I used this blog to talk to very specific groups. Sometimes it's marketers. Sometimes web analysts. Sometimes it was candidates applying for a position. Sometimes it's data scientists, brandsters, and social analysts.
Sometimes this worked.
Sometimes I confused the hell out of different audiences at different times.
I'll continue to speak to web analysts through the research committee of the Web Analytics Association, in particular, through a new experiment we're launching and ongoing Peer Review Journals.
I'll continue to speak and collaborate with ultra niche communities - data scientists, marketing scientists, and open data professionals through christopherberry.ca.
Eyes on Analytics is shifting.
I'll be curating content from not just from marketing analytics, but also from further afield. My goal is post more interesting content, more often, with less reading. Finally, I'll be borrowing more heavily from the Economist Style guide, with less jargon.
Thanks for reading.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Hype Cycle Cleverness
It's worth explaining The Gartner Hype Cycle. It's topical for 2012.
It works as follows:
Usually many people invent a technology during the same envelope of time. Somebody really gets hooked on the idea. That somebody executes the technology sufficiently well that it produces a technological trigger. And that gets the ball rolling. Awareness spreads through a single market, and then transmits into adjacent markets. Excitement spreads like fire.
People are quick to see potential. Enthusiasm is contagious, and opposing views are downvoted into gray obscurity. Innovators are visionaries. After all, I'm winking, pointing a finger at you, and making a 'click click' sound my voice. 'Hay, click click'. This is an impolite way of saying that 'ignorance increases'.
Hype builds to a saturation point. We're at the peak of inflated expectations. Calls that 'this is a bubble' aren't quite greeted with the same amount of derision. Pesky questions about monetization aren't met with statements of 'this time it's different' remarks. The enthusiastic roarers aren't as loud. In fact, they're becoming quieter. They're not popping by as much. They're not delivering sermons at conferences as often.
The dreamers and the hollow suits evaporate rapidly. They're off to the next big thing or something.
We ultimately end up in the trough of disillusionment. And it sucks. Everything is negative. And there's a very real danger that an entire technology may not make it out alive. Impatient firms abandon their efforts way too soon. The firms that stick by their initial strategic logic learn a lot more. Most technologies climb up through a slope of enlightenment.
Ignorance receeds.
People who were generally not associated with the initial hype find new uses for it. And, gradually, the technology enters into a plateau of productivity. People are generally aware of it, but the sizzle is all gone.
The Gartner Hype Cycle has its critics. It's not a cycle. It's not prescriptive. It's not really objectively measurable.
Yet, just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean that it's useless. I find it pretty useful. It's a model I use to understand a complicated part of the world.
I like the because I can mentally mash it up with Moore's 'Crossing The Chasm', which is a seminal and well studied concept. The Early-Majority is skeptical.
I really enjoy skeptics who get way ahead of the peak. It's as though they're racing ahead to the trough of disillusionment just so they can say 'ha, I told you so'. Is there a market for that? Are there people who really want to buy a piece of consulting that way? Or, more specifically, do such people reinforce the bias of the Early and Late Majority?
So yes, hype is hype. And if you're annoyed by hype, technology probably isn't the right sector for you. Maybe try steel. The pace of innovation in the steel industry is constrained by depreciation. It takes a generation for something to come in and go out.
In technology, it can take as little as 2 years for something to go from dark to hot and through to dark again.
I try to look past the peak and look at the plateau. Monetization doesn't have to be obvious from day zero, but there should at least be at least two business model canvasses that appear viable. The trough always comes. How should that be managed? And how far away is it?
That, in sum, is the Hype Cycle. What do you think of it? Is it accurate? Is it not?
It works as follows:
Usually many people invent a technology during the same envelope of time. Somebody really gets hooked on the idea. That somebody executes the technology sufficiently well that it produces a technological trigger. And that gets the ball rolling. Awareness spreads through a single market, and then transmits into adjacent markets. Excitement spreads like fire.
