Tag Archives: BI

Sherlock Holmes Problem

Analytical Culture, DataBase Marketing, Marketing / Tech Interface, Web Analytics

I think this is probably the last Learning and Teaching issue in Online Marketing (series starts here) before attempting to evaluate and summarize the challenge.  I would like to receive comments from you on the Sherlock Holmes Problem.

“There are two types of minds — the mathematical and what might be called the intuitive. The former arrives at its views slowly, but they are firm and rigid; the latter is endowed with greater flexibility and applies itself simultaneously to the dive.”

— Blaise Pascal

In his post How the Skills of a Night Auditor Translate into Web Analytics, Christopher Berry explores a notion we have wrestled with a lot while developing the WAA’s Certified Web Analyst Test – can you teach someone to be curious in a “business analytics” way? Or are people just born with / socialized into this skill set?  How do you measure and test someone for “analytical curiosity”?

We have referred to these issues internally on the Education Committee as the “Sherlock Holmes” problem.  The issue is not the ability to read and interpret reports, or write up findings, or anything like that.  It’s the ability to see coincidences or oddities in the data, to conceptualize linkage or relationships others don’t see, to follow the data trail (or blaze it) right down to Root Cause.

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Repeating the Past

Analytical Culture, DataBase Marketing, Web Analytics

I’ve been trying to get a few things straight in my head about the way people Learn Online Marketing.

Will you help me?

Here’s a Premise:

The Online Marketing world seems to repeat the same mistakes over and over; it’s almost like every new generation of technology is a clean slate and somehow people expect an approach that was flawed in a previous generation won’t be flawed this time.

Sure, technology changes, but the fundamentals of human behavior are much more difficult to change.  So you would expect there to be some constants, right?

For example, putting a high value on “quantity” of activity (remember Hits?) when every past generation has found that “quality” ends up as a more important metric.

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You Learn Anything at SES?

Analytical Culture, Marketing / Tech Interface, Web Analytics

SES = Search Engine Strategies San Jose, for those not in the know.

And I mean the question literally.  Not did you have a good time, see lots of friends, do a lot of beneficial networking, talk to customers, build your reputation, create content for your blog, etc.

Did you Learn anything?

Looking at the stream of blog posts, video, Tweets and so forth – much of it incredibly repetitive by the way, which is a whole other issue for this type of Journalism – I have to wonder if anybody except those new to Search actually learned anything.  You know, walked away with new knowledge they could use to improve their efforts.

I have more than a passing curiosity about this issue from a macro perspective.  As you might know, I am a Co-Chair on the Web Analytics Association’s Education Committee, responsible for creating the WAA’s Core Curriculum and upcoming Certification Testing.  So I think a lot about Learning and Education, especially as it relates to the web.  And that thinking includes different “delivery models” like Conferences.

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