Data, Experience and the Scientific Method

From the new Spark whitepaper, Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations, written with Peter Houstle:

So once you’ve got the data, are you all set?

Nope.

Data is a necessary component of making smart, evidence-based decisions, but it is not the only component. Data needs to be supplemented by experience. In fact, neither experience nor data can exist successfully on its own. They come together through the scientific method. Don’t worry – we’re not advocating that you go back to school and earn a graduate degree in physics. We are, however, advocating that you think a little like a scientist.

To learn more about how data and experience can combine to help you make better, faster decisions, download your free copy of the whitepaper at http://bit.ly/1jwXcDX.

Getting Ready to Use Data

From the new Spark whitepaper, Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations, written with Peter Houstle:

What are the things you need to do to get ready to use your data?

  • Address your data quality issues.
  • Measure what matters, not just what’s easy to measure.
  • Find your internal data sources.
  • Consider external data sources you might want to add.
  • Choose a tool to help you visualize your data.

Want to learn more about each of these? Download your free copy at http://bit.ly/1jwXcDX.

Big Data = Big Opportunity

From the new Spark whitepaper, Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations, written with Peter Houstle:

Ultimately, Big Data supports innovation and allows us to do predictive marketing.

Why is that? With Big Data:

  • More data is easily available to relevant stakeholders
  • Accurate data helps you experiment in an organized way
  • Detailed data allows you to segment and target offers appropriately
  • Continuous data about the performance of your existing offerings provides insight so you can create new and better offerings

Want more? Download your free copy at http://bit.ly/1jwXcDX.

Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations

I’m excited to share the launch of the fifth whitepaper in the ongoing Spark whitepaper series, Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations

Co-authored with Peter Houstle (Mariner Management), the whitepaper tackles the question: how can associations use data to start asking meaningful, mission-driven questions and to inform our decision-making processes around them?

Big Data presents a tremendous opportunity for associations, but in order to realize its potential, there are some things you need to know and do. First, your data needs to be reasonably clean and complete. Then you need to look for patterns, and data visualization tools can help with that. Then you need think about the questions those patterns raise and create hypotheses to answer those questions. Then you test your hypotheses, hopefully find strong correlation (since proving cause and effect is rare), and make decisions accordingly. In the course of our research, we did discover a secret sauce to decision making success, but I’ll share more about that later this week.

Speaking of, I’ll be blogging about the contents of the whitepaper all week, but in the meantime, pick up your free copy at http://bit.ly/1jwXcDX, no divulging of information about yourself required.

Don’t forget to check out the other FREE Spark whitepapers, too: