LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
Presenting Effective Marketing Measurement with Gary Angel of Digital Mortar
While it’s easy to understand the importance of data for businesses, presenting that data is often the Achilles heel for many analysts.
Working with the data comes easy but finding ways to tell the data story in a way that reaches the audience is often a cause of stress.
Today’s episode is different from the norm as Gary brings his own questions and a PowerPoint challenge for me, putting me in the hot seat for part of the interview!
Gary Angel is a legend in the digital analytics field. More than a thought leader, he is a guide for thousands of analysts in maturing their business savvy and technical acumen.
He is the CEO and Founder of Digital Mortar, a company providing cutting edge measurement and analytics tools for optimizing physical spaces and tracking the in-store customer journey to help optimize store layout, merchandising, and staff performance.
Besides publishing more than twenty whitepapers on digital analytics, he is a frequent speaker and in 2012, he won the Digital Analytics Association Award for Excellence and The Most Influential Industry Contributor.
He is the host of the Measurement Minute podcast and is the creator of the Semphonic Xchange Digital Analytics Conference, now known as Digital Analytics Hub.
In this episode, Gary shares his valuable insights on presenting data, the importance of listening, and exceptional strategies for communicating complex models..
In This Episode, You’ll Learn…
- How Gary’s strengths have always been measuring marketing effectiveness, but not presenting that measurement
- His surprising love of challenging audience questions.
- The one effective trick Gary uses to turn presentation fear around
- Lea’s valuable insight into the importance of visual tools when presenting.
- Lea’s on-the-spot analysis of Gary’s PowerPoint, one of the biggest moments on the PBM podcast!
- The important benefits of having a senior advocate in your court
- Gary’s valuable advice about working on the things that scare you
Gary’s Upgrade:
- “It doesn’t matter how good your presentation looks if you don’t have something important to say. Many analysts don’t have the courage to disagree with the client. No one likes delivering bad news, but you have to be willing to put yourself out there sometimes.”
How to Keep Up with Gary:
People, Books, and Resources Mentioned:
- Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations by Scott Berinato
- Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina
- Listen to my interview with Scott Berinato.
- Listen to my interview with Dustin Mathews.
- Olivia Mitchell’s Presenting by Boxes framework
- Lea’s Appearance at Nonprofit Innovation & Optimization Summit
Thanks for Listening!
Thanks so much for joining me. Do you have some feedback you’d like to share or a question for Gary? Leave a note in the comments below, and we’ll get back to you!
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the left of the post.
If you liked what you heard, I would love if you could leave me a rating or review in iTunes. Ratings & reviews are extremely appreciated and very important in the rankings algorithm. The more ratings, the better chance of fellow practitioners getting to hear this helpful information!
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates and never miss a show.
A special thank you to Gary for joining me this week.
And as always, viz responsibly, my friends.
Do you have a burning question for Gary about data analytics or presenting?
Lea Pica: [00:00:01] What's up guys. Lea Pica here. Today's guest is a legend in the digital analytics field whose wisdom seems practically heaven sent. Stay tuned to find out who's making a cameo on the present beyond measure show episode 44.
Lea Pica: [00:00:41] Hey guys welcome to the forty-fourth episode of the present as measure show The only podcast at the intersection of presentation data visualization and analytics. This is the place to be if you're ready to make maximum impact and create credibility through thoughtfully presented insights.
Lea Pica: [00:02:43] All right so I am really excited about today's guests I know I'm excited about all of my guests but the reason I'm excited about today's guest is because he is truly a thought leader in the digital analytics industry there are so many people that look up to him and I absolutely can tell why his knowledge is unmatched. When it comes to learning how to be a stellar digital analyst and it turns out he's a really friendly and approachable standup kind of guy. So I was really privileged to have him on and there was a little twist I got to help him with something on the show it was a first. So definitely stay tuned and find out what that is.
Lea Pica: [00:04:38] Hello Hello. Today's guest is a legend in the digital analytics space. He's more than a thought leader he is a guide for thousands of digital analysts and maturing their business savvy and their technical acumen. And as CEO and founder of Digital Mortar, he leads all aspects of their growth and development. Digital Mortar provides cutting edge measurement and analytics tools for optimizing physical spaces so they specialize in tracking the in-store customer journey. In addition to publishing more than 20 white papers and digital analytics, he speaks at conferences all over the world including SMX, emetrics, text analytics, the D.A.A. symposium series. He won the Digital Analytics Association award for excellence as the most influential industry contributor in 2012. He's the host of the Measurement Minute podcast and the creator of the groundbreaking Exchange Digital Analytics Conference which incarnated as Digital Analytics Hub. And I had the honor of delivering the keynote at last October that is a really spectacular event. So please welcome the Gary Angel Hello.
Gary Angel: [00:05:49] Thank you so much. That was a great keynote too by the way I intended attended every year it's been in existence and I really enjoy it too. I thought your keynote was terrific. So, it's great to be here.
Lea Pica: [00:06:01] Well thank you. I mean that's a high compliment coming from you. And I'm just for some backstory. We finally cross paths. I think it was the Marketing Evolution Experience in Vegas last year and we got to talking about analytics and data viz platforms and I was so glad that we finally made this happen and I really got so tickled when you mentioned me on your podcast from that keynote and I was like wow I that just happened. It's surreal.
Gary Angel: [00:06:33] I'll tell you the truth I mean I I spend a lot of time doing the analytics obviously and I've been a long time but one of the things I've always struggled with I'm not a really visual person, I'm a terrible design person. The hardest thing for me was never I started out as a programmer the hardest thing for me was never doing analytics. It was never thinking about the analytics it was never coming up with recommendations. It was always presented well I think that's always been my perspective the hardest struggle. And in this profession, I don't think I'm alone that way which is why I think what you do is so incredibly valuable for most of us.
Gary Angel: [00:07:08] This is the single hardest thing that we do. It's not the analysis it's not diving in and doing machine learning. It's not working with the numbers. It's finding ways to tell the story in ways that are understandable to people and that's friggin hard. And I frankly while I struggle with it personally.
Lea Pica: [00:07:24] Well I mean I love that you're expressing you know where your strengths lay and where those opportunities exist and for me, it's kind of backward. You know I was a great analyst but by no means, a data scientist or a machine learning expert storytelling seemed to come a lot more naturally to me than those. But all of it I think comes down to recognizing where you don't have the tools already and the natural affinity or talent. But I mean all of these skills had to be taught from somewhere. It's just that when people think of it's almost automatic to think of analytics training when you enter a role like this but it's not necessarily automatic to think oh I'm going to need storytelling training too because I'm going to be asked to make people care about what I do that is so true.
