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Communiqué

Imagine you are a project director who has just finished reviewing a 30-page data report submitted to you by your evaluator. The report details some very compelling evidence that your mentoring and truancy programs are truly making a difference in students’ lives. You know that both programs have a strong chance of continuing after grant funding ends, if you can convey these facts in a way that compels people to act.

The key to successful communication is presenting information in a way that resonates with your audience. Raw data may foster credibility, but quite often the only way to solicit action is to connect the facts with the emotional elements of your story. The way you present data to parents or students may vary dramatically from what you might say to a school board member. By understanding your target audiences’ needs, beliefs, and values, you can create a meaningful infographic or social math equation to help them easily connect with your story.

Infographics and Social Math: Tools That Bring Life to Data

Infographics and social math are communication tactics that can help you transform your evaluation data from a collection of numbers, charts, and graphs to a brief and compelling representation of information to which people can relate. As an example, infographics are used daily to illustrate weather forecasts online, on television, and in newspapers.

In comparison, social math uses language or pictures to depict data in a context that makes sense to a specific audience. For example, let’s say you were talking with a group of University of Michigan football fans about the national SS/HS Initiative. Instead of telling them that the Initiative has delivered more than 110,000 services over the life of the program, you could instead say, “Since 1999, the SS/HS Initiative has delivered as many services as ‘The Big House’ (their football stadium) has seats.” In this way you are helping them to connect familiar information to new information.

Creating Infographics and Social Math Equations

So, now that you want to use infographics and social math to help your audiences relate to your data, how do you effectively use these techniques?
Infographics: A Visual Way To Communicate Data

Remember, the point of infographics is to engage your audience using numbers; the meaning of the data finding should be easily read and digested. See the Resources section to find examples of good—and bad—infographics.
Here are a few guidelines to follow:

  • Collect good data, and then get to know it;
  • Ask yourself: Why does it matter? What are you trying to say?;
  • Remove superfluous visual elements;
  • Make it visual. Avoid too much text. Use color wisely. Color can add complexity and isn’t always necessary;
  • Get interactive. Would the data be more meaningful if the user could play with it?;
  • Test and test again. Above all, the infographic must be easily understood by the audience; and
  • Share with your communication specialists for feedback.

Your Raw Data + Information They Already Know = Social Math

Use social math with care. Make sure what you are saying is accurate and not misleading. And remember that most often less is more. Usually one equation will do the trick. For example:

“The tobacco industry spends more money promoting smoking in a week than the entire federal government spends on preventing smoking in a year.”1

Here are a few guidelines to follow:

  • Ask yourself what social math’s role is;
  • Think creatively about how you can capture the scale of data by comparing it to something familiar, like in the stadium example. Common comparisons might be to the number of students in a cafeteria, on a bus, or in an auditorium familiar to the community;
  • Make sure the equation really works;
  • Test and test again. Above all, the social math equations must be understood by the audience; and
  • Share your equation with your communication specialist for feedback.

Infographics and Social Math Bring Data to Life and Fuel Sustainability

The next time your evaluator presents you with compelling data, try using infographics or social math to enhance your efforts to communicate for sustainability. Remember that both tools can easily be used in several delivery channels, such as in PowerPoint presentations, handouts or other visuals, and informal talking points like impromptu elevator speeches. A wealth of resources are available online (see the Resources section) to help you think creatively. And, as always, please connect with your communication specialist for additional support.

1 IMPACTMAX.(2009). Social math: Yes…data can tell stories too. From http://impactmax.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/social-math-yes-data-can-tell-stories-too/ (accessed December 2, 2011).