Finding Meaning in Utilities Data: Visualization and Storytelling

The Utility Industry continues to adapt to new regulations, changes in public perception and emerging market opportunities.  Examples of drivers causing change include modernizing and expanding infrastructure, implementing decarbonization solutions, pursuing sustainability polices, reducing the cyber-security threat and embracing the shift towards green energy.  Analytics solutions are key enablers for managing changing and pursuing new opportunities.

Analytics effectiveness and impact depends on visualization skills of two kinds – ability to create visuals and ability to understand visuals. The real value of visualization does not come from creating visuals, but from understanding what they tell you. With the language of words, we learn reading and writing as separate but related skills. Similarly, with visual language we need to learn understanding (reading) and creating (writing) as distinct but related skills.

Data analysts at the top of their game go beyond creating data visualizations. They add narratives to interpret the visuals and to explain insights and recommendations. In short, they tell data stories. Stories are powerful things. We’ve used them throughout history to capture attention, convey ideas, fire the imagination, and stir the soul. Data can be persuasive, but stories are much more. A well-told story is inspirational.  The utility industry is rich with opportunities to deliver well crafted stories to all of its stakeholders.  As society moves to new energy sources and delivery models, it is essential that data driven stories are presented to educate and guide us through the transition.

On the surface, storytelling appears to be the opposite of analytics: anecdotal instead of quantitative. But quantities aren’t the only way, or even necessarily the ideal way to convey information. We know that not everyone is a quant who thinks natively in numbers. Some think in pictures, thus the popularity of data visualization. Still others — a vast portion of business people — would rather not think about data at all, preferring to hear its meaning in anecdotes, metaphors, and examples.

Storytellers are the new generation of business and data analysts. They don’t dismiss the value of the quants – quantification is the foundation. They don’t devalue the importance of visualization; in fact, they amplify it by scripting a story through visuals to communicate the what, when, where, who, and why of business circumstances and business behaviors.