IDG Contributor Network: Data without emotion doesn't bring about change

"There is no evidence that anybody has been converted by a pie chart."

So said Martin Palmer, secretary general of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, on BBC’s “Beyond Belief” in June.

He went on to say "People are converted by stories, by narrative, by emotion, by an appeal to the heart."

This was a discussion about climate change and the Pope’s encyclical on the issue. Palmer's opinion is a serious indictment against those of us who try to use data to make change. As Palmer states, data analysis often doesn’t drive the change we hope it will.

Consider also the terrible Syrian refugee crisis affecting the Middle East and Europe. This tragedy had received a lot of attention from data journalists (e.g. The Economist back in Jan 2013), but the public didn’t truly engage until we saw the shocking photo of the drowned toddler on the beach. The impact of that single photo transformed public awareness in a way thousands of charts in news stories had not.

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