Cole is known as the author of “storytelling with data“. She’s the voice behind the SWD podcast and the writer behind the popular SWD blog. SWD’s well-regarded workshops and presentations are highly sought after by data-minded individuals, companies, and philanthropic organizations all over the world.

If you’re heavily into data, you will love the community Cole and her team have created. It’s full of people who are passionate about presenting data where challenges and exercises make you stronger in the way you tell the story behind the numbers.

No matter how many books you write, courses you watch or exercises you finish, it’s all for nothing if you don’t immediately put what you learned into practice, into your daily work.

Communication should not always be looked upon as a soft skill. You can be very strategic and technical with the way you communicate data.

This can be the connecting factor between people who can work with data fluently, and the people who can communicate and use that data to convey a specific message.

Using color and text strategically to highlight the main focus and essence of what your data visualization is trying to illustrate immediately raises the value of what & how you’re presenting.

A short description underneath a graph or a colored highlight of the part of your chart that contains the main takeaway goes a long way. It helps your audience instantly understand your data so they can understand it and focus back on what you’re presenting.