I was chatting with a friend about how to make data easier to understand. He gave me a brilliant example:
People struggle to grasp the scale of large numbers – like the difference between £1 million and £1 billion.
His advice? Use time instead of money:
- 1 million seconds is about eleven days
- 1 billion seconds is over thirty years
That lands differently.
When we present data, the numbers alone aren’t enough. The key is context. The audience needs a frame of reference.
I’ve seen this done well:
- Google once told my brother he’d travelled 60,000 miles in a year – the equivalent of circling the globe 2.4 times.
- Airbnb once reported handling as much money as the GDP of Croatia.
- Bill Gates pointed out that in 2020, the world spent nearly as much on perfume as it did on global health development aid.
These comparisons don’t change the data. They change the way we understand it.
If your message includes numbers, don’t stop at accuracy. Ask yourself: Will they feel the difference?
When people see the scale, they start to care.
That’s the power of perspective.
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