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storytelling with data podcast: #67 storytelling withOUT data

·26 min·1 clip

A single sentence can sometimes be enough to communicate the main message.

1. Storytelling with Data podcast #67, “storytelling withOUT data,” asks when communication works better without a graph or slide deck. 2. Cole Nisbomber-Naflik hosts the episode and frames the topic around his own presentations, his books, and workshop examples. 3. The core question is when words, slides, graphs, handouts, or images should be replaced by a different format altogether. 4. Cole starts with Avery, his 10-year-old fourth grader, who chose Harry Houdini for a school research project. 5. Avery’s output was a board game called “Help Houdini,” where players roll dice, draw cards, remove chain links, and try to free Houdini before reaching the end of the path. 6. Cole contrasts that game with the expected essay, poster, or web page and says the game fits Houdini and a fourth-grade audience better. 7. He then uses “Bing. Bang. Bongo.” from his eighth-grade English class to explain hypothesis, body, and conclusion. 8. He says the “three minute story” and “the big idea” help creators strip content down to the main message. 9. Cole says a single sentence may be enough when that sentence truly gets the point across. 10. He then shifts from words to presentation delivery and asks when someone should present with no slides at all. 11. Cole says blank slides or a black screen can work when he wants the audience focused entirely on him during a personal story. 12. He describes a 10-minute networking talk for founders where he skipped slides and shared three truths instead. 13. He also describes a small stakeholder meeting where he used a handout instead of slides so he could sit side by side and annotate the page. 14. Cole says low-fidelity work can be useful when the goal is directional feedback rather than design feedback. 15. He gives graph guidance next and says numbers that are small, noisy, incomplete, or assumption-heavy can make graphs misleading. 16. Cole uses survey response rates of 30 percent and 90 percent to show why representativeness matters more than a simple threshold. 17. He gives a bad bubble-graph example with two stacked charts, confusing axes, and circles that are not comparable. 18. Cole says putting the graph into words can reveal the intended takeaway and sometimes show that words alone are better. 19. The episode feels instructional and example-driven, with Cole moving between workshop frameworks, client cases, and personal stories. 20. People who make presentations, charts, or workshop materials will get the most from it; people seeking a narrative arc or a guest interview may skip it.

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