If you didn't have a visceral reaction to the title for this episode, then you are almost certainly not in our target audience. There are few more certain ways to get a room full of analytics folk fired up than to raise the topic of dashboards. Are they where data goes to die, or are they the essential key to unlocking self-service access to actionable insights? Are they both? Is the question irrelevant, because, if they exist to inform business users, aren't they soon going to be replaced by an AI-powered chatbot, anyway? We thought a great way to dig into the topic (and, BTW, we were right) would be to have someone on the show who has co-penned multiple books on the topic. As luck would have it, Andy Cotgreave, one of the co-authors of both 2017's The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios and the imminently releasing  Dashboards That Deliver: How to Design, Develop, and Deploy Dashboards That Work agreed to join us for a lively chat on the topic! This episode's Measurement Bite from show sponsor Recast is a quick explanation of power analysis from Michael Kaminsky! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

Tired of spending money on data courses you never finish? Here are 7 essential books that will actually boost your analytical skills, with no subscription required! Plus, make sure to tune in till the end as one lucky listener will get a free book from this list! Get the books here! DISCLAIMER: Some of the links in this video are affiliate links, meaning if you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic 👉 https://amzn.to/3ZYHhsG Ace the Data Science Interview by Nick Singh and Kevin Huo 👉 https://amzn.to/3XZ9IaB Moneyball by Michael Lewis 👉 https://amzn.to/44fy4OD The StatQuest Illustrated Guide To Machine Learning by Josh Starmer 👉 https://amzn.to/40hRgu2 Fundamentals of Data Engineering by Joe Reis and Matt Housley 👉 https://amzn.to/3W84K8K Data Science for Business by Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett 👉 https://amzn.to/4k7jkaD The Big Book of Dashboards by Steve Wexler, Jeffrey Shaffer, and Andy Cotgreave 👉 https://amzn.to/462GJVj 💌 Join 10k+ aspiring data analysts & get my tips in your inbox weekly 👉 https://www.datacareerjumpstart.com/newsletter 🆘 Feeling stuck in your data journey? Come to my next free "How to Land Your First Data Job" training 👉 https://www.datacareerjumpstart.com/training 👩‍💻 Want to land a data job in less than 90 days? 👉 https://www.datacareerjumpstart.com/daa 👔 Ace The Interview with Confidence 👉 https://www.datacareerjumpstart.com/interviewsimulator ⌚ TIMESTAMPS 00:16 Book 1: The Big Book of Dashboards 02:52 Book 2: Data Science for Business 04:38 Book 3: Fundamentals of Data Engineering 06:05 Book 4: The StatQuest Illustrated Guide To Machine Learning 07:52 Book 5: Moneyball 10:09 Book 6: Ace the Data Science Interview 11:24 Book 7: Storytelling With Data I've interviewed some of these awesome data authors! Check out these episodes! Stats You Need to Know as a Data Analyst (w/ StatQuest) 👉 https://datacareerpodcast.com/episode/105-do-you-have-to-be-good-at-statistics-to-be-a-data-analyst-w-statquest-josh-starmer-phd How to Ace The Data Science & Analytics Interview w/ Nick Singh 👉 https://datacareerpodcast.com/episode/74-how-to-ace-the-data-science-analytics-interview-w-nick-singh Meet The Woman Who Changed Data Storytelling Forever (Cole Knaflic) 👉 https://datacareerpodcast.com/episode/142-meet-the-woman-who-changed-data-storytelling-forever-cole-knafflic

🔗 CONNECT WITH AVERY 🎥 YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@averysmith 🤝 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/averyjsmith/ 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/datacareerjumpstart 🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@verydata 💻 Website: https://www.datacareerjumpstart.com/ Mentioned in this episode: Join the last cohort of 2025! The LAST cohort of The Data Analytics Accelerator for 2025 kicks off on Monday, December 8th and enrollment is officially open!

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Driving impact with analytics goes beyond numbers and graphs; it's about telling a story that resonates. In this session, Brent Dykes, author of "Effective Data Storytelling" & the Founder & Chief Data Storyteller at AnalyticsHero, Lea Pica, author of "Present Beyond Measure" & the Founder at Story-driven by Data, and Andy Cotgreave, co-author of "The Big Book of Dashboards" and Senior Data Evangelist at Tableau, will unveil how to transform data into compelling narratives.  They shed light on the art of blending analytics with storytelling, a key to making data-driven insights both understandable and influential within any organization.

Understanding and interpreting data visualizations are one of the most important aspects of data literacy. When done well, data visualization ensures that stakeholders can quickly take away critical insights from data. Moreover, data visualization is often the best place to start when increasing organizational data literacy, as it’s often titled the “gateway drug” to more advanced data skills. Andy Cotgreave, Senior Data Evangelist at Tableau Software and co-author of The Big Book of Dashboards, joins the show to break down data visualization and storytelling, drawing from his 15-year career in the data space. Andy has spoken for events like SXSW, Visualized, and Tableau’s conferences and has inspired thousands of people to develop their data skills.

In this episode, we discuss why data visualization skills are so essential, how data visualization increases organizational data literacy, the best practices for visual storytelling, and much more.

This episode of DataFramed is a part of DataCamp’s Data Literacy Month, where we raise awareness about Data Literacy throughout September through webinars, workshops, and resources featuring thought leaders and subject matter experts that can help you build your data literacy, as well as your organization’s. For more information, visit: https://www.datacamp.com/data-literacy-month/for-teams

In this episode of DataFramed, we speak with Andy Cotgreave, Technical Evangelist at Tableau about the role of data storytelling when driving change with analytics, and the importance of the analyst role within a data-driven organization.

Throughout the episode, Andy discusses his background, the skills every analyst should know to equip organizations with better data-driven decision making, his best practices for data storytelling, how he thinks about data literacy and ways to spread it within the organization, the importance of community when creating a data-driven organization, and more.

Relevant links from the interview:

We’d love your feedback! Let us know which topics you’d like us to cover and what you think of DataFramed by answering this 30-second surveyCheck out our upcoming webinar with AndyCheck out Andy's bookBecome a Tableau expert

The definitive reference book with real-world solutions you won't find anywhere else The Big Book of Dashboards presents a comprehensive reference for those tasked with building or overseeing the development of business dashboards. Comprising dozens of examples that address different industries and departments (healthcare, transportation, finance, human resources, marketing, customer service, sports, etc.) and different platforms (print, desktop, tablet, smartphone, and conference room display) The Big Book of Dashboards is the only book that matches great dashboards with real-world business scenarios. By organizing the book based on these scenarios and offering practical and effective visualization examples, The Big Book of Dashboards will be the trusted resource that you open when you need to build an effective business dashboard. In addition to the scenarios there's an entire section of the book that is devoted to addressing many practical and psychological factors you will encounter in your work. It's great to have theory and evidenced-based research at your disposal, but what will you do when somebody asks you to make your dashboard 'cooler' by adding packed bubbles and donut charts? The expert authors have a combined 30-plus years of hands-on experience helping people in hundreds of organizations build effective visualizations. They have fought many 'best practices' battles and having endured bring an uncommon empathy to help you, the reader of this book, survive and thrive in the data visualization world. A well-designed dashboard can point out risks, opportunities, and more; but common challenges and misconceptions can make your dashboard useless at best, and misleading at worst. The Big Book of Dashboards gives you the tools, guidance, and models you need to produce great dashboards that inform, enlighten, and engage.