Gary Angel: [00:08:13] I think one of things I realized is that you can tell how long someone's been in the business by sort of the things they complain about realized you know and people start it's all about why I need to learn these tools that I need to learn how to do this out of the other thing from a skill perspective and I know they're just starting out at that point and then if they'd been doing it for a while and here I need to learn how to tell stories better I know they've been working and trying to do it because that's the kind of thing you don't hear from people who are just beginning. You only hear from people who've done it and been frustrated by the challenges around. They feel like you know what I did good analysis. I came up with interesting stuff right but it just didn't convey to people and I couldn't get that last mile to be nearly as effective. And it was up here but it wasn't out there in the documents or the PowerPoint of the presentations I did and I think that's way more common for people to struggle with than it is to be a signpost that they've actually done the work and have put in the sweat to realize where their struggles are. What's really hard.
Lea Pica: [00:09:09] Oh my gosh absolutely. I mean the first element of what I teach in my workshops is how to actually stop being yourself and start being your audience because we are living in our own construct all the time. So when we go in there-there is this inherent assumption that people are going to know exactly what we're talking about like, for example, I'll see a conclusion or an assessment written. On a slide at this happened and then the chart will show something but it doesn't show anything that corroborates the statement that was just made and then the audience is having to do work to try to think to wait a minute. Am I just too dumb to properly interpret this chart? Or what am I missing? And I often say to them you know it sounds great. What you're saying I can't find it on what you're showing me. And they'll look at and go oh you know this was that was in another analysis I found.
Lea Pica: [00:10:06] And I'm like Yeah that's gonna trip you up during your session right. Because they're not in your head sitting next to you during that analysis piece.
Gary Angel: [00:10:16] I think that's hard for me too because I'm a really good analyst and a lot of this stuff comes really easy to me.
Lea Pica: [00:10:23] I've heard that. Yeah.
Gary Angel: [00:10:24] It's not hard for me to do this. And sometimes it's like a basketball player who's really good at basketball often is a terrible coach because it's really hard for them to imagine people not just grasping these things and of course a lot of times when I look at the data or I look at a visualization I put together it seems obvious to me what the conclusion is. You're right.
Gary Angel: [00:10:46] It's often hard to put yourself in other people's shoes and hey I've had to do that over the past because I work with a lot of different IP as a consultant. You know someone who sells analytics I'm just not doing analytics at this sell it so I often have to put myself in their shoes and think about why what I'm saying is it resonating with them. So that's a constant challenge for me though not to talk the way I want to talk. And I'll tell you one of the pleasures of going to something like D.A. Hub is it's a chance to talk.
Gary Angel: [00:11:13] The way I want to talk I don't have to think about selling stuff or making it clear to other people I can just assume that these are people who are having exactly the same problems challenges and interests that I have. That's what's makes that super enjoyable. But I think in my real life in my everyday life of selling things and explaining analytics it's hard for me to do that. And part of why it's hard for me to do that is I just don't have the empathy for the people who really struggle.
Lea Pica: [00:11:38] That is such an interesting point and empathy development I think is such a crucial soft skill. You know I think Forester was quoted as saying at 25 percent of new hires and promotions this year would be driven by data storytelling and soft communication skills and it's so true. You know we are each and the same for the stakeholders. They're not actively trained and understanding and empathizing with us as well that we're intimidated by the questions they ask. And we're not Siri and can necessarily answer every single question that you throw at us on the spot.
Gary Angel: [00:12:13] Siri frickin drives me nuts. I mean I do think I actually like it when I get into the question and answer phase. I'm good. I think I am a good listener. I like responding to questions and I feel like when people are asking questions it relaxes me and stops me feeling like I'm putting on a show and starts feeling like I'm engaging with them. To me, the question I know of everyone has their own presentation challenges difficulties for me the hardest parts of presentations are when you get started and you get like 30 seconds in and you just feel it feels very artificial to me always when I'm doing that. And that's why whereas once people start asking questions if I can go back and forth if I'm on a panel where I'm just responding to what other people say that always just feel so much more natural to me and I find I do I think I do a much better job with that kind of setting the pure raw presentation of standing up and speaking that came really hard to me. I was very nervous and I started doing it. And even to this day, I feel like I've gotten much much better at it. I don't get nearly as nervous I do it so much that in one sense it feels pretty regular to me but it never feels as good to me as like getting in a conversation does and I think that's what that's always been from my perspective. Even in meetings if when people start throwing up questions I don't care if they're hard questions I don't care if they're challenging questions it still relaxes me it still makes me feel better about what I'm doing.
Lea Pica: [00:13:43] This is so fascinating because I have to say not a single person I've ever talked to has remotely liked the question and answer much less welcome it. And I'm because most of the mindsets around that I can hear the dread in my student's voices when they say I asked them what makes them nervous and I like the question is like this evil like you it must not be named kind of entity and because and I ask why the questions.
Lea Pica: [00:14:14] And they'll say because I know that they're trying to undermine me I know they're trying to make me look stupid or because if I don't know the answer I have failed. So they're already setting themselves up for failure that if they don't know every single answer they're failing. And I've tried to work with them and say welcome those questions. Because it indicates that they're engaged. B If you have certain tool sets and responses in your tool belt to manage if people are trying to grandstand or trying to you know undermine it if that's what you think but also you're getting to the heart of what they were expecting you to be talking about so do you have any advice for turning that whole fear around on its head around questions and embracing it and navigating it better.
Gary Angel: [00:15:06] You know here's what I'll say. I think that aggressively and actively listening is the most important thing. I've noticed that a lot of people and particularly speakers I think are very prone to this. They don't really listen carefully to what they say and I often find they're answering a question that's slightly or sometimes significantly different than what the questioner actually asked as an audience participant. I find that really frustrating. It's like they didn't pay close enough attention. But part of the reason I say that is I actually think again for so many people I'm really this way. I find actively listening to other people takes me out of me. You know I'm not the hardest part about presenting it is for me the part about feeling like I'm putting on a show that it's me and everyone's staring at me when I'm concentrating on the other person when I'm listening to what they're saying. It just inherently relaxes me and makes me feel like what I'm doing. So I think from that perspective you know if you. I guess the biggest piece of advice I can do is listen carefully to what the other person is saying feel free to think about it a little bit. You know I mean question and the answer is not like being up there and presenting obviously good presenters a lot of times use dramatic pauses they slow down. That's hard right.
