Data Workshop

Hey, Mr. Winfield, how are you? I'm good. How about you? I'm so sorry. Were you having technical issues? Yeah. Yeah, I was I was just trying to log in and it wasn't working. I don't use WebEx too much, so, um. Yeah. Uh, it seems like we've all had, uh, similar issues, so I do apologize, uh, on behalf of of everyone, um, for all the technical issues. And thank you for, um, all the participants hanging on there with me until we have our guest speaker here with us today. Um, so, um, everyone, I'd like to introduce you all to Mr. Brad Winfield. He's a senior market researcher with MDRG, a boutique research firm based out of, uh, New Orleans. Um, and today he's going to talk to us about, um, how to tell a good story with the data that you have. And, um, Mr. Winfield for I think you should be able to, to share your screen or slides if you have any. Okay. Great. Let me set up. Okay. And as, um, he do that, I would like to point out that, um, you are um, muted. Uh, and uh, your camera is also turned off. I have no idea uh, what happened there. Um, with the video, uh, camera you there must be a setting error there. And so if you have any questions or comments, uh, for Mr. Winfield, uh, please, um, uh, have it in the inbox, uh, in the chat box, and I will moderate your Q&A. Um, uh, during, uh, Mr. Winfield presentation. Uh, Julia said. Sounds good. Thank you. Sheila. Uh, so, without further ado, um, Mr. Winfield, um, I'll let you take over. Hey. Great. Um, just getting settled right now. Sorry about that. Um.

Okay. Am I sharing my screen or no?

You were sharing your screen.

All right. Can you see this? Yep.

All right. As in.

All right. Let's get started. Sorry about that. Uh, technical difficulties, uh, I guess all morning. Um, so, as you professor mentioned, uh, my name is Brad Winfield. Um, you know, very nice to meet you all. Um, I spoke to, uh, I believe this class or another class a couple of years ago. Um, about research, design and questionnaire design. Um, and this year, I will be talking about, um, really how to, uh. Develop a story and create a research report that would be, um, impactful and engaging for your audience. So a little bit about me. I am the senior manager of quantitative research at MTG. Uh, variety of different experience in the research world. Um, I've been a researcher since probably 2020 ten, 2020 11 or 2011. Um. So, you know, I've, I've worked with, you know, different retailers. I work for major, major retailers, uh, in the finance industry, beverage space. Uh, I also worked in health care. Uh, and, you know, it it continues to build. So, you know, I work with non-profits as well and, you know, some some telecommunication companies. So a lot of, um. Variety there. Uh, and that's with MDRG and also with other companies that I also, uh, with them there too. Uh, you know, my step here. Uh, and so I like to start this off just to kind of make it a little bit interesting, but one fun fact about me, um. I have always traveled by bicycle, so cycled 350 miles in like five days on a camping trip. Um, and that's just, you know, one, one fun thing I like to do, I like to spend time days outdoor and outdoors and doing cycling and kayaking and whatnot. So, uh, you know, I had a fairly long trip, um, a couple of years ago.

All right, so what will we learn today? Uh. Three things. So first, how to structure a narrative. What's important behind that? Second, uh, how to visually communicate that narrative that you develop. And then we're going to. Look into common pitfalls that I see, uh, newer analysts, uh, run into whenever they're, uh, creating research reports for their first, first time.

All right. Any questions before I get started?

I don't see any questions in the chat box. Brad. Um, students, um, can everyone here, um, and see Mr. Brad Winfield?

Okay, so everyone says yes for the most part.

Okay. All right. To go. Perfect. All right. The first step to form your narrative.

You need to. But when you're looking into the research and looking at, um, why we did this research. Who I'm talking to. Uh, you must understand who your audience is. Uh, yeah. I'm sure you guys have heard this before. Um, but it's crucial that you understand where they're at in their mind. Space. Uh, in their, um. Process within the business objectives or research that they've they've been conducting prior to, uh, working with you. So, uh, a few key bullet points here. Uh, we want to understand, you know, is this a busy, uh, audience? For example, if I'm meeting with the CEO of a company and they only give me five minutes to talk, what am I going to talk to them about? And I'm going to leave. With what? What's important to them? Um, typically, in that case, I'd have, you know, just a one pager saying, here's what you need to know and here's why. And then another case would be. Do people know who I am? And I knew to this audience. Uh, and that's where you need to build credibility. And sometimes credibility is built by explaining, um, the process and why you did this and showing them that, um, you know, you know, what you're talking about and, um, you're providing the great result for them. And this kind of leads into the do they care about the process? Uh, sometimes people don't care. They just want you to get to it. Tell them what they need to know and that's it. Um, and just kind of gauging and measuring, measuring the, uh, audience that way. And then, you know, an additional one would be. Are they collaborating? You know, are we using this as a workshop? And we're discussing asking questions, building from this. Um, I was just on a call last week where we, you know. Showed the research and it actually became more of a discussion around okay, here's this slide. There's this slide. Now what do we do about it. And then for an hour we talked about, you know, recommendations and the issues that they're having and what we can move forward with based on these findings. And then. Finally, I think these are very fairly similar. But, you know, are we asking them to make a decision or take action? So, um, trying to really understand what are they going to do with the output of this research. And then, you know, going into convincing them to take that action.

