The data and analytics industry has had a massive blind spot for the last few decades. We have wanted to believe that the brilliance of an insight, the perfection of a visualization, or the access to numbers would have the power to break through to anyone who gazed upon them.
I’m as guilty as anyone. I’ve come to realize that my love of data doesn’t transfer easily. Evidence from BI research and anecdotal experience, has made it clear that people don’t care about your dashboards and reports.
“The percentage of employees actively using BI/analytics tools is currently 25% on average, reflecting minimal growth in the past seven years weʼve been tracking this metric.” Barc
Better presentation has never been enough.
People care about things that they have emotional connections to. They care when they’ve had good or bad experiences in the past (their lived experience). They care when it points to a deeply held belief or cultural archetype (familiarity). And they care when the information connects to a person who they care about (relationships).
The last factor points to a kind of “transitive property” of communication. We can ride on the rails of relationships. This is the lever that I want to start with.
A couple of examples from my life:
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Every Sunday on a Zoom call, my family shares their recommendations for the week. This data carries a lot more weight for me than a website review.
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I shared the story of my son talking about the data of healthy eating. Numbers that had bounced off me in the past suddenly penetrated my consciousness. I cared.
When the information comes from someone, it carries the weight of that relationship — positively or negatively. It has credibility when it is a person I trust.
Think about what it feels like to receive an insight from someone you respect, or someone with authority over you. Now how does it feel when an automated report hits your inbox?
And yet, the easiest way to disseminate information is through automated channels. And without commentary from a person who knows the data. We have been so eager to make data available that we haven’t considered whether it will land.
Instead, we need to start considering emotional connection, what happens when a fact gets tethered to something a person already cares about.
