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Episode #168: Ann Emery
242 Plays5 years ago
Over the past few years of doing this show, I’ve made a whole new bunch of friends. Honestly, some guests I would call ‘acquaintances’, but for others, we’ve either become new friends because of the show or they were friends...
The post Episode #168: Ann Emery appeared first on PolicyViz.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to the Policy Viz Podcast. I'm your host, John Schwabish. On this week's episode, I chat with an old friend of mine, Anne Emery. If you know anything about the data visualization field, you will know Anne's name. If you know anything about the presentation field, you'll know Anne's name. And if you know anything about how to create better looking reports and briefs and documents, you will know Anne's name. Anne and I go way back and we talk a little bit about that in this conversation that you'll hear in just a little bit.
Travel and New Book
00:00:38
Speaker
And Anne for the last year or so has been traveling the world, conducting workshops, doing consulting work, and creating great content for her website, for her online coursework, and lots of other things that she has been working on. So I was really excited to be able to catch up with her while she is in Japan.
00:00:56
Speaker
So if you've been paying attention to the show and the blog, you'll know that I have a new book out. It's called Elevate the Debate, a multilayered approach to communicating your research. It is an edited volume that I wrote with many of my colleagues at the Urban Institute. I hope you'll check it out. I hope you'll enjoy it. And I have been really enjoying a lot of the positive feedback and comments that I've been hearing. So if you've checked it out, if you've read it, I'd really love to hear your thoughts about it. I'd love to see a review on Amazon if you have some time.
00:01:23
Speaker
And hopefully you can use it in your work and the way you communicate your data and your analysis. So my chat with Ann is pretty a long one. We got into a lot of different topics, a lot of interesting things to think about when it comes to communicating to people in different cultures and countries other than your own.
Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges
00:01:43
Speaker
So I hope you'll enjoy this talk on this week's episode of the podcast. So here is my conversation with Ann.
00:01:53
Speaker
Hi, Anne. How are you? Hey, John. Good to hear from you. Good evening or... Good morning here. Good morning. Or however you say good morning in Japanese. I don't know. I have no idea. It's 11 a.m. here, here in Japan where I'm working. And what time is it for you and where are you?
00:02:10
Speaker
I am at home in Virginia. It's 9 15 p.m. Wow. This is quite the like logistical challenge. We'll see if it works. It's a new experiment for both of us connecting like that. I mean, it's not, I might fall asleep right in the middle of this. You never know. Or the kids will come in. I can't sleep. Yeah. Here's my cup of coffee. I'll send it to you virtually through the screen. I'm drinking my evening tea. So hopefully I put the right, right tea bag. It's not caffeinated in all night.
00:02:38
Speaker
Um, how are you? How you have, you have been everywhere. I have, I have been everywhere. I have been to, this is country number eight in the past year and I've got a couple more coming up. It's totally crazy. I had a bunch of States of course, but you know, I mean, you're a database trainer too. We just, our job takes us all over. So everywhere. Yeah.
00:02:57
Speaker
Yep. So give me the quick list. Can you do the quick can you do the quick list? I think so. I think so. They're gonna they're gonna be in a funny order because it's gonna be chronological order. So in 2019 I went all over the U.S. of course to teach in person speak at conferences Canada, Guatemala, Zambia, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and then in a few days we go to Korea
00:03:24
Speaker
then China just for a weekend for tourists and then back to the US to like, and who knows what 2020 has in store. That's kind of being formed now. But we don't fly in and out of places. Like we've been in Japan now for five weeks. So it's, it's home.
Workshops and Workflow
00:03:38
Speaker
It's like me, husband, kids, and we have like a home here, like a large apartment to have normal life in addition to work life. Yeah. So you bring everybody with you.
00:03:48
Speaker
I do. I didn't used to do that. That's new. How does that work out? Does your husband take the kids and you go off and work? Because they're not quite ready for school yet.
00:04:01
Speaker
They're not quite ready for school. We have a year and a half till kindergarten starts. We have a four year old and a one year old. So the husband, we did, you know, I'm a spreadsheet person like you are. So we did this spreadsheet math a million different ways to take a very like calculated, safer. Yeah. He left his salaried government job, um, almost a year ago to run what we call daddy school. So right now, so, so sometimes they're working from home. I use my nice noise canceling headphones. I just kind of like,
00:04:27
Speaker
ignore what's going on in the other room of the home. And I just have my home office set up just like I normally would no matter where it's like the remote office goes with me. And on some recording days, like if I'm giving a webinar, I have a one-to-one coaching session. I'm going to do some recordings for an online course. I'm going to meet with you like this.
Cultural Nuances in Training
00:04:44
Speaker
They go out and they do field trips and we just plan it a couple of days in advance and it's actually pretty easy. So they're at the zoo right now. You know, they're having like a normal preschool daddy daughter field trip. Just like they normally would. We just happened to be in Japan doing that, but you know, you do that in Fairfax. It's the same anywhere. Yeah. Wherever. I mean, I'm sure most of the animals are the same. There's probably cool animals. Oh, I don't know. I have no idea. We'll see. We'll see. I'll see the pictures later.
00:05:10
Speaker
So when you're traveling these places, you're doing a lot of training, I would guess. And then you're also doing, you've got, um, I'm assuming you also got your, your regular like set of consulting work and you've got your online course. Um, and what else have you got going on? So it's all of that. Cause that's mostly it. Yeah. It's I divide it in my mind into the training side.
00:05:32
Speaker
and the consulting side. So on the training end, I do my in-person speaking, which is usually a day long workshop. Sometimes in Vietnam, I did five days of training, which is fantastic. Think of how many examples and hands on practice you can do it in like a week together. It was like a conference. It was amazing. It was the best case scenario. Um, in-person workshops, I do webinars, 60 to 90 minute webinars, mostly for professional societies. And they know their members are all over the U S or all over the world.
