Join Avery on the latest episode of the Data Career Podcast as he sits down with Brent Dykes, the genius behind 'Effective Data Storytelling'. 🎙️

Discover the six game-changing elements of a data story, learn from the most common mistakes, and uncover the secrets to captivating your audience with every data presentation! 💡

Don't miss out on Brent's practical tips for transforming dull data into captivating stories – tune in now and take your data career to new heights! 🔥

✉️ Discover what we wish we knew about landing the dream job

⁠🤖 Data Analytics Answers At Your Finger Tips

Connect with Brent Dykes:

🤝 Follow on Linkedin

📙 Get the Effective Data Storytelling book

🤝 Ace your data analyst interview with the interview simulator

📩 Get my weekly email with helpful data career tips

📊 Come to my next free “How to Land Your First Data Job” training

🏫 Check out my 10-week data analytics bootcamp

Timestamps:

(03:57) Dive into Audience Psychology! (12:51) Master the Six Essential Elements! (19:08) Avoid Common Storytelling Mistakes! (26:52) Ace Job Interviews with Storytelling!

Connect with Avery:

📺 Subscribe on YouTube

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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!

To celebrate the end of the year, we’re running a special End-of-Year Sale, where you’ll get: ✅ A discount on your enrollment 🎁 6 bonus gifts, including job listings, interview prep, AI tools + more

If your goal is to land a data job in 2026, this is your chance to get ahead of the competition and start strong.

👉 Join the December Cohort & Claim Your Bonuses: https://DataCareerJumpstart.com/daa https://www.datacareerjumpstart.com/daa

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.

In this episode of DataFramed, we speak with Brent Dykes, Senior Director of Insights & Data Storytelling at Blast Analytics and author of Effective Data Storytelling: How to Turn Insights into Action on how data storytelling is shaping the analytics space. 

Throughout the episode, Brent talks about his background, what made him write a book on effective data storytelling, how data storytelling is often misinterpreted and misused, the psychology of storytelling and how humans are shaped to resonate with it, the role of empathy when creating data stories, the blueprint of a successful data story, what data scientists can do to become better data storytellers, the future of augmented analytics and data storytelling, and more. 

Relevant links from the interview:

Connect with Brent on LinkedInRegister for Brent's Webinar on DataCampCheck out Brent's Book

Master the art and science of data storytelling—with frameworks and techniques to help you craft compelling stories with data. The ability to effectively communicate with data is no longer a luxury in today’s economy; it is a necessity. Transforming data into visual communication is only one part of the picture. It is equally important to engage your audience with a narrative—to tell a story with the numbers. Effective Data Storytelling will teach you the essential skills necessary to communicate your insights through persuasive and memorable data stories. Narratives are more powerful than raw statistics, more enduring than pretty charts. When done correctly, data stories can influence decisions and drive change. Most other books focus only on data visualization while neglecting the powerful narrative and psychological aspects of telling stories with data. Author Brent Dykes shows you how to take the three central elements of data storytelling—data, narrative, and visuals—and combine them for maximum effectiveness. Taking a comprehensive look at all the elements of data storytelling, this unique book will enable you to: Transform your insights and data visualizations into appealing, impactful data stories Learn the fundamental elements of a data story and key audience drivers Understand the differences between how the brain processes facts and narrative Structure your findings as a data narrative, using a four-step storyboarding process Incorporate the seven essential principles of better visual storytelling into your work Avoid common data storytelling mistakes by learning from historical and modern examples Effective Data Storytelling: How to Drive Change with Data, Narrative and Visuals is a must-have resource for anyone who communicates regularly with data, including business professionals, analysts, marketers, salespeople, financial managers, and educators.

Once upon a time, in an industry near and dear, lived an analyst. And that analyst needed to present the results of her analysis to a big, scary, business user. This is not a tale for the faint of heart, dear listener. We're talking the Brothers Grimm before Disney got their sugar-tipped screenwriting pens on the stories! Actually, this isn't a fairy tale at all. It's a practical reality of the analyst's role: effectively communicating the results of our work out to the business. Join Michael and Tim and special guest, Storytelling Maven Brent Dykes, as they look for a happy ending to The Tale of the Analyst with Data to Be Conveyed. Tangential tales referenced in this episode include: Web Analytics Action Hero, Brent Dykes Articles on Forbes.com, The Wizard of Oz, Made to Stick, Data Storytelling: The Essential Data Science Skill Everyone Needs, The Story of Maths, and mockaroo.com.

Companies need more than just web analysts and data-savvy marketers to be successful–they need action heroes! While most of us never battle evil scientists or defuse nuclear warheads, successful web analysts benefit from the same attributes that fictional action heroes embody. As a web analyst, your main goal is to improve your organization’s online performance. You can become an “action hero” by translating analysis insights into action that generates significant returns for your company. How you approach analysis is critical to your overall success. In this book, web analytics expert Brent Dykes addresses the unique challenges facing analysts and online marketers working within small and large companies, teaching you how to move beyond reporting and toward analysis to drive action and change. Taking a principle-based rather than a tool-specific approach, Brent introduces you to the Action Hero Framework that breaks down the analysis process into three key stages: Prioritize (what to analyze), Analyze (how to analyze), and Mobilize (how to drive action). And he reinforces these topics with real-world examples and practical tips from seasoned analysts at leading companies. Defines the type of environment in which action heroes thrive–not just survive–as well as how to defeat the villains of web analytics that stand in the way Arms web professionals with a strategic framework for executing online analysis, as well as an arsenal of analysis techniques Reveals how companies need to be both data-driven and action-agile to drive business value from web analytics For more action hero resources and information, check out the book’s companion site at www.Analyticshero.com. "The ideas in this book will take you days (or even weeks) to work your way through, and they fly in the face of the emotional approach to marketing. The question is: would you rather have your competition lead the way with data and science when it comes to reaching your market, or are you going to go first? That's how it is with action heroes--no guts, no glory." - Seth Godin Author We Are All Weird "Don't let the jaunty, breezy style of this book throw you off. Brent successfully - and entertainingly - packs years of experience into these pages along with case studies and insightful help on getting the most out of web analytics, adding value to your company and boosting your career trajectory." - Jim Sterne Founder of eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, author of "Social Media Metrics" and Chairman of the Digital Analytics Association