Next step is to clean and organize your data. I know that sounds very exciting, but, uh. Uh, but really, you want to get rid of any bad responses? Um, you know, sometimes there are bad actors within your data set. Uh, outliers. Um, that might cause some issues whenever you're, you're reporting. So you want to get rid of those. Um, and then once that's done, you want to organize your data set so you can look at it and really understand, uh, through the data tables that you create. Um. What's. What's important, what data is telling us, and if there's any, you know, certain groups you want to look at. So once you have that clean data set and organized into data tables, uh, you'll be able to really start mapping out what's in what's interesting within the story. So, Margie, we do this all the time. Uh, we call this a mind mapping session. Um, and it's really. I had the clean data, I looked at the data and I wrote out several different points on what it's telling me and what's important to the client. So you know what this is? It's, you know, really looking at the big idea, the big picture, and then being able to explain that in 3 to 5 minutes. Um, you know, what's that story? How does it build and, and, uh, answer the research questions and objections that we have. From this? Uh, that's where you're going to build. Your key findings and key points that you want to talk about along the way. Um, so you have this big idea, but you need supporting points and evidence to say, this is why we are recommending this. And we believe this because the data shows this and this and this. And I put, uh, talk through it with someone else, uh, on this slide, because that's so important. Uh, you know, we. Like I said, MTG, we do this, but it's important to have someone that can be very, um, that can play devil's advocate for you. So, like, if you're going to be talking about a story, you want them to be like, well, uh, you know, I think it's XYZ. I think it's different in this, this case. And you want them to poke holes through your story because that's what your client's going to do. And so having that, you know, that additional voice within this process is very important that we do that like with at sometimes five people are on a call talking about, you know, the story behind it and kind of battling between what they believe and, and how they feel the story should go.

Okay. So next we're going to talk about telling your story with with visuals and data. Um, some of this might be pretty basic. Um, and then we're going to get into a little bit more, um, advanced tips and advice for you guys. So really talking about the basics, uh, you know, you want to start with a report template. So how is your, uh, PowerPoint presentation going to look? Um, you know, what fonts are you going to use? What colors? What branding? Um, you know, is there a certain slide design that I'm going to use? Am I going to have my key findings to the left and all the visuals to the right, or I'm going to have a standard, uh, report. So. And a lot of the times whenever I'm working with a client, that's one of the first things that we ask, uh, when we get into reporting, you have a template that you want us to use. So, like, well, um, you know, use a branded template. Uh, put the Ndg logo on it, obviously, and kind of move forward with that. Um, yeah. Rather than using, uh, the basic template that we created, uh, ourselves. So once you have that determined. Of how it's going to look and what colors you're going to use, what fonts, um. That's whenever you can start thinking about the visuals that you're going to use. So. There are plenty of different ones. But first I want to get into, you know, the general statement, the general slide that you're going to see. Now usually you have your key heading, key statement, your headline up here. That's 1 to 2 sentences about the slide. Sometimes I've seen you know it's just a title. Like if we're talking about brand awareness it would say brand awareness. And then the subtext explains you know what you want to talk about on that chart. And then below you have the chart title and then who we're talking to and the base size. And then you go up the chart and usually you'll see a question reference down here. Um, based on the. Question that you're talking about reporting on on this slide. So that's a very generic, um, slide template. But, um, you know, you can you can mess around with it, build it out the way you want. I've seen seeing, uh, instances usually the one that I really like is you have your key heading, key statement and subtext to the left. And then to the right, you have your visual and and, you know, any anything you're trying to explain? Uh, I think that's a nice layout, but. You know, for the most part you're going to see this type of, um, live format.

Now? Yes. Brad, I have a question, and I think a lot of the students may, um, are thinking the same. You know, we're towards the end of the semester now. They're putting together their final presentations, their final reports. Um, and in your template example, it shows one one charge. Um, if there are multiple, uh, hypotheses or multiple research questions. Do you recommend one chart per slide? That's a great question. So not always. It depends on what you're trying to say. So like you don't want to. Clutter a slide with too much data on it. So if you could put one slide, one chart on the slide and get your point across, that's fine. But you can also have other data points. So like you could have one visual and then maybe a few call outs. Um, you know, maybe some open end quotes. Um, you know, you can build that out. Um, but it's important to keep in mind not to make the slide messy, because really, what you want is, let's say someone's sitting at their desk and they're flipping through this thing. You want them to understand what you're having, what you're telling them right away. You don't want them to, you know, sit there for five minutes trying to figure out, you know, why this slide exists and like, and why they should care about it. Mhm. Thank you. Yeah.