People are quick to see potential. Enthusiasm is contagious, and opposing views are downvoted into gray obscurity. Innovators are visionaries. After all, I'm winking, pointing a finger at you, and making a 'click click' sound my voice. 'Hay, click click'. This is an impolite way of saying that 'ignorance increases'.
Hype builds to a saturation point. We're at the peak of inflated expectations. Calls that 'this is a bubble' aren't quite greeted with the same amount of derision. Pesky questions about monetization aren't met with statements of 'this time it's different' remarks. The enthusiastic roarers aren't as loud. In fact, they're becoming quieter. They're not popping by as much. They're not delivering sermons at conferences as often.
The dreamers and the hollow suits evaporate rapidly. They're off to the next big thing or something.
We ultimately end up in the trough of disillusionment. And it sucks. Everything is negative. And there's a very real danger that an entire technology may not make it out alive. Impatient firms abandon their efforts way too soon. The firms that stick by their initial strategic logic learn a lot more. Most technologies climb up through a slope of enlightenment.
Ignorance receeds.
People who were generally not associated with the initial hype find new uses for it. And, gradually, the technology enters into a plateau of productivity. People are generally aware of it, but the sizzle is all gone.
The Gartner Hype Cycle has its critics. It's not a cycle. It's not prescriptive. It's not really objectively measurable.
Yet, just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean that it's useless. I find it pretty useful. It's a model I use to understand a complicated part of the world.
I like the because I can mentally mash it up with Moore's 'Crossing The Chasm', which is a seminal and well studied concept. The Early-Majority is skeptical.
I really enjoy skeptics who get way ahead of the peak. It's as though they're racing ahead to the trough of disillusionment just so they can say 'ha, I told you so'. Is there a market for that? Are there people who really want to buy a piece of consulting that way? Or, more specifically, do such people reinforce the bias of the Early and Late Majority?
So yes, hype is hype. And if you're annoyed by hype, technology probably isn't the right sector for you. Maybe try steel. The pace of innovation in the steel industry is constrained by depreciation. It takes a generation for something to come in and go out.
In technology, it can take as little as 2 years for something to go from dark to hot and through to dark again.
I try to look past the peak and look at the plateau. Monetization doesn't have to be obvious from day zero, but there should at least be at least two business model canvasses that appear viable. The trough always comes. How should that be managed? And how far away is it?
That, in sum, is the Hype Cycle. What do you think of it? Is it accurate? Is it not?
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Why Things Don't Mean What People Assume They Mean in Analytics
I live and work at one of the most amazing intersections. It's also
the cause of why things don't mean what people assume that they mean.
There are technologists - developers and computer scientists - who grapple with the limitations imposed by API's and big data.
There are marketing scientists - analysts and statisticians - who grapple with the limitations imposed by computability and understandability.
There are marketers - brand and channel - who grapple with the limitations imposed by budget and cognitive surplus.
It's pretty amazing how a technologist, a marketing scientist, and a marketer can all be right within their own silo, their own way of thinking, but collectively be misunderstood and wrong. The confluence of all three types of people generates continuous tensions, innovations, stresses and misconceptions.
Just to share one such example, take the concept of a response rate, a conversion rate, and an engagement rate. We've had peace, among web analysts, since 2009 on that topic.
And yet, technologists face the limitation that we cannot access certain measures at a unique individual level. Marketing scientists face that limitation, and have it compounded by natural activity inflation within the numerator. That is to say, new types of engagement are invented every quarter. Engagement rates drag higher not necessarily because the experience is better or the marketing more effective, but because more opportunities exist. Marketers face the limitation of having to understand, optimize, and ultimately prove that they matter. Which is also a potential cause of numerator inflation.
Systems don't exist because measurement exists. Rather, systems evolve to maximize some other result. It will always be that way. As a result, the limitations enumerated above will always exist. It's best to understand it and try to make use of it. This causes choices to be made. And like it or not, choices are made.
