Making Numbers Count
How to Translate Data into Stories That Stick
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Making Numbers Count
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Narrated by:
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Kathe Mazur
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Making Numbers Count is a lively, practical, first-of-its-kind guide to turning cold clinical data into a memorable story.
Until very recently, most languages had no words for numbers greater than five - anything from six to infinity was known as 'lots'. While the numbers in our world have become increasingly complex, our brains are stuck in the past. Yet the ability to communicate and understand numbers has never mattered more. So how can we more effectively translate numbers and stats so that the data comes alive?
In Making Numbers Count, Chip Heath and Karla Starr argue that understanding numbers is essential - but humans aren't built to understand them. Drawing on years of research into making ideas stick, they outline six critical principles that will give anyone the tools to communicate numbers with more transparency and meaning. Using concepts such as simplicity, concreteness and familiarity, the authors reveal what's compelling about a number and show how to transform it into its most engaging form.
Whether you're interested in global problems like climate change, running a tech firm or a farm or just explaining how many Cokes you'd have to drink if you burned calories like a hummingbird, this book will help math-lovers and math-haters alike translate the numbers that animate our world.
©2021 Chip Heath and Karla Starr (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
What listeners say about Making Numbers Count
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Ali
- 18-01-22
Concepts are great but some pants examples
I am a big fan of the Heath brothers stuff, I am also a fan of reading the book alongside listening to the audiobook. Sadly the audiobook must be the US version which doesn’t include some paragraphs that are included in the UK version (meaning lots of pauses) and examples alterations (meaning lots of pauses).
I genuinely like the idea of converting numbers to something more tangible but felt some of the alternative versions were worse. I guess though that that speaks to #Rule 3: Defer to Expertise
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Steven L
- 12-04-22
Great for people struggling to articulate value
I loved this book. A lot of takeaways, but main theme is making numbers relatable and human.
loved it
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Margaret Bent
- 23-09-22
how to deliver numbers with impact
The author delivers a series of great examples of how to deliver numbers in a way to maintain attention and deliver the message. There is a bit of repetition in the book, but it's pretty easy listening and doesn't last too long so not much of a problem.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Chris F
- 09-06-22
A simple point, repeated. Then repeated again.
I work with often very complex numbers every day and need to communicate these in an accessible an understandable way. I thought this book might help give me a fresh insight into how to approach this.
However, there are a number of issues with the book:
- it is very U.S. centric; I lost count of the number of times it talks about "baseball scores". They mean nothing to me. It's ironic that a book exhorting us to use relatable numbers then goes on to use a number the majority of the world will need to infer the meaning of.
- The first couple of chapters tell you all you need to know and, if you are working with numbers and learned anything meaningful then maybe a different career is in order.
- Some of the examples are, in themselves, not intuitive and I found myself "translating" them into numbers that meant more to me. One example is a part where a clunky fraction is used instead of a more intuitive percentage and another where a sample size is reduced to such a small number as to mean the first reaction is ask why such a small sample size was used (I think it was something like 1 in 3 respondents thought x, whereas it would be more informative to say 100 from the 300 respondents etc.)
It feels like a good idea that could have been a medium sized article stretched into a book.
Disappointing.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Buyer
- 22-01-22
Not one of their best
I’m a fan of the Heath brothers books and have purchased pretty much all of them. This book however really doesn’t hit the mark im afraid . The whole concept of making numbers accessible and interesting falls flat because this one concept is drawn out to death. The lack of Chip Heath narrating is another drawback with a narrator that seems incongruous with the Vietcong matter. I had expected the vim , verve and wittiness of the usual Chip Heath character but it was sadly lacking . Unfortunately the book just seemed to confirm the stereotype that numbers really are boring and there’s no dressing that up.
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