So as I said, you guys are probably familiar with the types of bar charts and and visuals that are out there. But, uh, just wanted to give you a basic. Understanding of some of the common, uh, visuals that that I use whenever I'm reporting. So. The two most used visuals are the bar chart and the stacked bar chart. The stat. The bar chart is ten. I tend to use this whenever I'm comparing, like things that don't add up to 100%. So like let's say brand awareness, you know, you can be aware of many different brands. Um, so we're going to look at ten brands. I might be. I might have a, uh, sample that 85% of them are aware of one brand, and 50% of them are aware of another brand, and so on and so forth. So really good to use when you're comparing lists of things. And this could be either a vertical bar chart or a horizontal bar chart as I have here. Then stacked bar chart is whenever you're looking at anything that totals 100%. So like if you're using a scale, for instance, here I have the likelihood scale. Um, we're having you. Yeah, we're able to see the percentage of those that are very likely compared to those that are very unlikely. And it's easy to have all of this adds up to 100% in a really digestible, uh, visual.

Next simple text. I think simple text gets overlooked so often, but it's so powerful. I say that because you can be having simple text just pop into one of your slides after, you know, seeing and slides with no charts all over it, and then you want to really pull across, um, something that's important, like 90% of the population, you know, does x, y, z. You can call this out by using simple text, uh, and then any supporting points underneath it. Um, I've done that. I usually do that and watch every presentation. Um, and it allows for, uh, to build an interest in the slides and, um, really get your point across rather than having someone try to understand what they need to know from a chart.

And then the other three. Use these a little bit less often, but still use them. Um, you know, table, uh, tables are really good at being able to compare different groups of people. And it's I typically use that, um. So in the case, I don't want any chart to be too, um, overwhelming. And sometimes with it, just having a table and being able to compare it that way is it's a great solution. Uh, you don't want to have too many tables, though, because, you know, you're you're trying to inform people. You aren't giving people a data set for them to walk through and, and read for themselves. Um, so we use that sparingly. And then, uh, a line chart. Um, I feel like line charts. They get. People get confused with these sometimes. I think. For me what I do. I always and only use a line chart whenever I'm talking about, uh, series and time. So you can see here I have Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. Uh, so that's a series and time. So you want to be able to follow how sales are doing over time? Um, I've seen newer analysts use this kind of as like a bar chart and say, well, here's brand one, and this is where they perform his brand to and here's a that it just gets it's easier whenever you're just looking over time. Um, and it makes more sense than most people uh when you're using line chart that that way. And then the scatter plot. I feel like this is extremely valuable. Um, I would say.

Seven out of ten times. Whenever I'm on a call with a client and we have a scatter plot like this, it brings up a lot of conversation because you can visually understand where their brand sits, um, and, uh, among a list of different attributes. So you can see here that this brand that we're measuring. Most people view them as trustworthy and offering a clear perspective. And we see on the vertical axis that is trustworthy, where worthy is the most important attribute. So really gets people starting to talk. Um, and then you kind of focus on some of the lower performing attributes that might be. You know, a little bit more important. And that's where you start talking about, okay, how can we improve transparency. Um, focus on that trustworthy element of, of our brand.

Right. So what about the pie chart? Everyone's probably like, you didn't show a pie chart. Pie charts. People. People get confused with pie charts. Um, and I'm not saying completely avoid them. They're okay every now and then, but, like, you don't want to have. A lot of pie charts within your your report because it can confuse people and it gets a little bit muddy. Um, and most of the time, there's a better way to visually represent what you want to say on. On uh, from this pie chart, uh, different graph. Um, yeah. So like, for example. Let's look at what do I want to say here? I want to say that really a third of people. Are using online as their primary, uh, news source. So a resource or channel that they use for news. So how I can reimagine this and still use a pie chart? Um, but not necessarily this model. I can just show a donut chart and call out that 35%. And say, you know, third, primarily access local news online. It's more straightforward than, you know, going through. All of this trying to figure out what I want to talk about. What? What does this red mean? What does this green mean? I it might not seem like much, but whenever you are, you only have a few moments to really get to the point. Um, something like this is appropriate. Um. So that's something to consider. Um, yeah. And and recap here. Don't have too many pie charts. Um, and in that case, you know, look at different alternatives to that.