00:05:57
Speaker
I do conference talks. I do a few like big keynotes a year, online courses. I kind of lump in that training side. It's really unique that we can talk about that. And then on the consulting side, that's, you know, regular consulting, like revamping reports and slideshows and dashboards for groups. So I just, I do the consulting work from anywhere, anywhere with wifi connection in between all of the in-person speaking. I build the online courses from anywhere.
00:06:24
Speaker
Right. Well, let's talk about kind of both sides because they both, because you've been so much traveling, you've got some interesting, I think, perspectives on both sides. Certainly on the training side, I'm sure you have some interesting thoughts on like cultural differences and things that you've learned on the road. And then we can talk about, the one thing I want to make sure I asked you about was the work that you do on report design, because you'd spend a lot of time, you write a lot about that on your blog, which I always love to find those because
00:06:53
Speaker
I just think that that's like a unique skill and a unique place to be, helping people do better specifically in designing their reports and doing data visit in their reports. But let's start on the training side, because I'm curious, are there big cultural things or big things you've learned traveling that's maybe different than outside the US or inside the US?
00:07:13
Speaker
There are so many differences and they're all, they're all little nuances and maybe they're going to be obvious to you. I made a whole list this morning of nine. So let's talk through a couple and let's see. Tell me when you're like, this is so obvious and everybody knows this. You're just the dumb American who didn't know this or tell me when you're like, Oh, I wouldn't, I would have thought of that because it's all new to me. Okay.
00:07:35
Speaker
Right. Okay. Traveling and speaking around the world. And it's not just traveling this year too. I've been doing this role for six years now. So it's been a lot of workshops as you know. Um, so I have worked with interpreters. I've worked with sign language interpreters and foreign language interpreters where people are wearing headsets. And that's an interesting and interesting scenario. So like thing number one, I've learned.
00:08:01
Speaker
This is going to be obvious. You talk to the person, the participant in your class. You don't talk to the interpreter. I think most people know that, like whether it's a sign language interpreter or for a language interpreter, like if.
00:08:13
Speaker
Somebody is in the audience and they ask a question. They might not know. They might like face their body and look at the interpreter. But when you respond as the trainer, as the speaker, you look at the person. Like even if the interpreter is speaking to the side of you in your ear, you still look at the person and maintain eye contact with them. Because as you know, communication is words,
Effective Communication Strategies
00:08:34
Speaker
but it's also body language and tone and
00:08:37
Speaker
the speed of your voice. It's so many things that go into communication. So looking at the person is super respectful and helpful to both of you. So I actually knew that one, but I have also a little tweak on that one. I had a friend in high school who was deaf.
00:08:52
Speaker
And whenever we would talk on the phone, we would talk through one of the services that would basically the TTY service where they would essentially type out what I was saying. And it took me, I had to get through the first call to realize that I don't talk to the person who is doing that translation, right? I just talk to my friend and the translation sort of happens, you know, happens on the side there. So yeah.
00:09:15
Speaker
Well, now you know. Yeah. Now I know. Yeah. So it, you know, yeah. Okay. So that's one. So translation talk to people still good. Here's number two, which I had to get over because this was not my preference. You have to share the training materials in advance so that the interpreter and the person needing the interpretation can review it. They know what your keywords are. They know if there's any new vocab words like data viz versus data visualization that they're not familiar with.
00:09:44
Speaker
They can see generally how you've broken up the day, like what you're going to cover first and second and third. It's just so helpful for them to have a heads up of what you're covering. And that I had to get over because what I usually do is I'd print my course packets, the course manuals, and you just arrive, you know, you sit down as the participant and it's just on the conference room table in front of you. So you just, you have to send that, you know, a week in advance, at least a day in advance so people can look through it and the slides. So I know,
00:10:12
Speaker
Some of our trainer friends don't share slides after presentations. I share mine after presentations. I don't think they're helpful because they're so minimal. It's not like I have full paragraphs on my side. It's not meant to be that type of document. It's the slideshow, but it's just one more little thing that helps the person needing the interpretation to know what you're going to cover, sharing materials in advance.
00:10:36
Speaker
So it's not like you're adding text to the slides or even on the notes of the slides for the interpreter translator to review. It's just that they get a sense of what you're going to talk about generally. That would be the best case scenario. I don't have speaking notes that I definitely don't have like the full, I don't have a script written out underneath my slides. I've thought about paying one of my assistants to do that where maybe she watches, um, how would I do that logistically?
00:11:05
Speaker
I'd have to record myself doing a training and she kind of transcribe it out. I think so. That's not out of the question. That would definitely, that's definitely something that's on my radar that, that I probably should do at this level. Yeah. I mean, it seems like it certainly would help the interpreter. I guess it also helps people who can't make the session or, or miss part of the session. There's always those people that are really like, Oh, you know, I really want to come, but I can only be there for the first couple of hours and then I have to leave. So, you know, helps those people, I guess.
00:11:35
Speaker
Um, okay. So that's, uh, we have two lessons. Lesson number three, talk with the interpreters ahead of time. Yes. When you're there or a week ahead over Zoom or Skype, you know, preferably ahead of time on some type of conference call or video call. So the first couple of times I work at the sign language interpreter, like the very first time it was for a university, I was in the big auditorium. There were a few hundred people there.
00:12:04
Speaker
I knew there would be two interpreters because the faculty and the students had requested it. I didn't know how many people needed an interpreter. I didn't know who they were, but I knew that there would be interpreters. I knew that they would be, I knew their names. I knew that they'd be two women. They'd be on the stage. Like this was all communicated to me in advance and I so appreciated that. So I knew what to expect when I arrived. And then I spoke with the interpreters ahead of time. We knew we were going to meet about an hour before the presentation so that I could show them my slides. I just had them come up to the podium and I was like, well, first I'm going to talk about this.
