Strategic Data Storytelling

Learning Objectives to Become a Data Storyteller

Storytelling and visualization tools are necessary to communicate data insights. This course will walk you through creating compelling data stories to effectively convey results to stakeholders. You will also learn to align and adjust them to your business goals and target audience.

After completing the course, you will be able to:

• Identify which business needs can be addressed with data.
• Distill data into key points using infographics, dashboards, reports, and stories.
• Anticipate and manage questions from diverse audiences.
• Enhance decision-making by using appropriate cues and indicators for specific audiences.
• Earn a credential certifying completion from the University of Chicago and become part of the UChicago network.

You will learn to: 

• Translate data into economic value while assessing effective data visualization strategies that link insights to business objectives.
• Analyze data to determine patterns, key insights, action items, and storytelling potential.
• Describe the key elements of a successful data story: knowing one’s audience, defining a goal, maintaining engagement, and being explicit about the takeaways.
• Identify where and how a data story achieves its intended goals and where it can be optimized.
• Use imaging tools to create data visualizations that align with the needs of the data story.
   

• Self-paced interactive learning modules with a variety of engaging learning activities, assignments, and resources.
• Live sessions that bring you, your peers, and your instructor together to learn collaboratively about the current state of the field, engage with real-world problems, and explore authentic solutions.
• Continuous support from your instructional assistant, who will accompany you on your journey through the content, answer your questions, and provide feedback on your work.

Our highly trained instructors are courageous thinkers and passionate leaders who leverage years of industry expertise and up-to-date knowledge of terminology, tools, and trends to deliver an unparalleled learning experience. Through their rigorous discourse, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and field-shaping contributions, they create practical solutions and pioneering innovations that enrich our world.

These instructors teach this course regularly. If you wish to know who the current teacher is, please speak to your enrollment advisor.

Career Outlook

The global big data market is expected to grow to $229.4 billion by 2025, and an increasing number of organizations are in need of storytelling techniques—and data storytelling professionals—to communicate and visualize their data effectively. Nonprofits and Fortune 500 companies alike find this approach raises awareness of a brand, issue, product, or trend and inspires audiences to take action. Possessing both analytical skills and the ability to weave data into compelling narratives, data storytellers and visualization specialists are prized by enterprises that want to maximize their data’s value.