So now we. Know all about the visual as we know about the basics. Um, we have a story, but now it's time to. We have a story, but it's time to make it visual and really understand. How we are going to follow through this map. Follow through with the map that we created during that session. That. So typically you're going to start with an intro background information like why is the research done? Uh, when who was our sample. Um, and then key insights. Key insights can also flip to the back. Um, you know, it varies on how you're going to be presenting it. But, um, generally I like to give a little snippet between. This is what we learned real quickly. And this is what we, um, this is why we believe, you know, these findings. So you're going to, um, go through 8.2 supporting points of supporting point to build up on those key insights to go into those recommendations. So yeah, this is a quick outline here. It may differ depending on um, you know your.

Type of study you're working on, but generally this is how it goes.

All right. Hey, Bren. Yes. Um, I have a question from one of our students here. Um, from Megan. She asked in the chat box. What is your favorite visual software tool? Uh, to use or, uh, that you find most useful in your in your work. Yeah. Um, mainly we use PowerPoint. Um, you know, PowerPoint has its restrictions, but I think most people, um, or most companies, they have access to PowerPoint, uh, access to Microsoft. Um, so. I would say just default, um, working on working with PowerPoint, but I've worked on other visualization tools. Um, display here is a really good one. Um, that's where you can build dashboards and reports. Um. Tableau's good. Uh, I said good because. Tableau. It takes a bit of lift to get used to how they organize data and look at data and and read it. So there's a lot that you can do with Tableau, but it just takes some time to learn all of it. Yeah. They are learning Tableau and and they're in mixed courses. So um, they'll have that tool in their tool belt um as well. Yes. And Tableau. Um. Most of the time if I'm doing like a visual of a geography, like, for example, like we do a lot of work in Louisiana, like I will create a map and Tableau and talk about like, okay, we talked about this parish and, you know, do visuals that way. Uh, to really introduce, um, you know, any differences by parish or sample differences. Um, I use Tableau for that because it's a great resource there.

All right, so, um. Now. Shifting the attention a bit. So I talked about, um, you know, building this map, following the map. Um, working through these different types of visual options that we have. And. What do we want to do? Like, what's the point of the report? Right. Point of the report is to make sure we are explaining what we learned from the research and calling out those important. Um. Important findings. So you want to gently guide people to what they're, what you want them to focus on, on, on each slide. So there are, um. Six common, you know, I guess recommendations that that I use often and that's yeah, the diversity of color, um, the intensity of color line with uh, adding on an icon. So for example, if I was doing a line chart, um, for my brand that I'm, I'm tracking, I would have, you know, a diamond shape here and everyone else would be just, uh, flat, you know, circle or flat line, um, size. Uh, you kind of saw this earlier whenever I was talking about the the, uh, the simple text where I had 100% of, uh, people agree and like, people agree was a little bit lower. Having that 100% make it a little bit bigger stands out. And then we have call out. So I want to look at three of these. So. As I mentioned. Um. The three up here are widely used. I use them most.

I was doing this and creating this and I realized I actually have four. So we have. Color here. So you see how I have black here? I want people to know how many we're looking at. So change the color of the text. And you, you've seen that throughout this entire report that allows people to draw their attention to whatever the main point is you want to make. I have lined with here, um, you know, creating a thicker line. Um, really trying to highlight something, making it stand out. And then I have intensity. So we have these colors as the standard colors. From here. And then we muted them. Down here. And then the last call out or the last one was. Call out. So this is call up. So, um. Just wanted to, uh, share that with you. Um, four key examples. I also want to go into a little bit more detail on, uh, line with. So.

We're looking at this. This graph again that I showed you guys earlier. Um, and we're seeing a lot of different things in it. Um, you know, we're looking at division sales by quarter. Um, we see these three divisions. You see these guys increasing this division to decrease in. But it can get a little bit murky, especially if you have more than three divisions. Like whenever I worked for Joanne, I think we had had, um. Well, I think six divisions. So, um. It can get a little bit. A little bit busy. So if you're trying to make a point about Division two. What you can do is create this thick line here for Division two, and then create an average of everything else. So, you know, I don't know why these this didn't pull through. My apologies, but, um. Yeah. So you have the average here and then Division two. And then what I had on this slide. Originally, I don't know, like I said, I don't know why it didn't pull through. I had. These numbers for uh, Q2, Q3, and Q4 were a little bit bigger and bolded than the other numbers to call out that there's a gap between the average. And Division two. Because that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about. You did really well in Q2. And then. Towards the end of the year. You just fell off. And what's the issue there?

Any questions before we get into common pitfalls?

