It's ok to be grey

This morning we received the tragic news of a colleague's sudden passing away, so I wanted to post the most valuable lesson he taught me as a memorial and tribute to someone for whom I had great respect.

The gist of the lesson: data doesn't have to yield concrete conclusions to be useful

I used to live in a world where data proved things one way or the other. If the results were inconclusive there was inaction.

Since then I have been able to observe how the grey areas often reveal more subtle nuances of an issue, suggest contributions to situations or issues, may present opportunities or challenges that a person just looking for black and white might ignore.

So next time you are analysing something and there are no immediately obvious conclusions, don't get frustrated - look a little closer, you never know what you might see.

KPIdiocy?

I spent this morning struggling to piece together conclusions by analysing data from 40 different spreadsheets, all containing different data sets, from which I wrote an entire essay of commentary and strategy. It took me 8 hours of straight slog, as well it should.

I then sat down to write the annual KPIs into a table; a task that should have taken 20 minutes tops given all the work I have just completed. 1.5 hours later, I'm still here with a blank table, writing my blog and not getting any closer to completing the task at hand.

Why? Because setting KPIs feels counter intuitive in modern marketing. Sure we have to have something to measure against, it helps us be effective and fair managers right? It gives us a nice neat little yardstick by which to measure our progress.

But it also feel prescriptive, formulaic and just plain wrong in a world where marketers have a million options, a thousand possible permutations of each of those options and there isn't just one right answer any more.

8 blog posts per plan anyone? One Tweet a day or 5? 3 emails to your engaged leads or 33? We can't take a one size fits all approach to event marketing any more and so KPIs have become nigh on impossible to set.

My current plan is to have a set of evaluations, rather than concrete metrics; a set of things that the marketer must show they have considered and decided to use or not.

Any bright ideas, please shout! :-)