Data driven

London based business intelligence consultant Narius Patel’s submission for the competition run by Microsoft to promote the use of their Business Intelligence tool Power BI to support data driven journalism was rated an "excellent co-finalist” at the results declared on February 14, 2018. The organizers received 37 entries for the 2017 Power BI "Year in Review” data storytelling contest.
Patel’s data story "Missing migrants — Tracking Deaths Along Migratory Routes,” showed migrant deaths along the United States and Mexico border. "Migrants risk life and wealth at the hands of human traffickers to escape war or for a better life in wealthier countries. Most make it to a safer place, but for those that this article focuses on, there is no happy ending or better life,” noted Patel in his preface, adding, "I hope this Power BI article inspires thought and reflection about the world we live in and the kind of world we would like to live in. I wanted to build a story that flows like a news article rather than just another report. The sunset theme (background image) flows through the report and reflects each region... Besides providing a dark background for the figures it also conveys the beauty of a world that still harbors many tragedies. I opted for simplicity rather than too many distracting visuals to convey meaning rather than simply numbers.”

Narius Patel: "compelling combination of narrative and analysis"

According to one of the judges Troy Thibodeaux, interactive newsroom technology and data journalism team editor at The Associated Press, Patel’s report had "one of the most pleasing designs in the competition. The integrated chart and map displays offer a compelling combination of narrative and analysis, and the design choices there are harmonious as well. I like the consistent design with variation in thematic top line statistics. The combination shows that the crisis is worldwide while recognizing differences in the individual regional constituent crises.”
For Patel, who is currently working on multiple Power BI projects within the health sector, as part of his assignments he uses the tool "for building interactive business performance reports.” He was drawn to this competition since it promotes the tool as a means to create news articles from data and to visualize the data as part of a ‘story.’” He had sourced his data from the Missing Migrants Project, an organization that monitors the volume of people that go missing/die during migration to escape war or poor economies or persecution.
As summed up on the powerbi.microsoft.com website, it is very important for submissions to cite the source of their data. Competitors were also told of other pitfalls: "beware of too many words;” "don’t overcomplicate;” "don’t draw unsupported conclusions;” "simplify the design… err on the side of simplicity.”