I have another question. Um, you had mentioned about using, uh, PowerPoint. Um, do you recommend students start out with their tables, um, and charts in Excel spreadsheet first, and then embed or copy over to PowerPoint or build it out in PowerPoint all together? Yeah, I, I prefer building it out in PowerPoint altogether. Um, I just feel like. Having it linked gets a little bit tricky and it can cause some issues I've seen, but it's really all, all preference. Um, you know, but uh, I built it out within PowerPoint itself. Um, so, but, you know, you could preferred another way. Okay. Um, we have another student. Uh, Morgan, ask, uh, how many words or bullet point do you normally put on each slide when there's a table or chart, or do you just verbally explain those, uh, um, tables and charts? Yeah. So you are. You're a step ahead of me. So, um, I was I will talk about that in this next section. So.

See a Canva question.

I. It disappeared. Uh, yes. Jasmine, ask. Um, are you familiar with Canva? If so, do you see that it's being used more now in presentations? Or is PowerPoint still typically the industry standard? Yeah, PowerPoint is still the industry standard. I've Canva I've heard great things about it. Um, at my previous job, um, we had some teams that use Canva, but like. Let's say a lot of the clients that I work with, you know, they're using PowerPoint. So we we provide them whatever they're using and they're comfortable with. So we use have parts and everything that comes with PowerPoint. Um, but I've heard great things about Canva though.

Thank you. Oh. So. Going into the common pitfall. Uh, I've seen this happen from time and time again among, you know, senior analysts to junior analysts. Um, you know, it's just these are things to watch out for whenever you're creating your, your charts. And as researchers, I think we get really excited about, like, here's the data. The data is speaking to us. And I wouldn't tell people everything about the data. Um, and whenever you're thinking of, um, your end user or your end client, they might only care about one thing. So, um, really trying to avoid, um, some of the issues that I see, you know, coming along. Um. You know, when we're writing reports. So. The number one issue. And I don't think any of these are really in chronological order except this one. So not understanding how the findings will be used. So up. And typically like at the beginning of the research process, that's whenever you're identifying why they need research why you're doing this. Um.

Most, I would say most of the time. It takes some digging to really understand, like what's the underlying motivation for doing this work? Um, and that's where you need to ask yourself these different types of questions. Um, yeah. What? And how so? And this will help you build the report and add value. So what? Meaning what has my client done in the past? What strategies are they currently doing? So are they for example. Are they spending money on advertising on the West Coast? If not, we can speak to that within the report. Um, you know. What are they expecting from the report? This kind of goes back to, um. What I was saying about knowing your audience. It's like, are they expecting just a one page report with. Here are the key findings. Or are they expecting, um, a detailed process or a detailed report on the process? Then finally ask yourself how? How? Meaning? How will this benefit my client and how? Well. They use this data. So. You know, knowing what they've done in the past will inform the how. Um, for example, uh, concept testing. So where you're testing different advertising messages. Um, you know, maybe some video messages. Um. You want to know if those are already in market or not? Because if they aren't already in market or if they are in market. Your recommendation is okay. Well, you can edit this back a little bit. You can change this. You can put a different scene in here to really, uh, resonate a little bit more. If they. Aren't in market. You can say do not. Do not share this ad because no one likes it. It's garbage. So you wouldn't know how to say it's garbage to a client, but you know. But, um. Yeah. So you would go. It would take that approach. Um, by knowing how they're going to use it and what they've done in the past.

Another one. This is one that I see from time to time, especially in newer researchers. They have their survey. And there's question one. Question two. Question three. And then they just report the question and question and question every step of the way up in the report. And sometimes that makes sense. Like for example, if you're talking about brand awareness, you want to know about unaided awareness and awareness. General awareness. Um because those. Those who work with one another. But to really create a narrative, you're going to be working off of different findings that you find throughout the research process. And it's not necessary or not necessarily in the order, um, of the survey that you wrote.

And then you're really choosing the visuals that are difficult to understand. Um, yeah. Again, going back to the point that we want. Our client to easily understand what we're saying to them and what we want them to know. So looking at this. This is. This is not cool. Like you don't know what to take out of this because we have so many attributes on one slide. And even if I expanded this to the whole size of the slide, it still is a lot of data that I really.

Know how to make such a recommendation. That I have is whenever you have a long list of attributes, what you can do to make your life easier and the lives of your clients easier is, uh, really break them up in common groups. So we see we have these personality attributes here. Friendly. Approachable. Pioneering. Inventive. These are much easier to understand, and you can see clearly that the purple brand is leading the way here. Uh, and the green brand is kind of trailing, um, uh, um, slightly. So really making it easier for people to. Comprehend.

Back to the doughnuts and pie charts. If you do use a donut or a pie chart, it should total 100%. Um, I don't. And in, uh, PowerPoint. It will allow you to put like 45% in here when that's way over. 100%. 120. Here. Um, what you can do in that case is cringe. Traditional bar graph and show. Um, show the data that way. Search and try to re reimagine it that way.