Lea Pica: [00:16:24] Yeah.
Gary Angel: [00:16:24] But but if someone asks a question another all would take a little bit of time to think about an answer instead of just feeling like you have to blurt something back. But from my perspective, I do agree with you part of it is I think one it relaxes me to it does make me feel like the audience is engaged. I find that when you're just sitting there and no one's asking any questions I get nervous that you know no one cares.
Lea Pica: [00:16:48] The crickets are deafening.
Gary Angel: [00:16:50] That's hard. I remember one site I was doing it this was a big sales media is way back and I think the late 80s early 90s and I was doing a stock and commodity trading business and we were presenting to a Japanese company and they flew out a bunch of peoples a big meeting these were pretty senior people. And I did this presentation and I got through it and you know I did like this I talked for like 40 minutes absolutely no questions. And at the end one of the guys near the end of the tables is. So what is it you do?
Lea Pica: [00:17:22] Oh my god.
Gary Angel: [00:17:23] I like you know I like wasting my time and I wasted their time too. I mean it was one of those things where they were too polite to interrupt. But what I was saying is not coming through to them at all. And that made me feel terrible. I mean it was you know it was a really, it was an awful meaty moment that sticks in my mind is one of the worst meeting moments I've ever had. But I think from that perspective when people start asking questions I know what they're thinking about it. You do get it. Just contrary to what people say there are plenty of stupid questions out there and there are people who are asking questions with bad motivations to their people asking questions. Yeah, they want you there a lot. I find less that there are people ask questions because they want to show off right.
Gary Angel: [00:18:08] And that's part of the ignoring right there they're often trying to show off how much they know. But I still feel like you know if you listen carefully to what they're saying and then you think about well what's the most interesting thing that I can say back to this audience about this even if they've made a stupid point or they've wasted some time with it. If I can extract one thing to talk about that's interesting probably that's it. And I think people enjoy the interactivity coming back and forth I don't think it's just me. I think from an audience perspective to that question an answer just feels more natural than someone just talking for 20 or 30 minutes going forward. So I actually think the audience engages better too. So no I love the questions and the answers and I I mean if people are really nervous about it. There's not much I can say to make it better because I get nervous. No one's ever been able to make that better for me. But I will say take it as a compliment when people ask you questions.
Gary Angel: [00:19:02] That's a really good thing for a presenter standpoint. I know from my own personal perspective that's the way I take it you know a lot of the way I measure my success as a speaker is at the end if I got a lot of questions. So yeah it's a good thing.
Lea Pica: [00:19:14] I love that reframe especially because I just came back from the Web A Quebec Conference which was amazing. But there is I guess a difference in the cultural aspect where literally as soon as Q & A opened half the room just left.
Gary Angel: [00:19:30] Oh my God. Would be really disturbing.
Lea Pica: [00:19:33] And I only had one question and I was like but way you clapped. Probably.
Gary Angel: [00:19:43] No, that would be hard.
Lea Pica: [00:19:44] Yeah.
Gary Angel: [00:19:45] Really distressing. I think if I had that happen. So at least here most of.
Lea Pica: [00:19:52] Thank you, America. Thank you. I know I always get a lot of questions at you. I rarely I usually have to cut them off. I am blessed in that regard. But I love what you're saying about the pause. I definitely advise people to embrace pauses when they're speaking especially when they're asked a challenging question because that thoughtful pause indicates that you are taking a moment to really craft a thoughtful answer and it can actually supposedly increase your credibility because people are like, oh they're really thinking about it I wonder. And it creates anticipation which is a natural psychological trigger for attention during meetings as well as silence.
Gary Angel: [00:20:35] You know it's definitely true I am not an actor at all. Like my daughters are big in the theater. I love Barack. I love the theater and obviously that's a part of the actor's repertoire right that pause silence is incredibly important from a dramatic perspective from the comedic timing perspective. Yet from an interaction perspective but I totally buy that I think it does. But I think it does from an audience perspective indicate that you are actually thinking about what you are going to say but hey not just that it gives you a chance to actually think about what you're going to say just because it was you've actually heard this same question 70000 times before and it's surprising that I don't know about you. I find I don't often get the same questions time and again you probably hear some of the same questions pretty regularly. I don't hear that. So the questions often end up surprising me. And so I actually do have to think about it and I think that's a good thing. Yeah, I would be thinking about it. It's probably more of a pure dramatic pause if you're getting the question you've heard 15 times before.
Gary Angel: [00:21:39] I'm sure you can just feel back the answer.
Lea Pica: [00:21:42] At this point I started including them in my deck because I'm like and I know you're gonna ask this right now. So I'm just going to cover it.
Lea Pica: [00:21:51] No that's incredible. And in my favorite Data storytelling book it's called “Good Charts” by Scott Berinato who was a guest on the show a few months ago in terms of creating what's called a build in your data story where you're in the middle of it and you're about to reveal something interesting or surprising he actually loves to pause there. and allow people to sit and wait for just a second before you reveal the next piece of your story and have people like on the edge of their seats.
Gary Angel: [00:22:22] That's awesome. I absolutely know that works. I know for me it's that that's again something I find pretty hard to do because I'm not naturally trained in that it is kind of acting skill. It feels a little artificial Yeah. Lee by that it works and not only does it work. It really makes the experience better for the audience which is what you're trying to do right. I mean I think it gets taken out of yourself not realizing that what you're there for is to communicate this information and part of that is heightening the interest around the key parts. That's just a natural human thing to do. And the more we can do those things the better off we're gonna be.
Lea Pica: [00:22:56] Absolutely. And the other point that I wanted to call out was the being an active listener. So there are times where I'm spot on as a listener. And there are other times where my monkey brain shoots over too. Oh, God. I left the oven on at home or something and it can be pretty bad and I find that you know in terms of being an active listener it's a tool that I found really helpful and I think this is derived from an LP or neurolinguistic programming but it's mirroring where it really valuable tool is to actually mirror people's questions back to them especially if you're in a large setting where it might be hard to hear someone that actually not only reinforces that you capture their question and if you didn't they'll think oh OK maybe I didn't explain this right. Kind of buys you some time but it also ensures that everyone else has heard it because it probably applies to them as well.
