SCOTT BERINATO is is the author of Good Charts: The HBR Guide to Making Smarter, More Persuasive Data Visualizations. Even though he's a writer, he's also a self-described "dataviz geek" who loves the challenge of finding visual solutions to communications and data challenges.

He speaks frequently on the topic of data visualization and leads workshops to help others improve their chart skills.

Scott is a Senior Editor at Harvard Business Review, where he created successful visual storytelling formats. He writes and edits regularly for HBR and HBR.org, focused mostly on stories about data, science, and technology. When HBR redesigned in 2010, Scott created the front section of the magazine, Idea Watch, launching successful features such as "Defend Your Research." He led a team that launched HBR's iPad app, and more recently led the creation of HBR's Big Idea, a bi-monthly digital longform event.

In this session we are going to focus on how to communicate your data so it creates impact. 

Two aspects of data communication that we will hone in on:

Design. This talent is widely misunderstood. Good design isn’t just choosing colours and fonts or coming up with an aesthetic for charts. That’s styling - part of design, but by no means the most important part. Rather, people with design talent develop and execute systems for effective visual communication. In our context, they understand how to create and edit visuals to focus an audience and distill ideas. Information-design talent - which emphasizes understanding and manipulating data visualization

Storytelling. Narrative is an extremely powerful human contrivance and one of the most underutilized when presenting data. The ability to present data insights as a story will, more than anything else, help close the communication gap between algorithms and the audience. “Storytelling with data,” a tired buzz phrase, is widely misunderstood, though. It is decidedly not about turning presenters into Stephen Kings or Tom Clancys. Rather, it’s about understanding the structure and mechanics of narrative and applying them to dataviz and presentations.

You will walk away with:

• The competitive imperative for Good Charts: Why this is a must-have skill

• What makes a Good Chart? Understanding context

• Storytelling with data: It’s not as complicated as you think

• Information design and presentation techniques: How to present data