.. or simply a passing fad in business communications?
Recent developments in videography have largely fueled the rise of Big Data – to the point that online videos will account for eighty percent of global internet traffic by the end of this year[i]. In our courses on digital transformation, we stress the importance of videographics in the present and future of data science. We have have been using the online video creation platform Moovly to help our students and faculty practice what we preach in the presentation of their case studies, course offerings, and programs. Let’s take a few moments to explore the notion of digital storytelling, the specifics of videography, our own use of Moovly, and our views on why video will take a larger and larger place in corporate digital strategies in the months to come.
Digital storytelling is the practice of building a narrative around data sets to help convey the meaning of the data in a powerful and compelling fashion. As Angela Bassa, iRobot’s director of data science, points out "A huge part of data science is to communicate or persuade in trying to [convey] the results of an analysis".[ii] Anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss and Vladimir Propp demonstrated long ago the importance of the structure of the stories we tell – the meaning of the story comes how the story is put together rather the data itself. More recent studies of both traditional and business storytelling have demonstrated the universality of these narrative structures.[iii] Human communication is conditioned as much by how we process experience as by hard, cold facts.

Videography refers to the production process of capturing moving images on electronic media. It differs from traditional filmmaking in a number of ways. To begin with, advances in digital technologies have shaped this field: many videographers today produce their work entirely on a computer, tablet or telephone without ever involving an imaging device. Videos designed specifically for social media channels cater to specific modes of consumption. From the business perspective, companies are increasingly relying on digital properties to capture and to influence the user experience. Their perceived need to produce larger and larger quantities of videos have favored low cost, agile and near real-time video production processes. This said the trade is still in its infancy, for concerns about the effectiveness of data storytelling are still the exception rather than the rule.
For all of these reasons, Moovly has proven to be an excellent choice for our pedagogical approach. Created by Brendon Grunewald and Geert Coppens, Moovly is a cloud-based digital media and content creation platform that greatly facilitates the creation of animated videos and presentations. In class and out, our students and faculty have been using the software to produce video case studies, course résumés, and program descriptions. The application’s interface provides a real-time editing studio that has been put to good use in the production of multimedia mashups to build teasers, animated sequences, and information overlays. The learning curve has proven to be quite short thanks to the large gallery of templates, models, and examples. The intuitiveness of Moovly has allowed us to focus most of our class time on discussions of heuristics, the Gestalt principles, data storytelling and visual communications.

Why include videography in studies of Data Science? The data needed to improve decision-making isn’t just behind the screen but in the minds and experiences of your customers and colleagues. Visual communications addresses the larger picture of how we process data. Biologically, the fusiform facial area in the cortex is part of the human visual system that allows us to link the data we see to our own experience. Visual and auditory cues add a human touch to each story by increasing perceptions of trust and proximity. Non-verbal communication is largely universal – expressions of happiness, anger, surprise, and anticipation are the same across cultures. Movement increases your audience’s attention, camera movement contributes to enhancing each scene: increasing drama, following action, directing viewers’ attention, revealing key details.

Does video bring business data to life? According to research by Mayer and Anderson, the stimulation of an audience’s visual and auditory senses increases their understanding of the subject under study by 74%.[iv] Matt Young argues that viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.[v] Business videos are increasingly popular on the Web; Forbes Insights suggests that 75% of business executives watch work-related videos at least once a week. Finally, Troy Anderson contends that the use of video in social media marketing increases the likelihood of social media visitors purchasing products, services, or ideas by 64%.[vi] The success of a Data Science team isn’t measured by their technical savvy, but in their ability to influence managerial decision-making.
Transforming data into impactful action is at the heart and soul of the Business Analytics Institute. Our 2018 BAI Summer Program will explore the mission-critical skills in leveraging data science to improve managerial decision-making. This unique summer session will provide four dozen participants from five continents with a solid understanding of the practice of using analytics – how to evaluate the data at hand, how to apply the appropriate methodologies to specific types of personal and professional challenges, and how to leverage data in improving managerial decision-making.
Lee Schlenker is a Professor of Business Analytics and Digital Transformation and a Principal in the Business Analytics Institute http://baieurope.com. His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at www.linkedin.com/in/leeschlenker. You can follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DSign4Analytics
[i] Cisco, (2017) Cisco Visual Networking Index
[ii] Swoyer, S. (2017), Enable Deeper Understanding with Great Data Storytelling
[iii] See for example Hogan, P.C. (2003). The Mind and Its. Stories: Narrative Universals and Human Emotion. New York: Cambridge University
[iv] Forbes Insights (2010), Executives embrace the non-text Web
[v] Young, M., (2016), Looking at the Facts-Why Video Content Has the Highest Retention Rate
[vi] Anderson, T., (2016), What Makes a Video Marketing Strategy Worth Having?