If you’re in analytics, you should be keep a journal. Or call it a log or running commentary. This is something you keep in addition to your burn list. A journal helps you to: Remember what you explored Exploit more reliably Recall inspiration Some of the best people in analytics are great explorers. They experiment. They examine diversity. The analyze variation. They examine options in the context of systems. They’re great inductive thinkers because they had to learn the hard way to become inductive thinkers. Exploration, on its own, is a very high value activity, but also carries the biggest risk. It’s also the riskiest and the hardest to explain to those who do not explore. Exploration is an attempt[…]
How can you tell if a strategy is working? You measure it of course. To understand what you’re trying to measure, you have to understand the strategy. If you can draw a Strategic Activity System, you can align a measure to each of the outcomes. Take a Strategy Activity System and align an indicator against it. If it can’t be measured directly, what proxy measures are available? That’s the creative aspect of KPI design. Sometimes tricky. Often imperfect. Are the activities that the firm is doing, marketing or otherwise, yielding the benefits that you believe them to be? For instance – are your fares really lower? Are your on-time departures really higher than the competition. Are consumers more loyal? Don’t[…]
You may recall the ArtScience term from 2009. It appears, based on that Google Trend line, that it briefly came back in late 2010 / early 2011. ArtScience, in a marketing, is the combining of Art and Science at the same time. It is not, as some creative agencies have claimed, the utilization of data somewhere at the beginning of the creative cycle. An ArtScience Groupe is hypothetical because it doesn’t exist in practice. You just can’t bolt on science in the upfront and expect the tyranny of the gut to adjust. Placing it upfront certainly gives the creative director the power to ignore what’s being said. But that isn’t collaboration in a manner that generates more or better novel[…]
Last week, I described a framework you can use to express strategic choice. A key component of that framework is the Strategic Activity System. It gives you, the reader, a way to quickly understand the activities that make a difference and how they connect to generate advantages that are very difficult for others to copy. Check out the strategic activity system for WAWTO evenings. WAWTO is a small event in Toronto. There’s no cost to attend, limited commercials, it has awesome people sharing real stories about analytics, and, it’s marketed entirely through WOM and organic. These four advantages are realized by hosting at no-cost venues, typically pubs, which feature beer and wine, that all contributes to real storytelling. One of[…]
eMetrics is a conference about digital marketing optimization. It’s about marketing analytics.You meet many great people who are doing great things at eMetrics. I talked to progressives from Monster and Workopolis, disruptors at Rogers and Expedia, marketers from J&J and MacLaren, scientific marketers at Intuit, and open data leaders from Translink. There were experts – real experts (not just handwaving big talkers, real ones) – in big data, design thinking, and data science. They paneled. And they were on hand to talk one on one.These conferences are awesome because they inspire. Great people talking about wondrous things are inspiring. As Jim Sterne pointed out by way of this Google Trend snapshot below. The United States is fifth in searching –[…]
This week, I pitched three books that help me formulate analytics strategy. They are: The Origin of Wealth, Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Remaking of Economics. On Competition. Business Model Generation. I’ve written summaries of the key points on previous days. Now, I’m going to bring them all together. Strategy is: A design, that; Enumerates choices,which; If architected with complementary and reinforcing choices results in; Sustainable competitive advantage against predators who; Want to destroy your firm. Concretely: Design is created by agents. We know from Beinhocker that agents “use inductive rules of thumb to make decisions; have incomplete information, are subject to errors and biases; learn and adapt over time.” (PP. 97). It’s conceivable, and even likely, that if you[…]
The book, The Origin of Wealth, Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Remaking of Economics, is probably the most enjoyable read of the three that frame my thoughts on Analytics Strategy. It’s my second favorite book, right after Nineteen Eighty-Four. Complexity Economics is about: “Dynamics: Open, dynamic, nonlinear systems far from equilibrium.” “Agents: Modeled individually; use inductive rules of thumb to make decisions; have incomplete information, are subject to errors and biases; learn and adapt over time.” “Networks: Explicitly model interactions between individual agents; networks of relationships change over time. “Emergence: No distinction between micro- and macroeconomics; macro patterns are emergent result of micro-level behaviors and interactions.” “Evolution: The evolutionary process of differentiation, selection and amplification provides the system with novelty[…]
The book, On Competition, is a useful read on its own. In it, Michael E. Porter defines what competitive strategy is, and eloquently uses a concept that we’re going find useful. “Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.” (pp. 43) Here’s the best way to visualize what he means: This Southwest Airlines example is to competitive strategy as Harrah’s loyalty system is to analytics. It’s the main case study. The nodes represent activities and the vertices (lines) represent logical reinforcement. No meals and no seat assignments mean limited passenger service, however, they also mean 15 minute turnaround time. That advantage yields very low ticket prices[…]
The book, Business Model Generation, is well referenced within the Toronto innovation community. (I don’t know if it’s nearly as cited in other cities or other communities). Business Model Generation is notable for having a standardized canvas. This canvas forms a common language for disparate groups of people – designers, developers, financiers and others. As you can see, it has nine boxes, roughly corresponding to all the sections of a normal business plan: What is your key value proposition? Who are your customer segments? What sort of relationships do you have with your customer segments? What channels do you use to serve them? What are your revenue streams? What are your key activities? What are your key resources Who are[…]
There are three sections of three books that provide the guideposts for how I think about strategy. They are: The Origin of Wealth, Evolution, Complexity and the Radical Remaking of Economics. On Competition. Business Model Generation. The three books are readable and enjoyable. This week I will extract bullet points from each, and use them to construct a framework that is amiable for analytics practitioners to formulate their own business strategies. By the end of the week, you ought to be able to write a fairly advanced strategy. The communication objective is to link the business model canvas with a key strategic activity system as a framework for communicating choice and degrees of freedom. The secondary objective is to point[…]