2 key takeaways from the TED talk "Data is Worthless if You Don’t Communicate It" by Thomas H. Davenport

1. Data is Worthless if You Don’t
Communicate It

2. Based on the HBR article ‘Data is Worthless if You
Don’t Communicate It’
by Thomas H. Davenport

3. 2 Key Takeaways

4. 1.
There is a pressing need for
businesspeople who can
make data driven decisions

5. There’s a need of 1.5 million more data-savvy
managers to take advantage of all the data
being generated

6. But, as the saying goes “you don’t need to
become a winemaker to become a wine
connoisseur”

7. Managers do need to become better
consumers of data with a better appreciation
of quantitative analysis

8. 2.
Communicating the findings is
as important as discovering
them

9. Assuming that the results will “speak for
themselves” is a grave mistake to commit

10. For instance, consider the cautionary tale of
Gregor Mendel. Although he discovered the
concept of genetic inheritance, his ideas were
not adopted during his lifetime because he
only published his findings in an obscure
Moravian scientific journal

11. The lesson: if you’re going to spend the better
part of a decade on project, also put some
time and effort into disseminating the results

12. Dr. John Gottman, a well-known marriage
scientist at the University of Washington
developed a “marriage equation” predicting
how likely a marriage is to last over the long
term

13. This was great work in itself, but Gottman
didn’t stop there. He and his wife Julie
founded a non-profit research institute and a
for-profit organization to apply the results
through books, DVDs, workshops, and
therapist training

14. It helped them to influence
exponentially more
marriages through these
outlets than they could
possibly ever have done in
their own clinic

15. The lesson: “Data is a lens, a perspective on
real life that is grounded in something
tangible. Consider”

16. Disclaimer:
This presentation was created by Raminder
Singh, under an internship by Prof. Mathur,
IIM Lucknow