For instance, the marketing scientist will attempt something new, like some variation on the new LIV algorithm, to control for numerator inflation. In so doing, they'll make the calculation impossible for a marketer to understand conceptually, or to reproduce at all, and even harder for the technologist to implement. They might try for something far simpler, but in so doing, introduce even greater problems into the equation.
This happens again and again and again. It happened in 1993.
The use of the word 'people' in web analytics caused one such problem. Technologists at Netscape invented the HTTP cookie, within the limitations imposed at the time, to understand revisitation rates to the Netscape.com website. Web analysts always meant 'unique browser cookies' when grappling with that innovation 2 years later in 1995. It was explained to marketers (and maybe marketers explained it to themselves) as 'people'. The 'visit' and 'unique visitor' were massive advances over the term 'hit' (still in use by some very, very old people even to this day!), but didn't get down to that unique 1 cookie : 1 human being relationship.
The superiority of the cookie, and the linkage to direct transactional and research behavior, is a huge step forward for marketers. It's still very cute when a TV executive asks "why can't digital people get their measurement together?". Indeed, the TV executive is fully aware of the problems with ratings. They just gave up in 1954, because, well, TV doesn't exist solely to measure it.
Things don't mean what people assume they mean, at least in analytics, is because of the limitations imposed by reality are passed onto people who try to interpret them, and, the lack of time and brain memory space to remember that.
It's only a problem if somebody makes a bad decision based on an incorrect interpretation of what something means.
There are technologists - developers and computer scientists - who grapple with the limitations imposed by API's and big data.
There are marketing scientists - analysts and statisticians - who grapple with the limitations imposed by computability and understandability.
There are marketers - brand and channel - who grapple with the limitations imposed by budget and cognitive surplus.
It's pretty amazing how a technologist, a marketing scientist, and a marketer can all be right within their own silo, their own way of thinking, but collectively be misunderstood and wrong. The confluence of all three types of people generates continuous tensions, innovations, stresses and misconceptions.
Just to share one such example, take the concept of a response rate, a conversion rate, and an engagement rate. We've had peace, among web analysts, since 2009 on that topic.
And yet, technologists face the limitation that we cannot access certain measures at a unique individual level. Marketing scientists face that limitation, and have it compounded by natural activity inflation within the numerator. That is to say, new types of engagement are invented every quarter. Engagement rates drag higher not necessarily because the experience is better or the marketing more effective, but because more opportunities exist. Marketers face the limitation of having to understand, optimize, and ultimately prove that they matter. Which is also a potential cause of numerator inflation.
Systems don't exist because measurement exists. Rather, systems evolve to maximize some other result. It will always be that way. As a result, the limitations enumerated above will always exist. It's best to understand it and try to make use of it. This causes choices to be made. And like it or not, choices are made.
For instance, the marketing scientist will attempt something new, like some variation on the new LIV algorithm, to control for numerator inflation. In so doing, they'll make the calculation impossible for a marketer to understand conceptually, or to reproduce at all, and even harder for the technologist to implement. They might try for something far simpler, but in so doing, introduce even greater problems into the equation.
This happens again and again and again. It happened in 1993.
The use of the word 'people' in web analytics caused one such problem. Technologists at Netscape invented the HTTP cookie, within the limitations imposed at the time, to understand revisitation rates to the Netscape.com website. Web analysts always meant 'unique browser cookies' when grappling with that innovation 2 years later in 1995. It was explained to marketers (and maybe marketers explained it to themselves) as 'people'. The 'visit' and 'unique visitor' were massive advances over the term 'hit' (still in use by some very, very old people even to this day!), but didn't get down to that unique 1 cookie : 1 human being relationship.
The superiority of the cookie, and the linkage to direct transactional and research behavior, is a huge step forward for marketers. It's still very cute when a TV executive asks "why can't digital people get their measurement together?". Indeed, the TV executive is fully aware of the problems with ratings. They just gave up in 1954, because, well, TV doesn't exist solely to measure it.
Things don't mean what people assume they mean, at least in analytics, is because of the limitations imposed by reality are passed onto people who try to interpret them, and, the lack of time and brain memory space to remember that.
