Apparently the industry is starved for hard core data and facts, as I received quite a bit of positive feedback about the numbers I published yesterday.
It’s really important to point out the strength and weaknesses of data. Data is certainly useful in decision making (and running decisions up the flag pole, or proving one’s programs are achieving success) but at the other hand, too much focus on data alone is a detriment.
Without insight, context, and analysis, data itself is a crutch, and remember the numbers only indicate what has happened, and sometimes point to what could happen.
So in the end, you’ll need to find a 360 view of the landscape before applying data, insight, experience, and analysis (what it means) to your web decision making process. In some cases the most brilliant avante garde strategists ignore the data and go off instinct for truly remarkable results.
Just a quick note on perspective my friends: remember to think holistic.
As someone who follows politics and especially in light of the come from behind victories on both sides of the political aisle in New Hampshire, it suggests that numbers without context or understanding can certainly be very misleading.
All too often, “gimme the data” is code for “I don’t want to think.” The fact is that much of the data that we may have access too is noisy and dirty. And, by the time we slice it down to the subset we’re interested in, too small of a data set to draw any real conclusions from. But, it’s a lot easier to aimlessly sift through data sets until something (anything!) that could be pitched as “interesting” pops up in a pivot chart. “Interesting” does not mean “actionable” by any means!
I’m a full-time data practitioner, so I’m not saying that analysis and reporting don’t have their place. In my experience, though, the people who use data the most successfully generally start with crystal-clear objectives and strategies that help guide their data usage. That’s key.
I think though that the data is very misleading when enterpreted incorrectly. Could cause you to make mistakes when your analysis is incorrect
Our era could be classified as the age of Data. However, most people forget that it’s of outmost importance to have the proper analysis over the data. A few years ago, i thought that only data matters. When i sit down and analysed the data of my websites (traffic, conversion etc) i understood that without the proper analysis, you simply throw money out of the window.
Our era could be classified as the age of Data. However, most people forget that it’s of outmost importance to have the proper analysis over the data. A few years ago, i thought that only data matters. When i sit down and analysed the data of my websites (traffic, conversion etc) i understood that without the proper analysis, you simply throw money out of the window.