Gary Angel: [00:23:58] I do that more and more as a presenter. I've gotten better about that and that's definitely a good technique and I do think yeah it has both those virtues a lot of times when someone asks a question. It's often difficult for some members of the audience to hear it they're not as well liked and so repeat it definitely makes it easier for the audience. I do think it forces you to capture the gist of the question especially if the questioner was not necessarily very clear or long-winded. Sometimes I find you know if you're listening closely you'll pick up the key part or just the question but maybe there's a good bet that half the audience didn't even if they knew exactly restating it. And coming up with the gist actually helps the audience too and then they're seen why you know how that may be long rambling question could be distilled down to something it's actually pretty important and interrupts.
Lea Pica: [00:24:45] Great point. And the formula that I use for that is always starting with. OK, so I'm hearing you say that or I'm hearing you ask did it. You can't possibly make a huge deck because you have to make handouts. How do you do? What do you do in that case? Do I have that right? And then they'll say yes or no. Or they might clarify but that is an excellent point because sometimes those questions end up being small dissertations.
Gary Angel: [00:25:12] Yes they just are right. Sometimes there are three or four questions in writing and it's but there's no question about it. There you go to got do the best you get extracting something interesting out of it.
Lea Pica: [00:25:23] And sometimes I've even said like Wow OK. And the question is yes.
Gary Angel: [00:25:31] Interestingly those techniques. I'm curious what you think about this. But I find that those techniques are not as easy or applicable to big meetings or meat business meetings as they are. You know it's if someone in a meeting asks you a question it's a little harder to do that I think. I don't. What do you think about that and are their equivalent techniques in a meeting that maybe you can use? Because I know as much as I do a fair amount of presentation like most people I spend a tremendous amount of time in meetings and oftentimes it's this I almost wish I could do the same kinds of things because someone asks a big long rambling question.
Gary Angel: [00:26:09] I have a hard time necessarily repeating that technique and you have to this is what you know. This is what he asked right and how to do what do you think about that from a medium perspective. Is it different? Is there a different etiquette to it.
Lea Pica: [00:26:21] I love that you're asking me a question. This is so great. So I would say that yes in a smaller setting. It would depend on the question. It would depend on the obviousness of the question and the length. If someone says Does the click-through rates say 34 percent you can't be like. So I'm hearing you ask if the closer it is 34 percent do I have that right. Yeah. I don't want to be patronizing.
Lea Pica: [00:26:48] Right. So if it's a smaller setting and everyone is well within earshot and it feels like a fairly straightforward question I wouldn't mirror it back at that point. But to your point sometimes there are these long rambling questions that don't sound like questions until maybe you find out. And when they finish you could say you know ok Thanks for all of that I want to make sure I've captured your question and make sure everyone in the room that we're following. Is it x y z as distilled as possible basically and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think I found that my audience even in the smaller setting has appreciated that I've tried to make sure that I nail the question before I ramble on to some you know thought path that doesn't apply here yet.
Gary Angel: [00:27:39] You know what. I guess I just thought of relative to that that I know I do sometimes that may be good or maybe bad. But it sounds like you're very reactive in the sense or very careful. So it's checked back with people about is this what they. Had in mind and I have to admit I don't always do that and sometimes particularly if I don't think the question is great. What I will try to do is reformulate it in the way that I think makes the most sense. And I'll just cede on that assumption and I'm not sure about that. But you know if someone came up with something they asked three or four things I might say it seems to me like what you're getting at the heart of the matter is this and then I'll go answer that question which hopefully was embedded somewhere in what they're saying but may not have been or I may have taken a very loose interpretation and tried to put my best thing on it. I must admit I do that not because I think I'm I'm not interested in answering their questions or didn't listen but sometimes I make a judgment that I'm going to take what you said I'm going to reformulate what I think the most plausible intelligent way to formulate that is.
Gary Angel: [00:28:44] And I'm not even going to ask you if that's true or not answer. So I do that sometimes I'm not sure if it's good or bad. I do find I think it helps sometimes because I do think it helps sometimes take poor questions and turn them into potentially good questions.
Lea Pica: [00:29:01] That is such an interesting point and I think it's always important to acknowledge the validity of questions. And when I love using little techniques like okay so I think I have your question and I wonder if also looking at this element. Sheds a light that might get you to your outcome because what I'm hearing you ask this but I feel the outcome you're looking for might be this.
Gary Angel: [00:29:28] Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That seems like a really nice way to do it because then you've kind of. you've kind of drawn the connection for them but you've made it pretty explicit that you heard what they actually write and you're letting them kind of save face.
Lea Pica: [00:29:40] And I'm saying like well I'm sorry. That was a really dumb question. So we're going to move on to that. I know I know.
Gary Angel: [00:29:51] So Gary you came on this show with a very specific mission you had a very specific question for me and I'm excited because I love to be put on the spot by my amazing guests and we even have a visual for the first time. So for the folks that see this on YouTube, you'll be able to see it and you'll be able to see us on the show notes page but you had a very specific question around what the point is of visually explaining methodologies versus writing them out in an email so can you elaborate.
Gary Angel: [00:30:22] Yeah. So I think one of the things that have always been hard for me I really enjoy your work on how to take data and make it more presentable which is a struggle for that, I tend to like most analysts put a lot of data on a chart.
Gary Angel: [00:30:34] I tend to put three or four points on a muddy everything up. I do exactly what you talked about earlier which is I'll put stuff on there and then talk about totally different things. So I am probably guilty of all of the cities that you talk about those things. And I find a lot of what you do on detox the chart highlighting what's really important making the one point of all that's really valuable to me and I use it all the time where I struggle sometimes though is when I'm not presenting data and I think over the course of the years I've adopted and built a lot of methodologies for doing things when I'm selling stuff or when I'm talking to people in a prelude to what they're doing. I often have to sit there and explain to them you know what two-tiered segmentation is more what functions and is or the data quality problems that we have and the data quality fixes that they have to do in geolocation before they can really use their data in all those cases. It's a struggle for me to come up with ways to visualize them because there isn't data you know when I'm selling it to. Segmentation I don't have there I don't have a segmentation to show them I have to explain to them how the methodology is. And I just kind of felt like I was curious about how you take those same concepts and apply them to something where you don't have findings and you don't have data but you still have to present concepts that are fairly important and process oriented and he does still get onto their asses and summers back right.
