As Stalin once said, "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."
And when he did so, he highlighted one of the biggest challenges we have with information: making it meaningul. You may know your numbers are important, but if you don't present them in the right way, people won't connect with them - let alone take action.
Re-framing information in a meaningful way is the idea behind this lovely little app on the BBC website, which aims to make people think as much about what they drink as they do about what they eat.
The app is based on a simple insight: whilst many of us wouldn't spend an evening shovelling junk food in our mouths, we'd quite happily put away half a bottle of wine and a few pints without really thinking about it. Yet, alcoholic drinks contain as many calories as some of the unhealthiest food out there.
The solution: don't just tell people how many calories they've been drinking, tell them how much crap they've been "eating"...
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So next time you're presenting some numbers, think about how you could make them mean something to your audience. And next time you're sipping on a pint, don't forget that you're also munching on a donut.
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