00:12:33
Speaker
And then I'm going to pause for an activity and it'll take about this long. And then here's the thing I'm going to talk about next because they want to know what words they might need to spell out. Like I don't know sign language, but if they had to like spell out letters of like data visualization, if there's no.
00:12:49
Speaker
um, symbol for that or sign for that, then, then they need to know that in advance. And they usually say things like, wow, you talk about data a lot and you talk about graphs a lot. You know, they just need to know like, what is, is this a biology presentation? Is it comics presentation? No, it's data visualization. Um, so that's the best case scenario is to talk with them ahead of time. Yeah. Sometimes though, I, you know, this happened, there's always a hiccup in every presentation. I get there and we're going to have, let's say it's a 9am start
Diverse Training Examples
00:13:18
Speaker
time.
00:13:19
Speaker
at eight 59 and interpreter comes over to me and says, hi, by the way, I'm an interpreter. I'm signing for a few people in the audience today. Can you give me a rundown of what you're going to cover at eight 59? Yes. Yeah. So I do my best and we start late. We start about five minutes late because I think it's important to like try to give them as much of a rundown to make the day flow a lot smoother. But you know, again, best case scenario is you, you know, in advance there's going to be an interpreter.
00:13:46
Speaker
And you plan with them and you share the materials with them. Okay. All right. So, so far we've covered language. I feel like this does like the first three rules around language. Okay. So rule four. It's also language language. Okay. This is for me more advanced. It's more of a nuance. Try to avoid slang and idioms.
00:14:11
Speaker
Uh, that's, that's a good one. They are everywhere. They are so tough. So there are phrases that, you know what they mean. Like I'll say at the end of the day, dot, dot, dot. But what does that mean to somebody who's speaking? Who's a Vietnamese speaker?
00:14:26
Speaker
who English, I'm thinking of the interpreters I had in Hanoi a couple months ago. English is their third or fourth language. They're very multilingual. They interpret for many different languages and they're thinking at the end of the day, what does that mean? So I have to remind myself to say, this is very hard. I have to say the most important thing I want you to remember is dot, dot, dot. I just say like the literal translation as directly and succinctly as possible. Low hanging fruit, dot, dot, dot. What that really means is
00:14:55
Speaker
The easiest edit to make to your graph is dot, dot, dot, not like this is a low hanging fruit edit. I used to say that a lot. I just say, here's the easiest edit. Start here, do this thing first. So have you found other other ones? So those are two really good ones. Have you found, have you caught yourself doing other ones that I would guess that, you know, practicing, like listening to yourself talk, you catch all of your weird ticks, you know, that maybe other people don't catch. Like have you caught other ones? I'm trying to think of ones that I would say. That's a really, that is a really interesting one.
00:15:24
Speaker
Um, I really have to think about it because they are everywhere in our language. So natural to us. Yeah. Oh, that's a good one. Okay. All right. So for, we've got a lot of language we stick with language for more language contractions. Try not to speak in contractions instead of saying, don't do this thing. Don't have 3d exploding pie charts with 50 slices.
00:15:49
Speaker
The NT on don't and many people, it kind of trails off. It's a little bit silent. There's a noise in the room. There's a noise outside the office building. Like there always is. There's some noise. The people hear the do, but they don't hear the NT at the end. It just kind of trails off. So instead of saying, don't do this thing, say, do not do this thing. And you have to emphasize the not with both your voice and your hands, like do not use 3d pie charts or avoid 3d pie charts.
00:16:18
Speaker
So that particular technique seems like it would work. It would also work in the U S or Canada. So have you found yourself using still sticking with that technique when you're, when you're back in the States? I try to because of the poor audio quality and most speaking environments, like once in a while I get super lucky. There's the perfect mic setup. There's the perfect speaker setup. The.
00:16:39
Speaker
the stage or the room I'm speaking in has just the perfect acoustics. 99% of the time there's some like weird thing about the room where, or there's no microphone available, which is really helpful. Like microphones can help so much with those kinds of quieter sounds. So it's, you know, what's been interesting too. It's made me as a trainer, get crystal clear about what I'm recommending people do and don't. I think flashback to Ann five years ago, I was more,
00:17:09
Speaker
generous,
Enhancing Report Designs
00:17:10
Speaker
where I'd say, Oh, well, it's probably the best case scenario to do this. Or, well, the research is mixed on this thing. In the meantime, I don't know, you could maybe do this thing or this other thing in your graph. And now
00:17:24
Speaker
I have to take a stand. I have to say, I recommend that you do do this and here's why, or the research is mixed, but I recommend that you do not do this one thing and you emphasize it because people will take better notes that way. They're going to have better guidance.
00:17:41
Speaker
It that's, that's challenging. It's not just a speech thing of saying don't know, right. Do not it's, it's a planning issue and a clarity of message issue. Right. Right. Okay. So I want to come back to that later. Cause I want to hear what your, what you think are your most controversial do's and do nots. Oh no. Okay. All right. Well, we'll come back to that. Okay. So we've got, uh, so we're on tip number six. This is a little one. I think it matters though. I've noticed this speaking in Southeast Asia.
00:18:12
Speaker
try to avoid religious phrases. For example, if I'm speaking and I have my clicker, my laser pointer in my hand, and it flies out of my hand, which happens once in a while, my instinct, what I would normally say is, oh my goodness, or oh my gosh. Right.