Lea Pica: [00:31:55] So this is so interesting because I get asked all the time by students how do I explain methodologies of analysis or the why behind why it's important they do something technical if they don't understand the nuances of it and keep prevent them from either tuning out or feeling you know condescended to or feeling stupid and boring them to tears I mean that it's always a puzzle of course exactly. And you know part of the framework that I teach in my workshop it's called the Presenting by Boxes method. It's something I adapted from Olivia Mitchell And that framework was really designed as a persuasive presentation framework not necessarily geared towards data analytics but persuasion and ultimately anytime we're presenting especially for presenting a methodology There's must be something that we ultimately want them to do right. So all of this same formula that you saw go into my keynote that I presented and the formulas that I present it's the chart detox is just one piece of getting data to look of a certain visual way to be accepted but the principles that based in are simplicity and intentional design. So when you're visually presenting anything you're asking yourself every pixel that I am coloring on this slide.
Gary Angel: [00:33:24] Why am I doing it?
Lea Pica: [00:33:25] Why am I doing it. What is the intention behind it. And ultimately what do I want them to do as a result of this. You know if we don't fix the state equality issue we can't do your geo-location work. What are they going to lose if they don't take an action that fear of lost technique is one of my favorites because when you present the upside of a situation it can be very motivating? But a lot of times that isn't enough to light that fire that you need for action. But boiling it down to a fear of loss that's one of the most powerful psychological triggers you can use. And you know to use it wisely don't say like the burning the building will burn down if we don't do this you are doomed.
Gary Angel: [00:34:11] Right.
Lea Pica: [00:34:11] But based on our best assessments if we don't act on this by this time you may leave this on the table, we may. This chance. You know things like that. Now I know that you had a specific example of saying like why even get in a room and talk live and use a PowerPoint deck to present something versus just writing something out.
Gary Angel: [00:34:35] So that's a slightly different problem and let me articulate and I'm going to share my screen here but I want to articulate the background problem because it's not specifically methodological but one of the things that that I often find frustrating is that I can sit down and explain to somebody in a few sentences what I think the key things are and then I try to take that knowledge and distill it down into a PowerPoint and a PowerPoint often comes off so much less impressive.
Gary Angel: [00:35:05] Fact that I think, I often find that it doesn't really distill down the core thoughts in a particularly good way I struggle a lot of times with that translation of relatively straightforward verbiage. I think one of the things like you talk about putting McKinsey titles on charts I know that works really well and I know that's super helpful but oftentimes one of my thoughts is why don't I just put the title on there why do I need the chart right. Grab that paper clip gets the most clicks. Why do I need to show the friggin chart?
Gary Angel: [00:35:35] And you know one of the things and so we talked about a little bit I had this is a fairly recent bit of work it's a cluster analysis right. So it's segmentation and I spent a lot of time trying to come up with this visualization where the idea is that on the x-axis you have purchased propensity of the cluster on the y-axis you have gender interest of the cluster so they are mostly interested in men's versus women's. And then I. And this is no surprise but each cluster size is oriented toward how large the segment is. You can see is this a lot of shoppers or a small number of shoppers. And I color coded them pink and blue whether it's a male-focused or female-focused right which I thought was pretty good and it took me a long time to come up with this. But in truth when I present this what I usually end up saying is something like ultimately your clusters break up into four basic groups you have a group of men who are very light users of the store and don't purchase much. You have a group of women who spend a fair amount of time in the store but don't purchase much. You have these core groups who you are your loyal shoppers both men and women but tend to do a lot of full store expiration and then you have this tiny group of here who are super profitable spend an inordinate amount of the store and are almost all women right. And I've summed up this chart. I think I've distilled out sort of the key findings from an overall perspective there's tons of detail in there but it makes me wonder why don't I just say that and how and if that's the point.
Gary Angel: [00:36:57] How would I express that point in a way that makes it better right. And that's a real struggle for me I find that a lot of times when I'm trying to take a fairly complicated set of data and distill it into a PowerPoint it takes me so much time and the results are often really disappointing.
Lea Pica: [00:37:15] I love this challenge and I'm so so honored that you're bringing this to me and I have some amazing ideas that I think you'll love. So before we actually take a look at the visual is a couple of things that I want to say about just the presentation process in general. So there is a book called Brain rolls by John Madina and some of the findings that he went through He's a neuroscientist and he found that when information is presented as text alone or just spoken the recall of that is only about 10 percent. Several days later. But when that information is presented alongside a compelling and relevant visual the recall of that can jump to 65 percent and the recall of your information is the critical ingredient to get obviously she's not the only one. We want the action of course. So and that's because as human beings vision is our most critical human sense for our survival and we've never evolved past that. So that's why it's such a powerful tool. The other thing is that we want proof and corroboration you can stand in front of a judge and say something happens but it's those physical tangible exhibits that are going to ultimately convince a jury or something. And then on in terms of why not just call someone and tell them more why not just send an email or something like that in terms of the act of actually presenting something alive rather than just reading something then there is a book I read recently called “TED Talks” by Chris Anderson and he perfectly articulated the true art when you have mastered creating a presentation that truly supports delivering your message into your audience's brains.
Lea Pica: [00:39:08] He said that you have this split second of when you put up a new slide their attention is going to bounce to that slide and bounce back to you. And how well you've constructed that slide behind you in terms of immediately reinforcing what you're saying at that exact moment and how busy it is and how or how simple it is the longer they spend on the slide versus bouncing back to you the greater the divide you've created in their attention. And it's not being on you. So the way that I create decks is that the minute I change that slide it is completely reinforcing the words coming out of my mouth. But there's not so much that they're going to linger because I want their attention to come immediately back to me. So that's why I think your scenario is ideal for visual presentation. But I have some ideas to actually have you talk through it. Did you would you like to share it.
Gary Angel: [00:40:15] I think I have shared it here. Oh OK let's see. I'm sure. All right.
Lea Pica: [00:40:21] So we see your spectrum male to female and low purchase propensity high purchase density. So now what you have here is a title that talks about what the slide is but it doesn't actually speak to what the chart is saying. It's not the stories in question. Yeah. So this is a fantastic thing for a handout. Right. That if someone wanted to read them to themselves offline and read maybe a narrative that you have in the notes they could come to all of the same conclusions. But when you are in front of them walking them through this what happens when you put something like this is people don't know where to look first. So they start to try to analyze the chart themselves but they're not listening to what you're saying. So the way that I would have worked with this and if these are shapes I get really creative with animation. The animation is my favorite way to help tease out a story and allow me to set the pace as the narrator of that story. So you could have started with something like a blank canvas and then maybe Bob in a group of clusters at a time and talked to them. And exactly and I would actually start with bringing in each of the axes first. You're really pacing them through step by step. So on this side, we have this in this we have this and then you can start telling your story by animating in each of the segments that you want to talk about. And each time that you do that the title of your slide is reinforcing exactly what you're saying. This is what our full store buyers look like high propensity and leaning towards men but dot dot dot which you can have as a way to create that story build. We were surprised to find that women's clearance only had a low purchase propensity.