And then vertical axis. This. This is something that, um, happens quite often. Um, what I like to do is have all my axes on 0 to 100%. Um, so it's it's standard across the report. Here. I think this access is like zero to like 15 or something. So what we see here is 12% looks huge. It looks like the brand is doing great with 12%, but really ten and 12%. That's not much of a difference. So it's a little bit deceiving. So just reformatting and updating the axis and. That allows you to really show that. Yeah. Ten 1210. That's that's there about the same.

But I think it's, um, also the same when you're showing, um, charts for like, skills, like likelihood. You know, if it's a scale point from 1 to 7, you really should make the axes 1 to 7 or 0 to 7, two to be consistent across all the, the, the skills. Yeah. You know, you don't want anything to be deceiving, right. Again. Like it's not like this isn't deceiving in the sense of like intentional deception, but like it's just you want to make sure everything is standard across the the report.

Messy slides. I've. As he slides drive me crazy. I, as someone that came from the corporate side of research and seeing people present, um, non research slides. It's. It just drives me crazy. And I know I'm not the only one because, you know, other people say, I don't understand this. What is this person trying to communicate? Um, so. This is a messy slide. So. You can see here that, um, there's a lot going on, right? Um, you know, the format, this is not aligned with what we've seen on other slides. The text is different. This is a different font. Different color. Um, you know, a lot of different things. Going back to the bullet points that we want to talk about. Yeah, typically this is way too many words. Um, way too many words to be put on a slide. Usually you want 2 to 3 sentences within your subtext or your header. Um. To explain. What you want. Explain your key finding. Um. You know. And. I say that because. You know, uh, let me step back. I say this because. I learned while I was in my grad school that let's imagine you have a stakeholder that receives a paper copy of your report, and they only have 5 seconds or 5 minutes to read through it. It's 60 pages long. If they can read only the headlines. They should be able to take away everything that you wanted to communicate, um, within the report. And they should be able to take it away in a chronological order. So it makes sense, as if it's following that narrative that you created at the beginning of the process. So short. Short bullet points, short sentences, um, and chronological chronological order. That makes sense with the narrative. All right, enough with this snazzy slide. Here's a better slide. So, um. As you can see, I made a lot of updates here. Um, yeah. We no longer have that access over here. We don't have those lines here. There's a little bit of organization. I got rid of, um, you know, that big table here that was. I forgot to mention, this is a big. This is a big one that drives me insane is whenever people put a chart or a table and it goes over the logo of the brand, I it's I learned that whenever I had my first research job, um, whenever I was meeting with one of the VP's, he's like, you never want to cover the brand, never want to cover the brand. So, um. Yeah, that's just something that stuck with me since I was like 23 or so. Um, but. I digress. So, um, going here, you know, much better. Slide. Um, yeah. As I mentioned, pro tip, I'll include 2 to 3 sentences in your header or sub header. Um, and make it easy for people to understand. Um, you don't want them to have too much of a mental lift.

And I. This is a messy slide, but this is just for example, of like everything that has gone wrong on the initial slide. Uh, like I said, too many words. Uh, results actually are not in order, so I didn't call that out. So you can see here. Oh, yeah, we have this, these brands. This is doing the best. This is doing the worst. This is doing the worst. It's a lot easier for people to understand how brands are performing if you put it in order of highest to lowest. That might not always be the case, but whenever it is, that's whenever you would do highest the lowest. So allowing people to. Read the data a little bit better. You know, I had a missing page number. Missing question over here. Um, yeah, I have this table. Realize this table wasn't necessary because these are themes I just grabbed to open ends that reflected those themes. Put them up here.

Wrapping up. So whenever you're writing a report, developing it, designing it. Uh, keep in mind, make life easy for those that are reading it. You want to. Direct them to what you're saying. Um. And then. You know, in review. Um, you know, we want to first understand the background of the project, uh, develop a strong narrative and map it out. As I said, if you have the opportunity to talk to someone and have them bet out, you know what you're trying to say. Um. They're use the visuals to really explain that narrative. And fourth, you want to draw attention to what you want, uh, people to learn. Right. So.

