Sailing the ship of storytelling across an ocean of data

A US executive once said that his company was drowning in data but starved of information.

The United Nations has set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets and 241 indicators. That is a tide of data.

There is a real danger that the UN will succeed in providing the world with comprehensive data but fail to make that data meaningful.

In my view, the UN’s biggest challenge in communicating about the SDGs in its 193 member countries is to tell the story behind the data. That story must be a compelling one that every man, woman and child, in every corner of the world, can identify with and relate to.

The stakes for the UN are high. Good causes need great storytelling. The vision of the SDGs is a bold and noble one. It is a vision which deserves to be articulated in a memorable and meaningful fashion.

The Montreal neuroscientist Daniel Levitin points out that we now absorb the equivalent of 174 newspapers’ worth of information a day—five times as much as we did in 1986. We are drowing in data but starved of information.

We are all drowing in data, deprived of meaning and context. We are drowing in data devoid of a story.

It’s time for everyone to climb on board the ship of storytelling to cross an ocean of data. The more seaworthy the ship, the more passengers will get on board.

Paul Gallagher was one of the trainers during the Communicating as One on Sustainable Development course which was held from 16 to 18 May 2017 at the UNSSC Knoweldge Centre for Sustainable Development.