Communicating statistics to frequent users
“One size fits all?”
Werner Bier and Per Nymand-Andersen
European Central Bank, Directorate General Statistics
CCSA Special Session, Luxembourg, 8 September 2011 1
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Communicating statistics
creating a “culture of stability”
Welfare enhancement
Policy making
Professional users and citizens
Knowledge based society
Policy accountability
Analysis &
assessment
Statistical and
financial literacy
Policy validations
Policy
decisions
Policy options
Analysis &
assessment
FACTUAL AND INDEPENDENT STATISTICS
“Good statistics are much, much cheaper than wrong decisions”
Janez Potočnik,
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European Commissioner for the Environment
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Communicating statistics
creating a “culture of stability”
One euro area ► One monetary policy ► One currency ►One statistics
 17 euro area countries  331 million people  15 languages
The EU  ≥ 60 regional/minority languages  By 40 million people
► A rich cultural & financial diversity
► Information overflow ► Information technology ► New demands
and micro-statistics ► Budget awareness
Does one communication strategy fits all purposes?
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ECB statistics communication activities
Press releases ► Dissemination of statistics on ECB website (SDW)
► Monthly bulletin ► E-mail hot-lines ► Video & games
 Press briefings on new statistics with journalists
 1-2 seminars per year to explain statistics to journalists
 ECB statistics conferences inviting users of statistics (policy, academia,
journalists)  ECB speakers at conferences and seminars
 Bilateral informal talks to external users and media
Statistics Data Warehouse (SDW) where all published statistics
are freely available
Does one communication strategy fit all ?
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One size fits all ?
Who are our frequent users ?
► Policy makers ► Media ► Financial intermediaries ► Research and
higher education
Literature tells us: tailor statistics to user groups, channels, users language!
More focused
market
segmentation
(Who?)
Extracting
relevant
statistics in
context (What?)
Form of
communication,
using users’
language (How?)
Further explore
existing
communication
channels
(Which?)
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One size fits all ?
Evolution of communicating statistics
Focussed on
need for
technical
access to
statistics, IT,
storage.
Statistics is
disseminated
Increase volumes,
adjust search,
regrouping of new
statistics, use of
tools and colours
Ask users:
work with synergies
of similar user
patterns
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New communication initiatives
• Survey of user needs and functionalities (web-based and interviews)
• Task Force on accessibility of statistics: A Eurosystem/ESCB concept
• Work together with (sparring) partners from the private market
• Closer cooperation among international organisations, sharing tools
• Statistical competence centre – one stop shop of trustworthy statistics
for all (crowing out bad statistics)
Provide a set of best practice and recommendations of new ideas to make
statistics better understood, easier accessible and reach a larger audience
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New preliminary communication suggestions
Preliminary
ideas (i)
Facilitate the access of official statistics by data
vendor (Bloomberg /Thomsen-Reuters /Haver analy.)
 Data vendors are re-distribution multipliers of (official) statistics and reach
financial intermediaries globally.
 Provide tools and functionalities which are familiar to and daily used by
market analysts and financial researchers.
 Ability of users to compare statistics from multiple sources and select data
and graphs within few “clicks”.
 Large and high frequency volumes (“machine to machine” communication
facility and code mapping/translations ).
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New preliminary communication suggestions
Preliminary
ideas (ii)
Workshops and training for media
Invite journalists to statistics workshops:
 Provide an overview of the statistics system and how it works
 Provide a conceptual overview of available statistics
 Explain the statistics, objectives, provide examples for easy understanding
 Demonstrate how to find statistics and to use available tools
 Provide contact points to statistics for further references and for (non policy)
explanations and clarifications of statistics
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New preliminary communication suggestions
Preliminary
ideas (iii)
Press releases – include facility to select the
related statistics directly from press releases
 Easy access to statistics and historical series
 Easy for users to check for a statistics story: ability to compare latest statistics
with earlier values – is there a story to report this month ?
 Easy to find additional related statistics for further explorations
 Easy to compare corresponding national contributions and euro area statistics
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New preliminary communication suggestions
Preliminary
ideas (iv)
Common language
 Convert statistics into common language messages which make statistics
easy understood and therefore usable for laymen
 Provide and assist laymen in converting statistics into common language
 Provide direct links from common languages and statistics language
 Provide statistics in multiple languages
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One size fits all ?
Conclusions
One euro area ► One monetary policy ► One currency ►One
statistics ► One size fits all communication strategy?
Statistics is technically disseminated and available – progress is
made with incremental upgrades (web 1.0 to web 2.0), add-ons
Need to focus more on Communication of Statistics
 Ask frequent users for their needs (similar patterns)
 Focus on serving and supporting frequent users
The more users understand statistics, the more ► use of statistics
► statistics will contribute to a “culture of stability” ►
acceptance of policy decisions ► trust in statistics & institutions
Join for common synergies in serving frequent users !
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