"Big data" is fashionable right now and many startup pitches emphasise how if an investor wants to put dollars in big data, this company is the best place to do it. Visualisations look similar: a big spaghetti of lines enters a box and out comes a super insight. The traditional IT-way of visualising the world: everything fits in an architecture diagram.

The problem: all these decks look and sound the same.

Architecture diagrams that describe the technology in a top down view are not always the best tools to pitch business ideas. The other approach is bottom up, story, and case example driven. Take one specific insight, and work your way through the system and show how it was produced. Super detailed, super specific, and super real.

Once the audience is convinced that this one microscopic case example works/is brilliant, they will have no problem believing that it works for the other 5 billion possible use cases. And in the process, they are convinced that you did not just slap the label "big data" on your pitch because it is the latest fashion.

Art: Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm, 1950, image by Matthew Mendoza

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