Being a master’s student at Columbia Journalism School, Chikodi learned how to use the integrity of data to tell a powerful story. He started his journey in data-driven communications while working as a freelance reporter in Bangalore, India to starting his own firm Moonshot PR. Check out Chikodi’s entire journey:

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0:00 I think that data is going to be more and more important because it helps us make smarter decisions, it’s also going to be it’s going to be challenged by greater demands for privacy and data management.

0:18So balance between privacy and security and the personalization and the insights from data are going to be at odds.

0:39My journey began in India when I was living in Bangalore and I was doing freelance reporting about emerging technologies such as tele education, you know distance education for people who were living in remote villages and they could use their mobile phone to be able to access education from anywhere in the world or composting toilets or you know, just very basic life stuff that was really convenient because then I was hired by a publishing house in new york city and I came to SAn Francisco to cover sustainable transportation and climate tech back in 2010.

1:19So I was learning everything there was to know about replacement biofuels, high speed rail, electrified vehicles, walkable communities and and very interesting topics at the time that then led me to work for the next web and eventually venture beat, I was covering venture capital mobile technology.

1:41And when that when that position ended I started my own firm Moonshot.

1:47Prior to prior to all of that I was actually at Columbia journalism School and I got my master’s at Columbia Journalism School.

1:54So my my journey is a long one in communications.

2:03My most crucial experience with data actually was when I was a student at Columbia journalism school and I took a course called graphics in the newsroom and despite the name, it was actually very much about data, how to tell the story in a principled manner, how to really have integrity of data so that you tell a really powerful story and then the visuals will back up what the data says because your You’re you’re using clean data, you’re not introducing errors or introducing bias into the data.

2:36And so that has been a really critical pillar of my communication style and my approach for my clients ever since.

2:43And that was in 2009.

2:44So what, when using data in storytelling, it’s really important for establishing thought leadership for clients because either they have data on their own platform and they can interpret it, analyze it and share it with the world or they can have a strong point of view about other data sources.

3:01Either government publications, analyst reports, consulting group reports and having that it’s really unassailable because you are saying not only is this what I think, but this is what this is what the state of the market is, and this is why you should pay attention.

3:18So, I’m very much a proponent of people using data to tell their story because it makes them seem much bigger and it makes them it gives a lot more significant, a lot more weight to do a point that someone was trying to make when they have strong data to back it up.

3:40Data is really essential for establishing credibility.

3:45And there’s a few key groups that need to be persuaded if you will generally it’s the buying public.

3:55So when you have a lot of different choices to make a lot of different competing solutions, the solution that can show you the data that’s important to you, then that builds credibility and that builds trust, then there are employees and recruits.

4:10If you’re growing an organization, then you know, you want to know that the founding team, the CEO understands the broader, broader landscape and the bigger picture.

4:20And so data can really be helpful in terms of making sure that, you know, you’re joining an organization with a person who has their finger on the pulse.

4:28And then, you know, the investor wants to know that the data is real, that there’s the team building a solution is keeping track of all of the right right metrics the buying audience of a company, the recruits of a company and the potential investors of the company.

4:48And so data has a different role to play.

4:51But it’s very important to to the credibility and trustworthiness of of of an organization in the eyes of those three stakeholders.

4:59And so those are the three audiences that I serve myself personally.

5:08I look at how many times a specific keyword or phrase that we’ve introduced into a narrative appears in a finished story.

5:16That’s how I can tell the quality of our messaging exercise because if a reporter repeat something that we have kind of germinated, then they’re really paying attention.

5:29And that’s going to start to grow over time and become the narrative for the industry.

5:33So that’s my most important metric.

5:34But then obviously, you know, the number of times that a a company or a prospect or the number of times that a a client is mentioned is obviously very important.

5:48The number of social engagements comments, those types of things really speak to the quality of a of a story.

5:55So those are some of the metrics that I look at.

6:02I’m using propel right now.

6:04Then there are a few others.

6:06I was contacted recently by I’ll have to check my linkedin.

6:11It looked looked workable.

6:16I feel bad honestly for journalists because now there are so many of these tools coming out and you know, getting quality pitches is good, but that just means that there’s a lot of companies helping a lot of pr people pitch faster and more effectively.

6:34And that’s good and it’s also, you know, there’s just that much volume.

6:39So so I’m using propel, I know the I know the founder when I was at Venture Beat, he pitched me a story and I wrote it, it was called the robot app store.

6:50So and then another, another colleague of mine invested in the company.

6:54So I’m using that at the moment and it’s it’s working out, I also used a crack in the past, and when I was in house, I think we used, we’re going to use trendy kite, we did and we’re going to use trend kite.

7:07So those are, you know, quite expensive.

7:11and so it is, it is interesting to see that the price has been brought down significantly for these.

7:21I really like data storytelling a lot because there’s so much noise and there’s so much distraction out there.

7:27So a storyteller who uses data well, will never be short of work.