That's it in a nutshell. I could go on and on about different research and different, um, design techniques. Uh, but I only had a half an hour. Uh, so. Thank you. Uh, I'd love to open it up for questions now. Brad, thank you so much for pointing it out to make it easier for the reader, because I'm the reader for most of this data back. Uh, thank you. But I think we also have, uh, Doctor Zim, uh, Zimmer on the call to you. And he teaches data visualization. And so, um, I'm pretty sure he's also grateful, um, uh, for you mentioning to make it easier for the reader, um, and putting together your report, our presentation. Um, so, yes, students, if you have any questions, please drop it in the chat box. Uh, I have a couple coming in already. Um, we have a question from Emma asking, uh, when picking, uh, colors for your report, do you think it's important to match the color scheme to the color scheme of the business you're presenting to, or is it more important just to be cohesive? Yeah. Um, typically, I like to. Be on point with, um, the brand. So try to, uh, reflect that as much as possible. Um, if they don't provide me with with a template, um, and I leave online, I forget what it's called, but you can, you can identify like. What the skew would be or the, the the number for that color. Um. There was an I can't remember what it's called, but, um, there's a tool out there that you can can understand which, um. Which color wave you want to use. And then, um, even font. So like I've, I've had to do reports where. I didn't have the the font of the the brand. I'd either have to ask them for that font style, or I had to get something as close as possible to it, or try to find a replacement online. Um. So, for example, Brad, if the students were presenting on behalf of USM, um, they would they would choose a color scheme that matches our black and gold colors. Do you agree or do you think that it should be more focus on. Okay. I'm, um, presenting on behalf of USM, but let's go with the color scheme of our client. Client or your client. Um, you know, and. And that's. I. Yeah, eight times out of ten. Client. Um, you know, I feel that's much more appropriate. Um, and that allows them to share, uh, the report internally. Um, especially if you're working with a research team. Um, and they. Want to, um, have things consistent to what Dave. Dave reported on in past. Okay. Thank you. Um, our next question is from Ashland. What's your favorite PowerPoint tip or trick that most people don't know about, but can elevate your presentation instantly? Yes, um, I like. The. I like the design. As I said earlier, just the design of a certain flow of, um. Reporting. So like having. The text to the left, like where a thank you is. And then to the right, having, you know, a chart. And I just feel like it flows really well and it's different than, you know, what other people are used to rather than the traditional. Um, yep. Keep finding that top visual in the middle. Um, so I think that's a good tip. And then, um, really taking advantage of, uh, text visualization whenever it's appropriate.

That's a great tip. Um, we have a two part question from Meghan. Um, she wants to be a marketing analyst. Who? Um, she's currently getting her certificate in Google Analytics through Coursera. Is this a good starting point for her? Um, what else could she be practicing or doing better to prepare herself for the career? Yeah. Um, yeah. I think any type of education is great. Um, you know, uh, I think whenever I'm hiring, um, new analysts, I really look into, um. Adaptability and growth and curiosity. Um, so continue to, um, you know, build on your curiosity and learning and expanding on what you already know. Um, and then lastly, uh, communication's huge, huge. I, I never thought the amount of writing that I would do whenever I was a freshman in college or junior in college, the amount of writing that I would be doing for research. Um, so, you know, the better communicator you are, um, the more likely you are to land to land a job. Um, so keep on working on those skills. Awesome. And her second part question is if she wants to learn, ah, um, HTML or Python. What would be a good way to introduce herself to these programs? Yeah. Um, so, uh. I have a website that I can't remember what it is. Um, there are plenty of websites out there that will give you that information. Um, you know, one thing that I've done in a lot of. Programming language. I've used, um, ChatGPT to kind of like. Guide me in the right direction. Uh, because we use the software where we program a lot of, uh, the HTML and JavaScript. Um, and I'm not a coder like, I, I don't know so much about it, but, like, I know the basics. Um, and then whenever I run into an issue, I can. Use ChatGPT and then learn from that and then really continue to build on that. Um, because it's not like I'm using ChatGPT to do all the work for me. I use it to say I'm, I'm having an issue right now that I've been trying to work through, and I can't, but I know there's a solution. No one ever know that there's an easy solution. I can mark it off and use it for my next project. Um. Uh, Doctor Zim also agrees. He says yes, I call it, quote, reduce the reader's cognitive bird burden. Yes, yes. And things like that are for the reader. Um, he also mentioned. So as long as the client isn't using like red, green, uh, in their color, green or blue, yellow to a lesser degree. Um, we have another question from, uh, Sheila. She asks, do you feel like the data you go through seems to be a lot of research jargon? Uh, that you have to speak it in simple terms for the clients? Or is it fairly easy when it comes down to giving presentations and your story with the data you receive, the story that you wish with the data you receive? Yeah. It depends on what? Um. Methodology and types of analysis you're doing? Um, yeah. If you're if you're talking about like a general satisfaction, um, study, most people understand it. Same with like a concept test. It's very easy to say, you know, this concept one. And this is why, um, when you get into, like, a little bit more advanced, like regressions, um, and have max diff and conjoint, um. You want to try to make it. Easy enough for someone to understand, but you don't want to go too far. Like, for example, conjoint analysis. There's. I have a book right to my left that is an entire book on conjoint analysis. Client doesn't want to know that. You just need to do. You just need to say this is what this methodology. Methodology looks like. And this is what the output would be. And that's simple enough and okay. I think related to that is, um, a question from Morgan. She asks, do you normally report data that is, uh, not significant, uh, or surprising results, or do you normally only share results that are statistically significant? Uh, because no results? Uh, better answer or tell. Also tell a story. Yeah. So we do call out significance, but we also will report those that don't have a significant difference. Um, you know, just, uh, I feel like if you're talking about a brand list, the client typically wants to see most of their competitors. So see how they're performing. And you know, if we see that competitor one is at 15% and 12% the next quarter. So that's not that may not be significantly different. But we know that they're maintaining the same level that they have. Um, and then. We would call out directly using um, notation that, um, you know, this brand exceeded last quarter or so, like you would use a mix. Um, but I'm not completely getting rid of anything that's insignificant. Um, that's a really good point. Um, um, I tell my students, too, it's not, um, about whether you pass, you know, this paper or presentation. Um, because of significant results, it doesn't matter if you have significant or non-significant results. It's about how you interpret those results.