Lea Pica: [00:42:30] That's when you start to get into real storytelling mechanics rather than putting a chart that isn't like a bar chart because it has a learning curve to it. Right. And people are trying to figure out what are you actually saying you're using that title. And the pacing of your build to create that split second connection between your words and their eyes like a lot.
Gary Angel: [00:42:57] That makes it that I think that would work really really well. Let me ask you something else relevant to that I think and I'll go back to a sort of anecdotal story around this. I worked with a gentleman a long time ago back and I think the mid-90s who's great as he was one of the few people that I ever worked with on a consistent basis who always a one of the decade ahead of time and b before you came in and presented. So yeah you know that's obviously unusual. I think you know even in most business meetings you can you generally have to assume that most people will not have done the pre-read even if you gave them a free read. But I have worked with people who are religious about doing a pre-read and when you know your audience is that way. How does that change? Like how you would think about a presentation for them. I mean certainly, you end that change a lot of the way I present at least put the decks together for him. What's your thought about that. How would you handle that if you know someone is like a religious preacher and that's your core audience obviously? I mean this was Yeah no. And one of the NRC is about that was he was a senior guy because he did it pretty much everybody else in the meeting felt compelled to do it too. So he actually showed up scenes where almost everybody had legitimately done their homework which was both nice and challenging right. I felt that it really had to change the way we presented. But what's your thought about that. How would you adapt to that?
Lea Pica: [00:44:20] This is a fantastic question and it is not unusual at all for stakeholders to request pre-reads. Every company I've ever worked with has clients who do that. And the reason why I'm not a fan of the pre-read is that for me it's indicative of a trust issue. If people are asking for pre-reads For me they're saying they have had an experience in the past where they've gone to a meeting and not left that meeting with total clarity and an understanding of how their needs were met in that meeting. They left with more questions than answers potentially. So I think a culture. And that's because we don't have the tools to present it right effectively. So as a result of that gap a culture has been created of requesting. Information in advance to prevent the chance that they're going to walk into that meeting and not understand what's going on. So if they read what's presented in advance they have the chance to fill in the gaps beforehand and go in there and get the presentation that they actually want. So for me when I started trying to do this and do this with proper storytelling techniques to keep them interested. When I was finding that if they had already read the information they were already creating biases around things they were drawing conclusions and because I wasn't there to guide them when they consume that information they were already creating biases that would create problems during the conversation.
Lea Pica: [00:46:00] So how I started to get around that was I developed this toolset to know that I was going to do a really bang-up job of trying to answer their questions using a needs collection at a process that I put in place but also I started using teasers before the meeting I started saying I know you guys want to see the whole thing but I just got all this training and I want to try something a little bit different with you guys. This time I'm gonna give you a little teaser I'm gonna tell you like the general idea is that this quarter we had these kinds of changes and we saw these kinds of trends and they might not be going the direction that we want but we also found that there are ways that we can really you know there are really big opportunities that we have here and we can't wait to share that with you. So sometimes without giving away the whole kitchen sink because if you are creating a live presentation deck properly it won't make much sense without you, You're the support you are supposed to be the most integrated important ingredient.
Gary Angel: [00:47:07] Well that that's where I felt like you know in that situation what we put in the decks changed a lot. Right. I mean if Jack needed to do something different than if we were presenting it live. But I guess I'm a little more sympathetic to the ask then it seems like you are. Yes. But what I'll say about it is from my perspective it actually created really productive meetings. I mean and the reason I'll say that is that you know he was able to come to the meeting with specific well thought out questions and ideas about where he wanted to be rolled out or where he wanted color and there was very little time wasted right. I mean it was we didn't get to the end of a 50-minute presentation and then have 10 minutes of him go asking the questions. You had him asking the questions that really mattered right away and going back to maybe my preference for Q and A maybe that's one of the reasons I might but I thought it made for very efficient meetings in the sense that you know as long as we had given them a good deck up front that he could legitimately get the information out of what we started out with was the real questions he had about why is it this way.
Gary Angel: [00:48:16] Are you sure about this. Where do we go from here? What can you follow up on this or I need to know this too and that third up from my perspective is pretty productive so I got to say? I mean I felt like I had to adapt to it but I didn't dislike the experience. I thought through experience some ways made for a pretty productive meeting. I guess the hard part for me was one we had to change a lot. And you know that was the time that we could kind of count on everyone doing it whereas my more normal experience is nobody does it or maybe one person you know actually looked at the preview. Then what are you gonna do? So you've got to build variety for all the people who are going to do them. Right. So it kind of puts you in a no-win situation if you've got that mixed audience or at least it seems like it does to me.
Lea Pica: [00:48:56] And I want to make something clear I'm totally sympathetic to the ask completely. And I think depending on the actual environment if you have a two if you're presenting to two people then you're probably not doing a presentation. You're having more of a working session and in that way sending information even in a more raw format than the one that is the main way that I teach is more appropriate because you're going to want them to come prepared with those questions. But you made an excellent point. If you're in a 10 person meeting it's unlikely that everyone would have done all that homework. And if you have some people coming to the table with biases because they read the spoiler and they might jump ahead and then people might get confused. So usually when I'm thinking of slightly larger meeting sizes I find that keeping the but like keeping the microphone and really keeping that narrative power for yourself while giving plenty of opportunities for asking questions such as building in questions like you've come to the end of an insight and said you know we came up with maybe one idea for what to do about this or why this happened but we really are interested in your perspective on you know what you think. Is there something in the market that we're missing really building and an opportunity for that dialogue is essential. But what I find is when people have different clues into what's going to be revealed you can end up having five or 10 different experiences for.
Gary Angel: [00:50:37] Polio body experience for everybody I agree. That's good right. But I think yeah that that has been my experience actually in that situation what was nice about the what I was referencing was because this was a very senior person and kind of set the culture of the company was the only case I've ever had where I was legitimately expecting every single person to have done the three reads in advance what is a meeting that actually worked really well. But I think my more common experience is either nobody has or most people haven't. And that most people have it is challenging because you do get a very muddy experience that way.
Lea Pica: [00:51:09] Exactly. And if you don't mind if you can unshare your screen that way we can get out of my diagram interview.