00:18:30
Speaker
That has no translation to somebody who's not in a Judeo Christian culture. What do they mean? That do they mean like the, I'm thinking of the translator and putting myself in the translator shoes. Okay. And just said, Oh my goodness. I want to translate that even though it's not part of the like official presentation for the audience, they try to translate everything to make it feel more natural and real. So are they thinking that's a good thing that the clicker just fell out of her hand and flopped on the floor. So I just try to say, Oh no,
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah. Or, oops, that's not good. I try to be as literal as possible. Okay.
Controversial Data Visualization Practices
00:19:06
Speaker
So the one, well, okay. So I have one I've picked up from Andy Kirk, but I want it because it touches on the religious thing, but maybe it might be one of your nine. So I'll hold off. Okay. So, uh, we'll stay away from the religious stuff, which is probably just a generally like
00:19:21
Speaker
Good rule of thumb. It is. It is. And when I, when I was writing this one down, I thought I should just try to speak without any phrases like that. I don't know if there's any I do beyond, Oh my goodness. Or, Oh my gosh. I really have to think about that one. So anybody listening, you know, tweet at us or tweet at us. Yeah. Let us know. Yeah. Um, okay. That's a good one. Uh, number seven. This is really hard to do. And this might be a little controversial. Try to avoid speaking with an accent.
00:19:51
Speaker
That is going to be a tough one. You and I are both from the DC area or have been there for many years. In my opinion, this is the controversial type. In my opinion, you and I don't have accents, but for other parts of the US, we do. Also, when I'm around people from the South, because I grew up in Virginia,
00:20:10
Speaker
I can get a little bit of a Southern drawl, not much, not like somebody who's actually from the South since I'm from Northern Virginia. But when I'm around those people, I kind of code switch accidentally and I speak a little bit more Southern. When I'm around people of my same age range, we talk about the same memes or we might accentuate something in our speech. There's just a little bit different language pattern that I've kind of fallen to naturally where you're trying to blend in with people around you, but then you have to like,
00:20:40
Speaker
not do that and not speak with an accent at all. I have heard when I was speaking in Guatemala, one of the fellow instructors was from Georgia and it definitely had the classic Georgia Southern accent.
00:20:53
Speaker
And I remember people saying like, what was she saying there? Like other fellow participants were asking me, what was she saying? What was she saying? And I was kind of trying to translate in my Washington DC accent. Right. Not the Washington accent, the Washington accent. Not that one, the Washington accent. Yeah, not that one. So that's interesting because I would guess and really not knowing much about languages. I could ask my wife who knows everything about languages is around here somewhere.
00:21:18
Speaker
I would guess that a lot of people who are learning English, for example, is their second language. They're probably learning it from someone who also has a fairly neutral or no accent, right? So if I learned, if I was native Spanish speaker in Guatemala and I learned English from someone from Georgia with the Southern twang, right? That probably that sound would be natural to me. Yeah. Right. Or are you learning British English?
00:21:46
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Right. In Asia, Australia is still like a 10 hour flight away from here, but are you learning Australian English? Because that's the majority of tourists you see are either from Hawaii or Portland or LA, like the West coast part of the U S or they're from Australia. I don't know. It's just these little things that little, little things that you can have very smart, hardworking people, very highly educated people in your audience, but they're just like,
00:22:15
Speaker
working so hard to understand the database content if you don't try to do these things. Right, if they're trying to decipher your voice as well, yeah, that's a big challenge. That's a good one. That's another good one. Okay, number eight. Do use body language. Okay, so I'm guessing I've seen you speak, so you use body language, you know, make it clear.
00:22:42
Speaker
Uh, and I'll let, I'll let you dive into this a little bit more, but I am, I am curious. Is there any body language that you also avoid? So there you've already talked about some things when you talk, when you, in your language that you drive over, other body language things that you also avoid. Hmm. Yes.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:22:57
Speaker
I, I watched YouTube videos before I go to a new country on like how to not be an awful American when you're traveling cultural cues that you should know ahead of time. That I think just being a responsible, respectful traveler, you should know. So I've learned a couple, um, with the body language, just to be clear, it's not just talking with your hands. It's things like.
00:23:16
Speaker
in data visualization. If you're recommending that they do do this thing, you nod your head up and down. You smile with your face and your eyes as you're talking about this wonderful thing you want people to start doing. You might, as cheesy as it feels doing it right now, you might give them a thumbs up sign that they know this is a good thing. So it's crystal clear because they might be listening to you through it
00:23:41
Speaker
Headset as the foreign language interpreter is speaking with a little bit of delay. They're also watching your slides. They're also looking at the handout So like all these cues, I think really matter
00:23:51
Speaker
Thumbs up is interesting though, because in, they do it in Japan. I think I first learned this in Vietnam. Instead of thumbs up, they do the, what we call the okay symbol. They touch their thumb and their forefinger. So when, when you're doing a training here, you say, yes, do you do this thing and you do an okay, simple and you smile just to make it very, very clear. You are recommending they do this thing. Wow.
00:24:16
Speaker
And when you're the opposite, do you want to know how people say, do not do this thing? Like, I just did it with my hands. If people are watching the video, like, yeah, like the small, like safe symbol and baseball. In Japan, that's how I, if you're not watching this in Japan, you make an X, you make an X, you cross your arms, you touch your hands at the wrists and that's very normal. And at first, the first time I encountered it, we were at Disney world over the holidays in Tokyo.
00:24:45
Speaker
And the Disney World operator was saying, no, you have to take your one-year-old out of the ergo baby carrier on your chest and put her in the seat next to you. And she's motioning all of this. She's kind of motioning to the baby in the carrier.
00:24:58
Speaker
And she does this X and smile and kind of not do this because she's a polite Disney employee. They're not being rude. They're just saying like for safety reasons, no X and, but you see it among cashiers, you see it in the business world and offices. That's just what they do to mean. Don't do this. It's not rude in any way. It's just what they do. That's just a symbol. All right. Okay. Um, wow. Okay. So number nine.
