Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
At the intersection of mathematics and business, Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic discovered her calling: helping people transform complex data into compelling stories. With credentials spanning applied mathematics and business administration, Knaflic honed her expertise through roles in banking, private equity, and Google's People Analytics team before founding Storytelling with Data, where she now teaches others the art of data presentation.
Throughout her career, Knaflic has observed a persistent challenge in business presentations: slides that fail to convey their intended message. Despite presenters having valuable insights to share, their points often get lost in a maze of excessive information and competing visual elements. The problem isn't just poor design – it's the fundamental disconnect between what presenters want to say and what their audiences actually understand.
Her solution is refreshingly straightforward: embrace simplicity and maintain unwavering focus. Each slide should serve a single, clear purpose, stripped down to its essential components. When presenting complex comparisons or temporal developments, Knaflic advocates for a methodical approach: using animation and narrative to build understanding piece by piece.
This step-by-step methodology transforms data presentation from an information dump into a guided journey. Rather than overwhelming audiences with multiple points simultaneously, presenters can lead them through a carefully constructed narrative path. It's an approach that recognizes a fundamental truth about human comprehension: people absorb information more effectively when it's presented in digestible segments rather than as a complete picture all at once.
In essence, Knaflic's philosophy suggests that the art of data presentation isn't about showing everything you know – it's about showing exactly what your audience needs to understand, one clear insight at a time.
NOTE: This is a summary of the chapter-opening vignette that appears exclusively in Chapter 17 of Business Communication Today, 16th Edition, by Bovee and Thill (Pearson).
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