Gary Angel: [00:51:18] That's really helpful actually. And I think you know it makes perfect sense and I love the idea during the builds on it. I think that would make it. You know what one nice thing is a presenter is doing that kind of stuff just makes it easier to talk to. Right. I mean it's hard sometimes to talk to these PowerPoint slides that have a whole bunch of stuff going on and I think what you're saying makes perfect is a great way to do it. I really like that.
Lea Pica: [00:51:40] Great. Can I just announce that the most important thing that's ever happened on this show is I helped Gary Angel with his PowerPoint?
Gary Angel: [00:51:48] I agree that is the most important thing.
Lea Pica: [00:51:49] Just going to lock that in. Thank you. No, I absolutely love. I love the example. I've never been able to really broach the idea of going through methodologies and even when I even the Met the technique I just showed can so apply to methodology because if you're taking people through step by step oftentimes you'll see one big slide that says here's the methodology and it's a massive bullet point all at once. But instead, you can show screenshots of the platform that you're looking at or maps if you're looking at geolocation but step by step each view is reinforcing whatever piece of the methodology you're working on.
Lea Pica: [00:52:33] That's the same mechanics I like so well.
Gary Angel: [00:52:36] As I think about it you know the one place I really felt like I got pretty good at presenting methodology was two-tiered segmentation and it's interesting as I reflect on what you said. I almost did exactly what I had a build slide that had the one dimension. Think about the who think about the Y fill in the inner sat to actually built exactly that way. But most of the other things I've done I did not have particularly compelling presentations of and I think yeah thinking about that build strategy really makes perfect sense for those I could see how would apply to a lot of the things that that you know I actually talk about from a methodology standpoint.
Lea Pica: [00:53:09] Awesome. So, Gary, I call the next segment the upgrade which is a power tip for doing our jobs of presenting data more awesomely it could be a tip. A resource tool. Some. A book. Something cool that you think that the audience might find really valuable.
Gary Angel: [00:53:29] You know I was thinking about this and I ‘m not actually going to give a book suggestion that God knows there's a tremendous number of really interesting from a data perspective to two things I guess I'm going to say that I thought were interesting. One is I really like your emphasis on thinking about the neuroscience and the social psychology and that's actually a real interest of mine. One that I almost never apply to my actual work.
Gary Angel: [00:53:59] But having said that these days there's some fascinating literature on neuroscience how people sort of information how the brain actually works that I just find intellectually interesting and kind of philosophically interesting. Yeah. But I think that's work that's stuff that not only should people probably read but which I do.
Gary Angel: [00:54:17] But they should probably actually try to apply it which I generally dealt with actually. So I'm going to say I think that's a really good tip.
Gary Angel: [00:54:24] The other thing I'm going to say in this is something that I feel like is just something that I felt for a long time which is that hey it doesn't matter how good your presentation looks if you don't actually have something important to say. So yes the things I find with the analysts is either they they haven't really thought of anything important to say or and this is even more maddening from my perspective. They don't have the courage to disagree with the client.
Gary Angel: [00:54:50] And I think that the truth is nobody likes delivering bad news. Nobody likes hearing bad news. But if you're going to be good at this stuff you have to be willing to put yourself out on a limb and deliver bad news.
Gary Angel: [00:55:03] And I think no I'm certainly much more of a I work on the message part not how to deliver the message part but I do genuinely believe that probably the biggest flaw I see in a lot of analysts is an unwillingness to just tell the truth about something. I really encourage people to do more of I have no idea what the neuroscience of that is in poly socks. But but but honestly you know that's our job right is to give an objective view of things and to say what the data actually means and that actually implies having a real opinion about it and the courage to disagree with a client or to point out where a client is not doing well or failing or is flat out wrong and all of those things are hard. I'm not going to undress undersell that those are hard things to do but they are essential. I think if you really want to deliver an important message to people.
Lea Pica: [00:55:50] Gary that's definitely one of the most unique tips I've ever gotten and a really great thing to point out and I try to tell people there's no such thing as bad news. It's all opportunities for improvement. And we get to keep our jobs. No one goes home. However, there is this very real fear that people have you know clients stakeholders get very emotional about their projects and what I try to help analysts or presenters understand is to take responsibility where responsibility is due. If there was something I remember being at an agency and I messed up big during Valentine's Day promotion and I had to take responsibility for that you know and there were other times where optimizations just didn't go the way that we wanted. But I didn't take responsibility however it was something with the market conditions. And you know I took responsibility for how it could be conveyed and also for providing plans to rectify and get back on track. But I just so some point stopped taking risks taking the blame for things that happened that were beyond my control and went in there with the confidence of knowing this isn't my fault and I wouldn't say that. But this is what happened and this is our best guess at helping us get back on track. And let's do this together. And I think it's something that could really help with that courage is sometimes not sometimes a lot of times analysts feel kind of without a life raft during these meetings. They're there in front of stakeholders that are way higher on the food chain that they are maybe they're kind of new to the team. This is a trial by fire. And my best strategy is bringing a senior advocate in to those meetings that was recommended by Dustin Matthews who came on the show and that senior advocate can introduce you and create a bridge for you so that that creates a bridge of credit credibility between the audience and you and they can also run some interference for you as well.
Gary Angel: [00:58:04] Yeah no question that when you can do that is incredibly valuable and reassuring. And I think that there's both a credibility standpoint is also and I'll go back I've seen that happen I've been the beneficiary of that from time to time usually without any planning. Just you know it's kind of that.
Gary Angel: [00:58:21] But having said that you know I also find that going back to one of the points I made earlier someone like that can also help you assess what the audience is thinking.
Gary Angel: [00:58:33] And that your points with what they're thinking because a lot of times as the analysts were not as attuned to the real considerations that stakeholders have That senior person probably is and as you're presenting something they're probably better at reading the room and figuring out what the connection is to what people need to know and I often find that you know again if you listen to what they're saying implicitly they're giving you a lot of guidance about how to tune what you're saying and how to think about it. You just got to be willing to pick up on that and hear what they're saying as they make interjections because they're maybe just you know without explicitly thinking about it they're giving you pointers about what the audience actually cares about because they probably understand that a lot better than you do that is an incredible point.
Lea Pica: [00:59:18] And also you're not you're in the box when you're presenting and they're not in the box, they're able to be an observer and that could be an incredible ally.
Lea Pica: [00:59:32] So really great points. All right. This is our final question. So think hard imagine this very plausible scenario you're browsing the new novel section at Barnes and Noble when suddenly a vortex pulls you back into the moment you're about to deliver your first presentation. What would today you say to yesterday you?
Lea Pica: [01:00:00] It could happen.
Gary Angel: [01:00:01] I would probably slap me.