Um, I have a question from Kirsten. Um, she asks, um, how would you make the most important topic stick out to the audience? Um, assuming this is for a presentation. Um, Kirsten, if you could care to elaborate in the chat box, that would be great. But I'm assuming how do you make that most important topic stick out to the students in a in a presentation? Yeah, in the presentation, hopefully you're going to be building. Building the presentation around that most important topic. So, um, you can talk about, um, bringing it up at the, at the front end of it. And so we've learned we did a lot throughout this project, but we really understood that we really found out XYZ about this topic. And at first we're going to talk to you about the smaller, smaller findings. But then the second half of this we're going to really get into, um, diving into what we found out for this. Very important. So. Finding and then talking about solutions and recommendations. Yeah. Um, I like to think that when you're telling, um, a story or a cohesive story that there's a clear beginning, middle and end. So I think when you touch on those three points of the story, it drives the importance of that topic.

Um, we have a question from Ryan. Um, do you think any other software will overtake PowerPoint as the industry standard in the future? He's curious if, uh, you have tried to to have each side take about the same amount of time to discuss as well. Yeah. Um. For this software, I don't know. I'm not too sure. Um, I think that's. I'm. Not qualified for that because I don't know if like, uh, I don't know much of the inner workings of the, uh, tech industry, but, um. So what was the second piece? I think the second piece is about the rule of thumb, of how to spend each, uh, how much time to spend on each slide. Um, for example, if you have, uh, 15 minute presentation to give. Uh, my rule of thumb to the students is spend no more than, um, a minute per slide so that you would have no more than 15 slides. Yeah, I, I don't. For me personally, I don't have, uh, rule of thumb, I have.

Are you explaining? What are you telling the client? What they need to know? And are you doing it briefly? And are you highlighting those key points? Um, because like there are certain instances where we might go on to slide, uh, and we might stay on that slide for ten minutes because we're having a conversation about, you know, what the data is telling us. Um, so I don't really have a rule of thumb there, but, like, I would just bring it back to you. Are you helping the client? Are you telling them what they need? And is there anything you can cut because you don't want to let it be the water between what you're trying to communicate?

Thank you so much, Brad. We have one last question before our time here is over. Um, and it's a question from Lane. Uh, he asks beyond references and citations. Do you have any personal recommendations on how to share additional information about your study or methods or results from a presentation or report? So like a QR code or link tree, uh, to those supplemental materials.

Like what I shared or uh, or on how to share additional information about your, your your findings or your methods. Yeah. Um, I typically put that in the appendix. Uh, so it's all in one place. Um, um. And. If someone is, um, interested in, like. Yeah. For the raw data source. You know, the raw data file. Um, I do provide that to clients sometimes. Um, yeah. It's rare whenever they, they do ask, but yeah, there's 2 or 3 clients, uh, pop in my head that they always want a raw data, um, file and data tables. So, um, you know, usually any, like, going back, usually anything that is. Yeah, helpful, but not part of the story would go into the appendix and then. Yeah, any additional you could email out to people. Okay. Well thank you so much. Um, Mr. Wonderful for your presentation today. And I, uh, I, um, on behalf of the faculty, faculty, staff and students here at USM, we are so grateful for your time and your insights to storytelling with data. There's a lots of students in the chat, um, thanking you as well. Um, um, we hope you have a great rest of your day and, uh, uh, Thanksgiving holiday as well. Yeah. You do. Thanks for having me. Um, really happy that I was able to, um, share my knowledge. Always, always welcome you to, uh, to share your insights, uh, with our students. All right, you guys. Bye, everyone. Take care.