Humana: A Journey From Cartooning to Storytelling with Data
This week, David Ciommo joins us to explore how cartooning and data storytelling go together like peanut butter, jelly, and Fluff.
David Ciommo started his data career journey with the inspiration to be a Walt Disney animator. Now, he leads VIZ — the Visualization, Innovation, and Storytelling group at Humana. He’s responsible for spreading data skills to their 70,000 employees. He joined me on this week’s episode of the Data Humanized podcast to discuss the intersection of data and humanism and why his skills around cartooning and data fit together like my favorite lunch as a kid — peanut butter, jelly, and Fluff.
Here are my favorite points David and I discussed:
The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think but to give questions to think upon 🤔
David’s view on data storytelling is, “I'm not here to brainwash you. I'm here to present information in the most unbiased way possible so that you can quickly and intuitively consume it, interpret it, analyze it, and make decisions. To make you think.”
First, set the data aside and ask, “What do you need to know?” 🧠
When he works with executives and data, David's first step is to put the data down, ask questions, and understand what you’re looking for first. He said, “I can't tell you how many times somebody would come to me saying, we want X, Y, and Z. Once I got them focused on what they needed to see through investigation-type questions and answers, which led to a design thinking session, we start to tease out the most critical insights they were chasing.”
Slow down. Look for lightbulbs 💡
“We have 42,000 dashboards and digital reports in our BI environment at Humana — Why? Even a company our size needs fewer things, better things. The way to get there is to slow down and think about what we are doing and why we’re doing it. For example,
“With one team, I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Why are we developing all of these products for the same audience? If you were given multiple things to log into, isn't that an annoying experience? Well, that was like a light bulb went off in their mind. The exciting thing that happened was that they said, “You know what, yes —we don't need one!”
By asking questions about data, light bulbs fire.
Data storytelling is a buzzword 🐝, an art 🎨, and a science 🧬
“I think for many folks, data visualization is a buzzword — some folks give it lip service. But there’s art to it. And, although it hasn't been around long enough to be considered a science, it is one.”
Show something, even if it’s wrong 📉
David preaches a mindful approach with action.
“For one project, we had a deadline of tomorrow. The sponsor said: we can give you till Friday. But rather than show nothing, we decided to show something, even if that something is wrong. It's OK to make mistakes. Progress is good.
Sketch before building ✍️
“I start with the sketch. I'm not designing down to the last detail, I'm getting a big picture about how I want to approach the problem. It's similar to how an architect sketches ideas first, gets a basic idea of direction, then dives in.”
Work honestly 😇
“Trust is paramount. I can't tell you how many times a dashboard says something to me that I know is wrong. Or misleading. I ask for honesty — “Is this your view or Humana's view? What should it be? There's a lot of trust in that, But, we're all on the same team.”
It’s data storytelling, not data vomiting 🤮
“It’s not about a bunch of data on a page. That’s data vomiting, as I call it. It’s also not about beautiful visualizations. Those are components of data storytelling but not the goal. A data story needs structure. It needs background. It needs a narrative. It needs organization. It needs design thinking. It needs all of these components.”
Two books (or a podcast) to take to a desert island 🏝️
Every week, we finish with our 3-2-1: three takeaways, two books David would take to a desert island, and one quote. David’s two resources on data he’d take to a desert island are:
Be Data Analytical by Jordan Morrow, “The Godfather of Data Literacy,”
Data for All podcast by the Belmont Data Collaborative at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, and their director of data science, Charlie Apigian.
Listen to the whole episode of Data Humanized with David below or wherever you listen to podcasts.
More From the Data Humanized Podcast
Subscribe to the Data Humanized Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Check out these episodes for more:
EPISODE 4: Tara Stokes from Point72 Ventures on How Generative AI Raises the Stakes for Data Skills
EPISODE 3: Dr. Andy Moore from Bentley Motors on Building an Engine for Digital Transformation with Data
EPISODE 2: Claire Gubian from Dataiku on Why Data Literacy Matters
EPISODE 1: Wes Strait from Best Buy on how they Power Digital Transformation With Data
Other Substacks I Love
Polymathic Being byMichael Woudenberg
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He makes a crucial point: Always start with Why and then work to what and how. It's an adage as old as time and one we never seem to remember.