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

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Communicating statistics creating a “culture of stability”

Welfare enhancement Professional users and citizens Knowledge based society Policy accountability Analysis & assessment Statistical and financial literacy Policy validations Policy making 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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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 ► and micro-statistics ► Information technology Budget awareness ► New demands 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 ► higher education Financial intermediaries ► Research and Literature tells us: tailor statistics to user groups, channels, users language!

More focused market segmentation (Who?) Form of communication, using users’ language (How?) Extracting relevant statistics in context (What?) Further explore existing communication channels (Which?)

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One size fits all ?

Evolution of communicating statistics

Increase volumes, adjust search, regrouping of new statistics, use of tools and colours Focussed on need for technical access to statistics, IT, storage. Statistics is disseminated 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 7 7

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 9 9

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 10 10

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 11 11

One size fits all ?

Conclusions

One euro area ► statistics ► One monetary policy ► One currency One size fits all communication strategy? ► One 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 ► statistics will contribute to a “culture of stability” acceptance of policy decisions ► ► use of statistics ► trust in statistics & institutions Join for common synergies in serving frequent users !

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