Gary Angel: [01:00:04] Honestly when I first started presenting I was incredibly nervous. I remember I'm never going on a radio show. I was doing an internet-wide option where the first one is the average first time I'd ever been on radio and I was so nervous I could hardly talk. And I'm sure I sounded like a friggin moron.
Gary Angel: [01:00:24] I don't think I was a good guest. Never ask me back. And frankly, I probably wouldn't have gone.
Gary Angel: [01:00:30] No I think you know the hardest part from my perspective about presenting was just getting over that totally irrational fear and I don't have good advice for that because nothing anyone ever said to me ever helped at all. The only thing that ever helped was doing a lot of it you know. Oh yeah. So I guess one thing I know and again it's the point. Let's go back to when you're young and say oh don't worry you'll grow out of this or I will forget good news. You ready. You're right.
Gary Angel: [01:00:56] But but so so all the things that I think made me a terrible PRESENTER When I first started were probably incurable. But I do think that that one of the things I guess I would say going back is and maybe this goes back to some of the things we started out with finding the kinds of things that you are comfortable doing. I've known a lot of people who are really comfortable doing meetings. But as soon as they were up in front of a group of people on the podium panicked. Right. And I can totally get that. That doesn't seem weird to me at all but maybe there are bridge things you can do where you're starting to scale out or maybe you sit down state station and find ways to either you know grow what you're doing or do what you're doing in a setting that makes you comfortable. I was always far more comfortable in a setting where I was sitting down with people than where I was standing in front of me. I'm sure that's a psychological quirk but I don't think I'm alone in that right. So I do think that it's good to work the things you're comfortable at to grow that way you know push the boundaries a little bit but you don't necessarily have to throw yourself into the heart of things and I think I guess from my perspective I would have encouraged myself to find ways to do what I knew I did well like questions and answers and things like that where I could engage with people may be at a different scale than just trying to present and you know to find your own path to what makes you comfortable and go with that.
Gary Angel: [01:02:19] I think that's it's worth it. Hey sometimes you have to go out and speak and speak and speak until you're relaxed about it but if you can find you know there are political candidates who are great at town halls and their political candidates who are great at debates and their political candidates with great speeches find the one you're really good at and do more of that. And I think that that to me would have that I think that a piece of advice I might have actually been at will take advantage of.
Lea Pica: [01:02:41] Well I love the reveal of all of these. And you know what you say about practices interesting in that something important understand about neuroscience is that our brain is a supercomputer and it's constantly building datasets and we are analysts. So we are extra analytical and when we are removing our emotions from an analysis like an AP test that's fine but as soon as our emotions become conflated with our own processors that we have we tend to completely misinterpret things and we want to start building a data set that says I'm going to present today I am afraid because I'm gonna get fired because I'm not going to know the answer the questions they're going to hate my desk they're gonna fall asleep and I'm going to get fired. And that's like this mindset this outcome that we come in the hypothesis that we're going to get fired. But the more data you build by embracing every single opportunity you have to present you're going to build a data set that has a trend line that says you're not going to get fired.
Gary Angel: [01:03:48] You have to realize that people are amazingly forgiving about things like that. Yeah, I do. And I do think that people get used to almost anything. And I know that one of the big speak one of the big fears one of the number one fears people have is speaking right. Yes. I'm not immune to that. In fact, I totally embrace that fear. But just like hey if you're in combat all the time you get used to combatting. Yes to a lot of it you will get used to it. I still get nervous but not like I used to. It doesn't impair me I'm doing what I can do now. So that part I think you do have to force yourself to do it. But I do think like I say I think that you can make it easier on yourself and still accomplish. So I do think the example of political candidates is a good in the sense that not everybody is going to be a great speaker but you know maybe town halls really fit them and that's what fits you go for it. Yeah. Yeah fine. Find the ways that take advantage of what you're really good at and then you call to grow the confidence in the other things as you go along. So yeah I totally agree and that's something I've struggled with my whole life. And I rarely get terribly nervous now but it happens every again and I hate myself when it happens because there's not even a reason for it right. You talk about people being afraid of being fired but mostly the fear is just totally irrational.
Lea Pica: [01:05:06] Exactly, identifying that is key. Gary this was amazing so much valuable stuff dropped here. Thank you so much. Unfortunately, our time has run out so far as I know.
Lea Pica: [01:05:20] So please tell the listeners where they can keep up with you.
Gary Angel: [01:05:24] Oh well you know the big thing that I'm doing these days that I would love people to tune into is the measurement minutes these are like one and a half minute podcast. They're out there on iTunes and Google just search for the measurement minute. I really enjoy doing them. I mean they're short. They're bite-sized for that level. But I have a lot of fun with them. Then I release two or three a week. And hey if you want to check those out that be great. I think that that's something that I'm actually. I mean a lot of fun doing that. We'd love to build an audience around.
Lea Pica: [01:05:52] Awesome. Well, we'll definitely put the links to that on the show notes page. Thank you so much for your time today. It's really been an honor and I hope that our paths cross again.
Gary Angel: [01:06:02] Oh my pleasure. Thank you so much. Hey, thanks for the advice on the charge. That was really helpful. I am going to steal your tips here. Thanks a lot.
Lea Pica: [01:06:18] All right. So that was a refreshing change from being the one to ask all the questions and I really enjoyed getting to help Gary Angel with his PowerPoint going to milk that for all it's worth. So to catch all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode please visit the show notes page at Lipscomb slash 0 43. I would love if you could leave me or Gary a comment or suggestions because I want to hear about the challenges you face when you're presenting your big ideas and your deep insights. Again if you'd like what you've heard. Hop on over to. Itunes to subscribe leave a rating and review which help other practitioners like yourself get this very valuable information or you can tweet me a question for the show by including my Twitter handle which is at least PETA and including the hashtag P B M as in peanut butter munchies and today's presentation inspiration is from Leo about her and he says simplicity boils down to two steps identify the essential and eliminate the rest. My take is that simplicity was really a recurring theme for today's interview and as practitioners, we often think that our stakeholders won't understand our insights unless we explain the entire complexity of the analysis all of the steps that it took.
Lea Pica: [01:07:47] All of the technical details of what we're proposing and what I think we saw with Gary today and what I think this quote really encapsulates is to remember what is essential for your audience to understand your information so that they learn to trust you and they're inspired to take action. That's it for today listeners. I'm wishing you an amazing spring.
Lea Pica: [01:08:14] And please remember that viz responsibly my friends Namaste and Now Imma Go.
