OtnaYdur/Shutterstock
reporting, newer technologies like data mining, and emerging
technologies using BigData, it’s easy to understand how today’s
professionals can conceive information unfathomed a few
years ago.
So what? Unless all that processing results in some action,
some decision, some personal or organizational difference, then it
12
was just time and money wasted chasing the latest tech fashion.
Preventing such waste is an opportunity for you. Data stories provide a compelling way to deliver BI, a way that
Data storytelling is a technique for presenting the results of is more likely to generate useful action as a result. Data stories
business intelligence. The idea has been talked about among provide context and direction and can offer opinions, even make
researchers and, surprisingly, journalists for a decade or more. arguments, about what the data reveals. As Bladt and Filbin say,
14
The concept got a kick start, however, in June 2014 when Tableau, “Data gives you the what, but humans know the why.” The
the vendor of popular, easy-to-use OLAP reporting applications, purpose of a data story is to explain that why. Data story authors
added data storytelling as new product feature. are not technologists; they must be business professionals like you.
According to Tableau employees Kosara and Makinlay, a story
13
is an ordered sequence of steps that has a predefined path. In Questions
general, each step can contain text or images, but for a data story,
those steps consist of interactive dashboards that display business 1. Watch www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZsJSJ0WSZ4. In your own
intelligence results interactively. Think of a data story as a words, explain the nature of a data story.
PowerPoint presentation in which each slide is an interactive data 2. Explain how a data story differs from a traditional PowerPoint
dashboard; the sequence tells a story of what the data reveals. presentation.
Speakers can present data stories live, like a traditional
PowerPoint presentation, but with data stories, they have the 3. Visit www.datastorytelling.tv/Curated-outside_r5.html. Based
on articles you find, summarize three data story applications
ability to dive into the dashboard when responding to audience that are compelling to you.
questions or interests. (See Kosara’s presentation at www.
youtube.com/watch?v=cZsJSJ0WSZ4.) Data stories can also be 4. Discuss three specific ways that data stories can add value to
set out on Web pages for individual views, as is done by news business intelligence.
sources like The New York Times. (See www.nytimes.com/ 5. Reflect on term projects that you’ve been assigned in the past
interactive/2009/12/05/world/climate-graphic-background.html.) year. Which of those assignments could have been completed
Notice that there are multiple presentations for each of the tabs with a data story? Describe one such application. If none,
across the top of the presentation. say why.

11 “A Comprehensive List of Big Data Statistics,” Wikibon Blog, August 1, 2012, accessed June 2, 2014, http://wikibon.org/blog/big-data-statistics/.
12 Ray Major, “BI and Your Business: Ignorance Is Not Bliss,” Computing Now, accessed June 2, 2014, www.computer.org/portal/web/
Major-BI-All-Things-Business-Intelligence/content?g=8151874&type=blogpost&urlTitle=bi-and-your-business%3A-ignorance-is-not-bliss.
13 Robert Kosara and Jock Mackinlay, “Storytelling: The Next Step for Visualization,” accessed June 2, 2014, http://kosara.net/papers/2013/Kosara_
Computer_2013.pdf.
14 Jeff Bladt and Bob Filbin, “A Data Scientist’s Real Job: Storytelling,” HBR Blog Network, March 7, 2013, accessed June 2, 2014, http://blogs.hbr.
org/2013/03/a-data-scientists-real-job-sto.