00:25:24
Speaker
This is the most fun one for database. You have to find non-US examples. You can't just show US maps, you have virtual world maps. Yeah.
00:25:32
Speaker
If you're talking about, I do a lot of projects now with finance and accounting people and talking about project budgets and just have US dollars on your side of different currencies, preferably their country's currency. If you're doing, if you're showing examples from a newspaper or from the nightly news, any type of current event, you have to show world events that can't be US centric events. I've learned this the hard way. I wish I would have known this earlier on. This is probably the most important one actually out of the entire list.
00:26:01
Speaker
Defined non-us examples. Do you find them hard to find? I mean I can name several places that I go to fairly regularly But you know I spend most I mean I'm in the US I'm in a political policy world most of the day so I'm spending most of my time with the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal but have you sort of figured out or
00:26:28
Speaker
you know, found your international places that you go now or is it just like hoping to get lucky? So think of all of our European database friends, anything that they're tweeting or liking, look to those publications. I'm thinking anything that Andy Kirk is tweeting. I'm sure, I'm not, I haven't stalked his Twitter channel in a while. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I'm sure he's sharing examples from throughout Europe or other people might tend to have examples from Asia or from Latin America. So you can look to those publications, but,
00:26:57
Speaker
more and more the more I train, I've created my own examples. So if I have an example of like, here's how to do color coding on a map, I make sure I have the U S map.
00:27:07
Speaker
for the US audiences and I might have a map of South America when I'm going to speak in South America or a map of Europe if I'm going to speak in Europe. So just creating my own generic map examples. It takes a lot of time. It's not something you can do the night before your presentation. It's like an ongoing practice to become a better American traveling abroad.
00:27:29
Speaker
Okay, so those are great. Those are great. I want to add one. I don't know where I would slot it. It's going to be, you know, number something A. I heard this from Andy Kirk. Andy Kirk keeps coming up in his conversation and we'll tell everybody why in a moment.
00:27:44
Speaker
So I heard either through Twitter, we were chatting about it, he did a workshop or tutorial or something in I think the United Arab Emirates. He had his just, you know, just like we both have, we have our little agenda for the day. But what he didn't remember to keep it take into account was prayer time.
00:28:01
Speaker
which I thought was a really interesting, you know, cultural difference that, you know, certainly not something that would be off the top of my head. That'd be like, oh, I got to make sure I break this in that, you know, break these things out. So I would guess there are other sorts of cultural things that you probably have to build into your agendas for different times with prayer or this or that, that you have to have to consider that, you know, probably for most of us just comes with, you know, making the mistake and learning from it.
00:28:31
Speaker
Well, hopefully this podcast will fast forward people and propel them a little bit more. Um, okay. The, the prayer time is so interesting because I've actually had that in the U S with, um, with religious groups that I've worked with. Oh, sure. I've had a few different times. They tell me in advance, they say prayer time is always 10 to 10, 15 or whatever. So, um, I haven't had that working internationally yet. I've just had that in the U S and B I worked with a, like a Catholic church group. And another group was.
00:29:00
Speaker
a foundation that gave money to orphanages and church based orphanages around the world. So they had prayer time built in. They invite you to come to their prayer time with you. You can go or not. It's very like they don't care either way.
00:29:17
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, okay. Here's an obvious one. I can't believe I didn't think of this one. When you're making an agenda, you have to remember that most people are in 2,400 like military time. Yeah, right. Right. Which is so hard. I mess that up all the time. It's so not American. What is 3PM? 3PM is whatever time it is to most people. Yeah. Right. That's right. Yeah. That's, that's not our thing. Yeah.
00:29:40
Speaker
It's just, it's very unnatural to me. Yeah. Those are good. Those are really good. Um, should we tell our Andy Kirk story now, or should we talk about, uh, formatting reports first? Andy Kirk. That's so much more fun than formatting reports. I don't know if Andy, does Andy know this story? I don't know. We'll have to just tell Andy to listen to this, listen to this episode. Listen up, Andy. Um, do you want to, yeah, Andy, pay attention. Do you want to, you want to start this story?
00:30:08
Speaker
Well, our story of how we met. John and I have known each other a while. A long time. A while. I want to say eight years now, eight years? Does that sound right? I want to say, yeah, 2010, 2011, something like that. So maybe longer. Maybe longer. I think longer, yeah. Yeah, Andy was in town, right, doing his workshop. And we both attended, didn't know each other, right?
00:30:37
Speaker
And somehow we ended up having lunch with Andy, the three of us. And then we became fast friends and we were also like,
00:30:49
Speaker
basically around the corner from each other started hanging out. But like, you know, it's, it's just kind of weird because we didn't like, who knew that we would both like end up changing jobs and getting so neck deep into the date of his world. I never could have predicted this. Also. And I think another interesting twist on that story is, you know, you meet a lot of cool people when you attend trainings or conferences and maybe you keep in touch with them, but maybe you didn't. Yeah, right.
00:31:16
Speaker
It wasn't like we met and we said, let's be best friends for the next decade and collaborate on projects. We'll have John and Ann, like awesome energy. We, we kind of remit on Twitter then later, I think, because maybe I realized that you actually worked not too many Metro stops away from where I worked at the time. And we kind of reconnected and then we'd have lunch over and over and over the years. And I don't know. I think it may have actually taken us a while to connect the dots.
