April 10, 2010

Are you in a data rut?

Apr. 10, 2010 at 11:21 AM | By Kate Malone | Comment Count

Pattern seeking is a part of human nature, but several of the people in this article take it to a higher level. One man keeps track of 50 different personal data points, including mood, books read and health, while another has kept a record of every single idea he’s had for 25 years (millions).

As I read through the article, thinking about how obsessive one must be to be tracking such minutiae, I read about one woman I could relate to. She tracks her heart rate, pace and distance for cycling, while I track similar metrics for running. The online log I use has about 15+ data fields for tracking the usual metrics like distance and time, plus fields I usually leave blank like weather and time of day. It’s been about a year since I’ve started and I can understand how addictive data can be. The distance v. time bar graph keeps me motivated day after day because I look forward to logging my progress and hate to see large gaps from several skipped days in a row.

Looking at all of the seemingly random events that are logged by others and the seemingly useless points my running log will let me add, I have to think the data nerds are onto something. With the past data as a baseline for her cycling and health habits she was able to evaluate cures for the insomnia she suffered from and eventually find the right one. All of the seemingly unrelated data points, suddenly became relative as they were indicative of her overall well-being.

What about the metrics that we track in evaluating our success at marketing? Is there more we can look at? It’s so easy to be get stuck in a rut tracking the same data points, year over year, but what if we’re missing something? It only makes sense that we should constantly reevaluate our analytics and see what we can do better and what we can add.

Often, seemingly unrelated metrics can work together, to show a pattern- much like the cyclist. With technology making it so easy to identify trends, why not see if Wednesday emails have a higher open rate than Thursdays? Or if prospects prefer to be contacted in the morning while alumni like to be contacted in the evening. While it may be possible to go overboard with this concept in one’s personal life (keeping track of 50 categories of personal data), it will add more thoughtful analysis to your ROI calculations.