On digital balance, neurodiversity, and cat food. A look back on Season One of Data Malarkey – the podcast about using data smarter

Data Malarkey - the podcast about using data smarter

After six great guests, it’s a wrap for Season One of Data Malarkey – the podcast about using data smarter. Your host, master data storyteller Sam Knowles, picks out common themes and chooses his highlights from a lively series of conversations with his mixed bag of academics, marketers, a leading voice in clearing down space junk, and a coach helping bring balance to our data-rich, digital lives.

Our conversations were recorded remotely, via the medium of Riverside.fm, in February and March 2023.

Thanks to Joe Hickey for production support.

Podcast artwork by Shatter Media.

Voice over by Samantha Boffin.

Professor Ana Adi, Quadriga University, Berlin

Professor Rusi Jaspal, University of Brighton

Katherine Courtney, Steering Board Chair of GNOSIS – the Global Network on Sustainability in Space

Laetitia Zinetti, RVP Southern Europe at DoubleVerify

Mark Evans – NED, coach, advisor, and former Chief Marketing Officer at Direct Line Group

Anastasia Dedyukhina, Chief Inspiration Officer, Consciously Digital

Three guests (Anastasia, Laetitia, and Ana) discussed both how they spend their time and how they manage to bring balance to their lives, taking active steps to avoid being overwhelmed by data; how they stay on the side of data common sense and avoid data malarkey.

Katherine showed herself to be a stellar data storyteller, talking about both the risks space junk presents, why it could easily take us back to the 1950s if it’s not cleared out of the path of satellites, and how to convince primary school children we are not alone in the universe.

Rusi introduced us to Brains at the Bevy, a Brighton University initiative in which academics share their research findings and impact in a local community pub, demanding that they – too – are great data storytellers for the locals in the audience.

And Mark revealed why and how he champions neurodiversity in the workplace – and then owned up to his biggest, personal, data-driven blunder. It’s all about cat food, and Quincy the office cat makes an on-cue appearance, swishing his ginger tail.

Data Malarkey is back with Season Two from 21 June, and do we have a guest for you. One of the world’s leading public intellectuals and best-selling authors. Tune in again soon to learn who it is.

To find out how you ranks as a data storyteller, complete our data storytelling scorecard at https://data-storytelling.scoreapp.com. It takes just two minutes to answer 12 questions, and we’ll send you your own personalised scorecard which tells you what kind of data storyteller you are.