PCMA CONVENING LEADERS 2014 PREVIEW

DataGotham has

grown to 300-plus attendees.

and ask some questions of it. That said, if you want to do some more intense data analysis, there are packages, like Tableau Software, that are designed to be used by people really committed to data analysis.

What should meeting profes- sionals avoid when it comes to data analysis?

One of the big misconcep- tions that I see often is that data will solve your problems for you, and actu- ally people are sometimes afraid of starting to use data because they feel like it will make them look bad or it will take away some of their agency, when the truth is actually the opposite. The example I like to use for that is that A/B testing [testing one feature against another and going with the one that consumers respond to best] is a great tool for figuring out which of two options you should decide to use, but it will not tell you what A and B should be in the first place.

Last year we did a couple of visualizations after the fact of how people were tweeting about the event. We did find out that a lot of people were following along who were not physically present at the event, which was good, because one of our goals was to get the word out beyond New York.

Are there basic data-science tools with which everyone should be familiar? Can you recommend software or tools that would help meeting profes- sionals specifically better collect and use data? The tool doesn’t matter nearly as much as the mindset. What you actually have to do is, when you’re in the process of making a decision, stop and say, “Is there data that I can access that can inform this decision in a useful way or give me some context?” And if the answer is yes, then just make a little extra effort to grab that data and try

PCMA.ORG

‘When you’re trying to make a decision where you think the data might be able to guide the decision you make, make sure you have access to and understand the data that’s available to you.’

Data should be used to question your assumptions and help you, once you’ve already been creative, decide how to deploy things. You shouldn’t just assume, “The data will run my business for me.” It can’t do that.

What is the role of written surveys and question- naires, compared with more empirical data? That’s really a question about the difference between qualitative and quantitative data, and both are useful. I find that most people using sur- veys and questionnaires are trying to get a picture of context. In business, you try to make decisions that are going to take place in a world that you have a fairly small amount of insight into. When you are surveying your customers, what you’re trying to understand is what effect your decisions actually had on them.

OCTOBER 2013 PCMA CONVENE 79