00:31:45
Speaker
Mm-hmm that we actually like that's where we met I feel like we connect like reconnected on Twitter and then it took a while for us to be like now hold on a second Have we had lunch at this place before cuz I feel like I've eaten here with Andy curse before and one other person
00:32:02
Speaker
So, um, I don't know if Andy keeps track of all the friendships he produces at his workshops, but you know, that's, that's one of them. This is a good one. Good job, Andy. Um, okay. Let's, let's talk about, um, let's talk about two more things. Cause we want to keep, well, cause you know, it's getting time for bed over here. Um, so let's talk about formatting reports. Cause I find it to be one of the more
00:32:27
Speaker
unique things that you write about because I don't think a lot of people are actually doing it or at least they I'm sure lots of people doing it but They're not writing about their process and you you get out there and talk about your process and how you think about it So I don't really think I have like a specific question other than to just say, you know, how do you approach? working on reports and making them just better and more visual and you know easier to read and
00:32:54
Speaker
That's like open door. I am so surprised that you have this impression of my work and my blog, to be honest, because reports for me, it's just, you know, I work with a variety of groups. So I work with government, federal, state, local, some more like international types of groups that work across many countries. I work with foundations. I work with NGOs. I work with universities. I work with.
00:33:17
Speaker
library systems, like it's a little bit of everybody for profits, nonprofits. Like I mentioned some religious groups in there and in a perfect world, they would have very short succinct reports in addition to many other formats, in addition to, oh, in addition to something I want to ask you about the pyramid shape thing that you're working on about what types of dissemination formats appeal to what types of audiences. So they, in a perfect world,
00:33:46
Speaker
time permitting, skills permitting, people would have the report and the slideshow version and they'd have the multiple handouts and they'd have the infographic and they'd have the social media images and they'd have the whole thing is released. They'd have the podcasters and this entire broad communication strategy for getting their data into the world, getting their research out into policy decisions. But that's, that's the case in some groups that I definitely see in every group.
00:34:13
Speaker
a desire to do that. It's just not in practice happening yet. So it's like, well, in the meantime, you're still going to have your report or you're still required to write your report because your boss requires it because that's the way it's always been. Or you get funding from a foundation or a federal agency and you have to write a report. So it's like in the meantime, let's, let's write good reports. Let's make them, let's make them better. And gosh, trying to think of things I've specifically blogged about because
00:34:42
Speaker
Like you, I have so many examples I can't blog about. It takes a lot of energy to like either get permission to blog about a certain process or to anonymize it.
00:34:52
Speaker
I can't conjure up a specific post, but like I've definitely seen you write about things like using colors on using breakers for things like, you know, you know, don't just have chapter two is like in instead of 12 point font, it's down 14 point font, like make a nice page with a picture. And then another one that I think you've used is how to use icons and objects and images in the body of the text so that it
00:35:19
Speaker
And I just, I think, you know, I do have like a vague memory of recollection of images you put up where, I'll put it this way. My editor at my publisher has always talked about trying to get rid of what he calls the word wall, right? It's like you open the book and it's just two pages of, you know, 12 point font text, just, you know, and especially when you're doing visual content, it just seems like a lot all of a sudden to be faced with this page of text.
00:35:47
Speaker
And you've just had, you just have this approach where you're breaking it up. So it's still maybe instead of two pages, it's two and a half, but it's broken up in a way that just seems easier to read. Yeah. So the first technique you mentioned, I call color coding by chapter. And it's the idea that you still might have a long report. And being of a recent example, I worked on with a public health group, a state public health group, and it was still going to be a hundred page report.
00:36:11
Speaker
What I have loved for it to be a 20 page report or multiple 20 page reports, of course, that wasn't realistic. You know, maybe even five years from now that might be happening, but, but not for this particular project. So we knew it's still gonna be really lengthy. So we had to make it easy for people to find the information they wanted. Maybe some people want the opioid chapter, other people, the maternal health chapter. Other people want the environmental toxins chapter, depending on like which community groups are going to be using this data, usually in their grant making or the decision making. So,
00:36:41
Speaker
What you do is you look at, I recommend people use their branding colors and they don't just find random colors. So we look at their logo and their website and they have two or three or four branding colors on there. Let's just say it's like a blue, a turquoise, a purple and a red. Okay. I'm thinking of this recent report again. So chapter one is in the first brand color. Chapter two is in the second brand color and by, by,
00:37:09
Speaker
saying it's in that brand color. I mean, you might have a full bleed photo starting that chapter saying it's, it's chapter one. It's the introduction. I often do an overlay on top of that photo to like, I'll use a black and white photo. And then I literally in word, I don't use any fancy software. I'm super anti, like you need fancy software to do this everyday products as you do. And I put a rectangle on word and word on top of it to the blue from their logo. And then all the words in that chapter.
00:37:39
Speaker
the heading ones, the heading twos, call out boxes are the blue. So it's a very blue chapter. The graphs have blue. They may be a gray and blue graph. So people know you're in chapter one and then you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, or maybe you're flipping through a printed booklet and all of a sudden you get to turquoise and your brain is the color changed.
00:37:59
Speaker
Therefore the content must have changed. It's a turquoise fully photo, turquoise heading ones, turquoise heading twos. Turquoise is the color on the graphs. It's so simple when you see it. It's so powerful. It takes, yeah, it takes a couple of hours to do because you're literally like clicking on text to change the color. But it's worth it. I think it's the best use of people's time if they just have a couple of hours of time.
00:38:22
Speaker
It was funny, I was about to ask, and I knew what the answer would be, I was about to ask, you know, do you do this all in InDesign or Illustrator? And I knew just because we share the same sort of ethos and approach. And I was talking to a designer once who's a PowerPoint MVP, and she said, you know, you can do a lot of stuff in Microsoft Word. You just have to make it look like it wasn't made in Microsoft Word. And just like you said, the full bleed, like that alone,
00:38:51
Speaker
does now not look like Microsoft Word Pro. Yeah. And I'm sure that I could learn a publisher or Adobe products. I've dabbled in them. I know you could learn these. It's just that words, the common denominator as Excel is and PowerPoint. So if, if I know these reports are always a collaboration, it's not just me doing it and I say, okay, here's your report. It looks completely different from where we started. I hope you adopt it and keep these practices in your organization. No, of course not. It's a full collaboration from start to finish.
