MODERN BUSINESS
The role of stories in
data storytelling
By Shawn Callahan
A
s Edward R. Tufte published
each of his beautiful books
on the visual display of
complex data – The Visual Display
of Quantitative Information (1983),
Envisioning Information (1990) and
Visual Explanations (1997) – I became
more and more fascinated by the
question of how to grab the attention
28 ModernBusiness
October 2016
of decision-makers and inspire them to
act based on the data.
I remember an early success back at
the start of the 1990s. I was helping
some councillors see the need for a
tree-planting program to provide nature
corridors across their shire. Before
they saw the results of our geographic
systems analysis (what we called
computerised mapping before Google
Maps), the councillors had told
themselves the story of how, over
the years, they’d invested in planting
trees and that’s why their towns had
such leafy surrounds. They felt they’d
done more than enough. So when
we unfurled maps showing tiny and