It's only a problem if somebody makes a bad decision based on an incorrect interpretation of what something means.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Hope and Action for 2012
It's an annual tradition. We navel gaze. Every December.
It's as predictable as the tides.
So, let's talk 2012.
A Forrester author, Joe Stanhope, asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I replied, 'doing something meaningful', or something to that effect. I meant it.
Let's consider something really meaningful that's happening right now.
Joe painted a picture of accelerating medium fragmentation and bloatware trying to keep up. Indeed, I'm encountering more analysts gathering the pitchforks against the new-new media.
After all, if we can't even do x right, what business do they have to even attempt y?
Because it's there.
It's never been a better time to be a marketing scientist or an analyst. It's never been a better time to experiment. To run tests. To run them lean. And to peer into some of the most violent datasets and questions. It ought to be refreshing.
Convenient reasoning, focused against building business cases for the new-new media, will get analysts nowhere. If the old reporting has to be cut back so the new-new media can be explored, then so be it. Apply scientific principles to your own work and optimize. Razzle dazzle'em. *click* *click*.
Adapt, in 2012, or be consigned to the dustbin. Lack of a business case hasn't prevented any marketer from ever experimenting. And, with Europe on the brink and strife at home and abroad, never before has bold ideas and bold experiments been so necessary. Shrinking marketing budgets mandate broader experimentation.
How are we going to get out of this mess? By spending more on radio? Really? Is radio really the answer? (I'm poking fun at the one radio analyst I know. He agrees with me.)
So, don't sound like the radio analyst in 1992 with respect to the Internet. The economy sucked then too. And we came out booming. Sound progressive in 2012 with respect to whatever it is that's emerging, and win the decade.
Resist and lose the decade.
That's pretty much the choice.
Look at that fragmentation, would you? We got social. We got mobile. We got social apps. We got angry birds and in-game commerce. We're growing enough crops on Farmville to feed the whole of North Korea, nine times over. We got virtual reality and virtual payments. We got apps on DVR's. We got portable tablets with angry birds. We got netflix on your XBOX. Did I mention XBOX? We got XBOX! We got social apps on mobile. We got timeline coming up (you better get on that). We have an emerging Internet of Things (IoT) that promises to illuminate us all. The trend is more data in more places.
And consider the changes in usability. We're inventing new concepts quickly. The pinch. The three point touch. The swipe. Even the notion of the Newsfeed is relatively recent. What happens when we can engage with objects virtually? What happens when things become usable in a digital sense?
Who's going to grapple with it?
The BI guys? Really? They're still working on integrating data from my Intellivision into their datamart. And they're trying. They're really, really trying. But no. You can't rely on them for help.
New analysts? Maybe. The great fifth wave of analytical talent - those that got their start in 2008 - are so rare. The great recession has done more to wipe out the present crop of analysts who should be hitting their 4th year stride than anything else could. Directors and VP's of analytics will pay dearly in 2012 for the devastation that 2008 caused. And let's face it, there's a solid 9 month ramp, even under the best of circumstances, to get a new analyst walking on both feet. On the positive side, if you instill a positive attitude about medium fragmentation and experimentation, you have the chance to set them up for success in a big way. But no. You can't rely on them to save you.
It's you. You're going to have to grapple with it. You're the one who knows what a cookie used to be. And what a gesture is. And you're probably one of the few people that understands how all these other channels fit together - like the email program with the SEM program with the website program with the old mobile program. And each channel has a strategist. And they're all fighting for fewer dollars and less attention.
But not you. Who are you fighting with? With the marketer that wants to try a social app? Why? Is that really worth your energy?
My hope for 2012 is for Europe to pull through it. I'd like to avoid a second major recession and the nervous stuff that goes with it.
My hope is also for action.
My hope is that we'll go from viewing data as a tool for explaining the past and destroying business cases to using data to actively make change better, and make better changes.
We can start really mattering.
