CAUSL

At some point in your career you may feel like you're not getting the mentorship you need from the people around you. When this happens, ask yourself if that's because you still need a mentor or because it's time for you to step up and start becoming the mentor? As much as I like to think of myself as one of the twenty year olds at work, I'm definitely not. I still have a sense youthful exuberance about me, and my unaging good looks might seem like I'm a recent graduate, but my eyes reveal a deep level of wisdom that has come from years of experience and suffering. Experience that other members of the team will benefit from. You might not have my youthful looks but you will have experience that others need. So instead of looking for what you can get, start thinking about what you have to give.

For anyone thinking about transitioning into or entering analytics as a career, the barrier to entry in terms of skills is not exactly low, but it may also not be as high as you think, and it's definitely accessible. Note I'm not talking about data science even though alot of my work blurs the lines between the two fields. First of all, why would you want to move into analytics as a field? Aside from all the sex, money and fame, my analysis on tech layoffs earlier this year showed that whilst no job is ever truly safe, a role in data certainly offers a higher level of job security (but comes with a lower level of job satisfaction because you end up having to deal with a bunch of know-it-alls). Over the coming weeks and months I'm going to be writing short but frequent posts and articles on developing core analytics skills with practical exercises. Don't worry, I don't want money or anything, a picture of me in your living room is more than enough. You might have to follow me or my newsletter if you want to receive updates but that's up to you. The posts will also be for anyone just looking to develop their analytical skills.

This morning I was reading facts about Chuck Norris and it got me thinking about what would facts about him be if he worked in Analytics. So I thought I'd share some: - Chuck Norris can track user behaviour without tagging his website. - The conversion rate on Chuck Norris' website is 150%. - Chuck Norris doesn't run AB Tests. He just decides what's going to win. - Chuck Norris doesn't monitor bounce/exit rates. No one leaves his website. - Web pages on Chuck Norris' website load before you visit them. - Google Big Query stores its data on Chuck Norris' servers. - Heatmaps on Chuck Norris' site are just dark red shapes. - The conversion funnel for Chuck Norris' website is just a rectangle. Any more facts you can think of?

When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I'm a property developer. They get very annoyed when they ask to see my property portfolio and I open up Google Analytics and show them all the GA4 properties I've built and developed. One of the people who asked to see my property portfolio got so annoyed they shouted at me, "That's not what I meant!". I apologised for the misunderstanding and opened up Google Sheets to show him my Amplitude event tracking schema with all the user and event properties. He punched me in the face and stormed off. That day I learned a valuable lesson on asking for clarity. You see, when I say property developer I wrongly assume that means GA4 properties because of Google's market share in the analytics space, but the world is changing and to some people property developer means event and user properties on platforms like Amplitude. You can bet I won't make the same mistake again. I apologise to all the people who I wrongly assumed wanted to see my GA4 properties. I should have never made that assumption. As the age old saying goes, when you assume, you make a complete idiot out of both of us. #DataJokes

With data becoming accessible to more and more teams through the adoption of easy to use self-serve analytics platforms, it's easy to flood your company with metrics that make it hard to see the wood for the trees. Which is why having a measurement strategy framework in place is important. It allows you to start off with core metrics and build outwards from there, ensuring that you keep your finger on the pulse of your organisation at all times, making it clear which are the metrics that matter and which are supporting metrics.

I’m not much of a book reader, but I am very selective about what I read. Even then, not everything I’ve read has knocked me on my ass. Most books I’ve not even got past the first few chapters. It’s a bit of an experiment. The books I do finish (and even the ones I don’t) are mostly fine but every now and then I’ll read a book that has an impact that is beyond measure. It changes the way I look at the world, the way I work, the things I believe in or even shape the person I am today. Some books have inspired me and others have made me have feelings - I hate having feelings. I crave finding these books, feelings and all. The problem is that I don’t know ahead of time what those books are going to be for me. What blows my mind might not someone else’s mind and vice versa, which is why I don’t blindly read books people recommend. It’s an experiment. My “knock me on my butt rate” is about 1 in 5-10 and I don’t like those odds considering the time and effort it takes me to read - I’m a slow reader. The point is that I wish I read more, but what I lack in reading I make up for in writing and thinking. I love to think and write. I know reading will greatly improve the former but I know myself well enough to know I’m never going to be one of those people that reads a hundred books per year. I think my rate of 10-20% seems pretty good and I know it will just go down with the more I read because let’s face it, scaling anything usually affects performance metrics as most marketers know. Unfortunately, this is one of those rare posts of mine that don’t really have a conclusion, because how do you conclude something that is just a bit of a thought riff. Instead I’ll leave you with a drawing I did as well as a thought - I don’t think it’s possible to get a 100% “knock you on your butt rate”, but the pursuit of it is well worth the effort, however little it might be. Would you look at that, I accidentally concluded. So what do I like to read? This will surprise most people, but my favourite books are about running. I’ve just finished “Finding Ultra” and “Don’t stop me now”. I’ve also read “Born to run”, “Eat & run”, “What I talk about when I talk about running” and “Ultramarathon man” and I’m currently reading “Out of thin air”, which will be followed by “running with the Kenyans”.

I made this about two years back, so I thought I'd share it again as a reminder that our expectation of a funnel is not in line with the reality of a funnel. With that being said though, we work with what we have. That is the essence of data analysis. You work with what you have. Please stop making excuses about the quality of your data. No one has great data.

People assume I'm really, really, really good at Experimentation and Analytics... and they're right. But I don't consider those areas my crafts. My craft is building and maintaining bridges. In a world where teams own islands, I prefer to own the bridges. Look around your organisation and see if you can spot the person or people who own the bridges. You'll probably struggle to see them. Sure some people will take a boat and go to the other side from time to time but very few will build or look after the bridge that joins the islands together and allows people to cross. So if you want to build something cool build products, databases or campaigns, but if you want to build something meaningful that benefits everyone, build a bridge or if one exists, maintain and repair it, and most importantly encourage people to cross it. Here are some members of our technical team and optimisation team visiting each other's islands on our offsite in Poland this week. I can't take full credit for this bridge. Most of it goes to Brindusa Axon, Juulia Karlstedt, Kelly-Anete Koik and Laura Williams. They're also master bridge builders.

The lost art of Product Management (Part 1): A rapid shift away from core product management skills has led to a cycle where inexperienced product professionals are advising on complex product challenges, often without the depth of knowledge or real-world experience necessary to navigate them effectively. It’s a troubling trend that dilutes the role’s core competencies and undermines the development of true expertise. In this follow up post to my research on "Analysing Tech Lay Offs" I dig into a comment I made on the skills gap facing the product industry. As always, my writing is not meant to offend or provoke anyone, but rather to start an important discussion (at least in my opinion).