00:39:21
Speaker
at least at the beginning to kind of brainstorm ideas together and show them examples from other projects. So it has to be made in a software program where they can run with it after I pass the baton over. It has to be something they can use themselves. Right. Exactly. So if you're going to require them to learn the Adobe suite and get InDesign, you're adding more costs and time. Whereas if they're a Microsoft shop, teach them how to use those tools. Exactly.
00:39:51
Speaker
Okay, wait, wait, wait. John, I have a funny story about this though. This is a request for the readers. I thought I knew where I learned this concept of color coding by chapter. It is not mine. I thought I learned it from, do you know who's a presentation design expert who's based in Japan? I do. I do. I do. I don't know who you're talking about. Gar Reynolds, who has several books. He's got Presentation Zen. He's got Presentation Zen Design.
00:40:20
Speaker
who I got to meet yesterday. Oh nice, and he's got naked presenter.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yes. I haven't read that one yet. I've read the two presentations and Zen ones. We're just like, we met up for coffee. Apparently by chance I am, you know, a few Metro stops from where he lives, which what a wonderful coincidence. We're just like hanging out at a park bench, watching my kids play on the playground as my husband's watching them. And he brought me the, um, his new presentations and I'm like, looking at it over here just came out. I think it's the third edition maybe. And I'm telling him, Oh, my favorite thing about this book,
00:40:52
Speaker
is that it's color coded by chapter. I learned this from you and I teach it and it's amazing. And he's like, actually that's not this book. So I don't know where I learned it from. In my mind, like 10 years ago, I got this idea from him. It might be the presentations and design book might be the kind of the flip-flopping from chapter. So if anybody knows where I learned this, I don't want to take credit for this. I think it's a brilliant concept, but it's just something that I hope universally we kind of all adopt chapter one, this color, chapter two, the next color.
00:41:22
Speaker
You certainly didn't learn it from me because my book only came out in 2016. But I do it in my presentation book, I do that same approach. And it's awesome. It's more subtle than the way you've described it. So the way mine breaks out, it's like there's a header page.
00:41:39
Speaker
chapter three, there's a big three in a triangle and that triangle is red and the facing page is red. And then you just go into the rest of the text and the headers in red, but the lines that separate the image from the caption is just like a very thin red line. So then, and then there's a purple chapter and a blue chapter. So yeah, I like that approach too. I'm thinking, I wonder if it's Nancy Duarte's book. It could be. Yeah, it's a great approach. I agree. It's great. And it's so easy to implement.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yep. Um, okay. So let, let me ask this. So, so back to where we started, what are some of the things you tell people to do and not to do that you think are the more controversial things? Let's see if we can get you in a little bit of trouble. Oh my gosh. I've already heard you say no 3d pie. Just stirring the pot, just stir it up. Um,
00:42:35
Speaker
Okay. This is probably the most controversial for your audience. I'm thinking of correct me if I'm wrong. I'm thinking, um, the more academic audience who's very aware of the research, very sophisticated on database knowledge, which I definitely work with those people, but I also work with the regular people where their, their role is data analyst or something, or maybe their role is data visualization or their, or their role is not data. And they just want to know, like,
00:42:59
Speaker
maybe the research is mixed for like, what should I do in the meantime? They need very clear guidance because this might be the only database training that they ever take. So I can't like let them walk out of the room with this fuzzy sense of like, I have no idea how to implement this because I don't know what to do. So this is probably the most controversial. I teach them that pie charts are okay in some circumstances.
00:43:22
Speaker
Many people say pie charts are the devil. They're horrible. You can never use them. They're so bad. You're like laughing at me because this is so, are you, but I totally, I totally agree with you. I a hundred percent agree, but I'm laughing because yes, there are a lot of people who are, you know, they're shaking their fists at us right now, but I totally agree with you.
00:43:40
Speaker
And just to clarify, I have, I have many blog posts on this topic. I have a list of seven criteria. Don't ask me to name them. I don't have the memorize, but it's, it's, it, you basically get, you get to the bottom of the list and I say, okay, so like, don't do this. Like it can't be 3d. It needs to be 2d.
00:43:55
Speaker
And you know, don't do that. Don't have a separate legend. It needs to be directly labeled, which if you're, if you're familiar with database, you're like, well, of course the no 3d rule applies to many, many circumstances, but you get to the bottom and I say, when it is okay to use pie charts, you know, it's not that you're never going to use pie charts. They're familiar chart. Your audience loves them, especially if you have a non-technical audience. It's not that you'd never use this great familiar chart that they love when it's just two slices. Mm-hmm.
00:44:22
Speaker
For that's it. Just a two slice pie chart. It's 2d. It's not 3d. It's directly labeled. So it would be like people who live in urban areas versus everybody else combined, like the dark slice of those people you're focusing on versus everybody else in gray or people who graduated.
00:44:40
Speaker
high school on time versus everybody else combined. Not the three slice, not the 10 slice, the simple clear cut overview pie chart. I'm okay with those. I even take it a step further. So I have, now we're getting into a pie charts conversation, but we'll cut off because there's people who are just rolling their eyes at this right now. So I have, I have, so for the two slice pie chart, I agree with you, but I'm also,
00:45:03
Speaker
Some instances saying do you really need a pie chart? I do need a graph right because if you show me that one slice it's 10% like
00:45:11
Speaker
just tell me it's 10%. I don't know if I need a graph. So my rule of thumb is no more than three slices that you're going to focus on and that those three slices sum to one of the three following numbers, 25%, 50% or 75%. Because those hit those right angles that we are familiar with. So if you're saying
00:45:34
Speaker
you know, the sum of groups A, B, and C are slightly more than 50%. So you might have four slices in your pie chart, but three of them are the darker colors, and then there's the rest is gray or whatever. Yes. And you can sort of see how it, you can, it's easy for us to see it past 50%.