I'm going to stand off my soap box now, and ask you - what do you think? Am I pretty preachy about fragmentation? Am I right about the dire consequences of getting in the way? LMK what you think.
.
It's as predictable as the tides.
So, let's talk 2012.
A Forrester author, Joe Stanhope, asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I replied, 'doing something meaningful', or something to that effect. I meant it.
Let's consider something really meaningful that's happening right now.
Joe painted a picture of accelerating medium fragmentation and bloatware trying to keep up. Indeed, I'm encountering more analysts gathering the pitchforks against the new-new media.
After all, if we can't even do x right, what business do they have to even attempt y?
Because it's there.
It's never been a better time to be a marketing scientist or an analyst. It's never been a better time to experiment. To run tests. To run them lean. And to peer into some of the most violent datasets and questions. It ought to be refreshing.
Convenient reasoning, focused against building business cases for the new-new media, will get analysts nowhere. If the old reporting has to be cut back so the new-new media can be explored, then so be it. Apply scientific principles to your own work and optimize. Razzle dazzle'em. *click* *click*.
Adapt, in 2012, or be consigned to the dustbin. Lack of a business case hasn't prevented any marketer from ever experimenting. And, with Europe on the brink and strife at home and abroad, never before has bold ideas and bold experiments been so necessary. Shrinking marketing budgets mandate broader experimentation.
How are we going to get out of this mess? By spending more on radio? Really? Is radio really the answer? (I'm poking fun at the one radio analyst I know. He agrees with me.)
So, don't sound like the radio analyst in 1992 with respect to the Internet. The economy sucked then too. And we came out booming. Sound progressive in 2012 with respect to whatever it is that's emerging, and win the decade.
Resist and lose the decade.
That's pretty much the choice.
Look at that fragmentation, would you? We got social. We got mobile. We got social apps. We got angry birds and in-game commerce. We're growing enough crops on Farmville to feed the whole of North Korea, nine times over. We got virtual reality and virtual payments. We got apps on DVR's. We got portable tablets with angry birds. We got netflix on your XBOX. Did I mention XBOX? We got XBOX! We got social apps on mobile. We got timeline coming up (you better get on that). We have an emerging Internet of Things (IoT) that promises to illuminate us all. The trend is more data in more places.
And consider the changes in usability. We're inventing new concepts quickly. The pinch. The three point touch. The swipe. Even the notion of the Newsfeed is relatively recent. What happens when we can engage with objects virtually? What happens when things become usable in a digital sense?
Who's going to grapple with it?
The BI guys? Really? They're still working on integrating data from my Intellivision into their datamart. And they're trying. They're really, really trying. But no. You can't rely on them for help.
New analysts? Maybe. The great fifth wave of analytical talent - those that got their start in 2008 - are so rare. The great recession has done more to wipe out the present crop of analysts who should be hitting their 4th year stride than anything else could. Directors and VP's of analytics will pay dearly in 2012 for the devastation that 2008 caused. And let's face it, there's a solid 9 month ramp, even under the best of circumstances, to get a new analyst walking on both feet. On the positive side, if you instill a positive attitude about medium fragmentation and experimentation, you have the chance to set them up for success in a big way. But no. You can't rely on them to save you.
It's you. You're going to have to grapple with it. You're the one who knows what a cookie used to be. And what a gesture is. And you're probably one of the few people that understands how all these other channels fit together - like the email program with the SEM program with the website program with the old mobile program. And each channel has a strategist. And they're all fighting for fewer dollars and less attention.
But not you. Who are you fighting with? With the marketer that wants to try a social app? Why? Is that really worth your energy?
My hope for 2012 is for Europe to pull through it. I'd like to avoid a second major recession and the nervous stuff that goes with it.
My hope is also for action.
My hope is that we'll go from viewing data as a tool for explaining the past and destroying business cases to using data to actively make change better, and make better changes.
We can start really mattering.
I'm going to stand off my soap box now, and ask you - what do you think? Am I pretty preachy about fragmentation? Am I right about the dire consequences of getting in the way? LMK what you think.
.
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