helping you master customer insight leadership

Data visualisation – my favourite tool for customer development

favourite tool

Continuing our theme on your favourite tool, I was surprised by the suggestion of Data Visualisation.

Despite not being what I thought of as a software tool, I think guest blogger Hanne Sorteberg makes some helpful points in this post. So, I am delighted to welcome back Hanne. She has previously blogged for us on Data Science, role definition & The Goal.

In this post, Hanne makes the case for data visualisation being a key tool to data driven culture change. She shares honestly what has worked for her & what has gone wrong. I’m grateful for her candour & pragmatism. I hope you find this post helpful, especially if you have BI responsibilities.

(more…)

Why Magic Quadrants and Waves are critical to choosing your tools

Magic Quadrant

A few conversations with Customer Insight leaders have reminded me how many don’t know about Magic Quadrants or Waves.

Given my background in IT I am used to using these tools, from Gartner and Forrester respectively, to help guide tool selection. However, I’m aware not all Data, Analytics or Research leaders have that background.

So, I am delighted to welcome back guest blogger Tony Boobier, to share how these research reports can help you choose the right tools for each job. Over to Tony to build on his past posts (and this AI related book review), by sharing how Magic Quadrants & Waves can help you.

(more…)

Hero or Guide? What story should you tell your customers?

hero or guide

Building on our recent education theme, how can you use stories to educate your customers? What is the difference between being a hero or guide in the stories you tell?

Recently I had a very enjoyable chat with an experienced Gestalt coach & organisational psychologist, Ty Francis. We chatted about many subjects, including something he had recently written. I was delighted to read that it concerned storytelling & customers.

The key premise of this post, that you need to change your stories to focus on the customer, sounded so right for our blog. So, I am delighted to welcome Ty as our newest guest blogger. He will share what educators & influencers can learn from the structure of epic stories.

(more…)

Your role as an educator, how you can help your business to learn

educator

Over the last 2 months I have been lecturing MSc students, so I’ve pondered your role as an educator.

Although we focus on Customer Insight or Data Science leaders being technical, much of their roles are education. Whether you focus on Data, Analytics, Research, Data Science or Database Marketing – I bet you face education challenges.

Think of the last time you needed to pass knowledge onto your team. Have you had to educate your board or executive committee? Do you need to be an educator to ensure your peers engage with insights that could improve your business?

(more…)

Customised Learning, do you personalise your training?

customised learning

Continuing our month focussed on educating others, let’s consider the growth of customised learning.

To share a perspective on this, I am delighted to welcome back guest blogger, Tony Boobier. Tony has shared with us before on topics as diverse as location analytics, no goals & AI’s impact on your working life.

In this post, Tony muses on the need to stop our one size fits all approach to education. As a blog focussed on Analytics, Insight & Leadership, it seems fitting to challenge ourselves about this dimension of personalisation too.

(more…)

The power of pressing pause, what are you missing by going fast?

pause

I recently had an opportunity to experience one of the benefits of pressing pause.

While presenting to over 30 Chinese non-English speaking executives, I learnt when to pause for my translator. She was excellent and taught me how long to speak before pausing for her translation. (Side note, it’s longer than you might think, as she needed context in order to translate meaning not just words).

The context of my talk was a visit by a leading Chinese insurer, to Cass Business School. To aid their executive education, that prestigious business school invited a number of leading thinkers (plus me) to present to them.

(more…)

How to help a non-technical audience understand their readiness for Data Science

non technical

Last week I had the pleasure of working with the University of South Wales (USW) to help non-technical people understand Data Science.

More specifically, I was running a Masterclass entitled “Everyday Data Science“. The brief was to demystify this topic for a diverse audience. It was clearly popular as it drew a good crowd.

The delegates who attended my Masterclass varied from data analysts to directors. However, most worked in some branch of public sector services.

(more…)