00:45:50
Speaker
Absolutely agree. I call this familiar fractions. So I do the 25, 50, 75. I would also include the one third, two thirds, like a 33%, 66% in my mind also fall in there because I think you can visually, who knows what a 10% looks like versus a 15%. I don't know. But if it's one of those common break points, absolutely. I'm totally cool with those.
00:46:10
Speaker
Okay, let me ask one more just to get your take because it's a it's a topic of interest for me right now. So what is your take on zero axis for the vertical axis in a bar chart.
00:46:26
Speaker
Before we started recording, I told you, I had just listened to one of your podcasts this morning, the most recent one that was published. Now, by the time our conversation is published, there may be several more. And the woman was like the researcher on this. Yeah. She's just on a paper on it. However, I listen to podcasts as I get ready. So I had my phone sitting on this little cart next to the shower.
00:46:47
Speaker
So I don't know what she said because I have a water blaring on me. There's like echoey noise. Whatever she said, I would do that. And I feel like you are more of a purist in this than I am.
00:47:02
Speaker
I think I am still I just, you know, for me, and the paper is really interesting. And I think for me, one paper doesn't prove one way or the other. And so basically, her recommendation is to have this, you know, 1.5, I think it's 1.5 standard deviations is where you sort of pick your cutoffs. For me, I just feel like I'm not convinced.
00:47:29
Speaker
Right. Like I'm still anxious. Like a true researcher, John. I mean, I mean, there are still smart people out there yelling, not yelling, smart people out there talking about, you know, what to do about this. And the arguments are, are they're solid arguments. So I do have very clear guidance on this. So this is my take that I tell people in my workshops, I say,
00:47:54
Speaker
you must label the minimum and the maximum. And I didn't always used to feel like that. I used to tell people if it starts at zero and it goes to a hundred percent, don't worry. Like that's kind of the norm is like zero up to whatever the max is. I changed my tune after the last election cycle because I felt like people were purposefully and news outlets misleading us one way or the other or in different publications. So now I say,
00:48:21
Speaker
We are not lying with statistics. No way. We are trying to be truthful and unbiased and honest about the data. Of course, which I have never met anybody in my workshops who's trying to lie with statistics. Everybody has very good intentions, very, very good intentions. And I say, just to be safe, to just prove to people we're not trying to mislead them. I want you to label them in and the max. And I tell them the best practice is to start at zero.
00:48:46
Speaker
And I joke with them because these are like not database people. I don't know if the people in my workshops will ever listen to this podcast. I'll tell them it exists, but I don't know if they're going to listen. They could care less about these conversations that people like us love having. And I tell them, just so you know, there's a thriving lively debate in the database community about this issue. The research is mixed because I want to let them know that there is a community of people. There's a database society. There's books on this topic.
00:49:11
Speaker
They're maybe not in this particular research study, but like on data visualization and I say the research is mixed. I don't care if you started zero or not, but I want you to label it because I want you to be truthful and accurate. Right. I think the term, the phrase best practice or rule of thumb is probably the one that still applies as opposed to a rule. I think we're starting, just like I kind of feel like the field did with pie charts. We kind of moved away from this.
00:49:40
Speaker
Rule that no pie charts ever and maybe we're seeing the start of this period we will move away from the zero axis But I'm I'm not there yet and I know I know Chad skeletons probably listening to this podcast, you know shaking his fist at me because Because because he's he's one of these leading voices to make us think a little bit harder about this So but he now just have to keep fighting it out Well, that's tricky too when you're in the training role like we are versus the tiny role, which is 99% of the world and yeah
00:50:07
Speaker
for us, it's like you need to know the rules so that you know when to break them, but communicating those nuances to a workshop group that may or may not have any prior date of his knowledge. It's really tricky. So I feel like as a trainer, it is your job to be like, let them know that there are some debates, but also they have to leave with very clear guidance on what's okay and what's not. And, and I'll tell people too, like I'll tell you now, if you look back at past blog posts from like 2012, go back several hundred blog posts,
00:50:37
Speaker
I'm sure you'll see blog posts where I haven't labeled the minimum and maximum, but now I do and I definitely recommend that other people label them in the max as well. Yeah, it's good to evolve with the field. Just, you know, we're all learning. Yep. Wow. We talked for a while. Thanks. I know.
00:50:58
Speaker
I could talk all day or all night for you, but I know you've got other things. Well, thanks for taking time out. And enjoy it now. Let me ask this. So the kids and your husband are at the zoo. What's the weather like there?
00:51:13
Speaker
It's cold. It's very similar to DC, you know, four days during the day, whatever that means in Celsius. I don't know. It's another one. That's another one. You just picked up another one, right? Like going from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Yeah. That's a good one. That's, that's a good last way to, to way to end this. Cool. Thanks so much. Yeah. That was fun. Thanks, John. Bye. Good night.
00:51:37
Speaker
And thanks for everyone for tuning into this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned a little bit about what it might take if you need to communicate to an audience in another country or another culture. This show is completely listener supported, so if you would like to help support the show, please rate or review the show on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:52:01
Speaker
If you would like to financially support the show, that would be great. I would love it. Please head over to my Patreon page where you can get some gear for yourself and your data friends and family. So I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. There's more to come in the following weeks. And until next time, this has been the policy of this podcast. Thanks so much for listening.