I just spent some time reading a good post from Avinash about the WAA Championship (http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/wachampionship/) and the results are in. Sadly my comapny was not in the top 4, but this gives us a great opportunity to explore new things and see this in a different light.
Avinash brings up some good points I know we’re all striving for in our analysis: how to make it better and more actionable, without giving a data flood to our clients. He also gives 7 tips on how to improve the quality of analysis that I know we all think about but may struggle to put into action.
Here is a link to the article, I highly suggest reading it as well as the winning entries: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/07/consultants-analysts-present-impactful-analysis-insightful-reports.html
Notice a common theme among all of them… no scorecards! This might be a good approach if we’re looking to break out of the doldrums of scorecard data smog and really drive clients business forward. I often ask myself should we ditch Excel entirely for client facing documents. The more we allow excel to control our work, the more data-laden things can get. It’s the whole goldfish in a bowl thing…if we can start to change our own culture first, we can change our clients and push them forward!
Let me know what you think, I’m eager to hear your feedback.
