Over the last couple years, I’ve spent an increasing amount of time diving into the possibilities Deep Learning (DL) offers in terms of what we can do with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Some of these possibilities have already been realized (more on this later in the post). And, I could not be more excited to see them out in the world.
Through it all, I’ve felt there are a handful of breath-taking realities that most people are not grasping when it comes to an AI-Powered world. Why the implications are far deeper for humanity than we imagine. Why in my areas of expertise, marketing, sales, customer service and analytics, the impact will be deep and wide. Why is this not yet another programmatic moment. Why the scale at which we can (/have to) solve the problems is already well beyond the grasp of the fundamental strategy most companies follow: We have a bigger revenue opportunity, but we don’t know how to take advantage? Let’s buy more hamster wheels, hire more hamsters and train them to spin faster!
Today I want shed some light on these whys, and a bit more. My goal is to try to cause a shift in your thinking, to get you to take a leadership role in taking advantage of this opportunity both at a personal and professional level.
I’ve covered AI earlier: Artificial Intelligence: Implications On Marketing, Analytics, And You. You’ll learn all about the Global Maxima, definitions of AI/ML/DL, and the implications related to the work we do day to day. If you’ve not read that post, I do encourage you to do so as it will have valuable context.
In this post, I’ve organized my
Category: Big Data
Artificial Intelligence: Implications On Marketing, Analytics, And You
A rare post today. It looks a little further out into the future than I normally tend to. It attempts to simplify a topic that has more than it’s share of coolness, confusion and complexity.
While the phrase Artificial Intelligence has been around since the first human wondered if she could go further if she had access to entities with inorganic intelligence, it truly jumped the shark in 2016. Primarily because we got our first real everyday access to products and services that used some form of AI to delight us. No more theory, we felt it!
I’m going to take a very long walk with you today. This topic has consumed a lot of my thinking over the last year (you’ll see the exact start date below). It’s implications are far and wide, even in the narrow scope that I live in (marketing, analytics, influence). I have so much to tell you, stuff I’m scared about, and so much I’m excited about.
Here are the elements I’ll cover:
+ AI | Now | Local Maxima.
+ AI | Now | Global Maxima.
+ What the heck is Artificial Intelligence?
+ Machine Learning | Marketing.
+ Machine Learning | Analytics.
+ Artificial Intelligence | Future | Kids.
+ Artificial Intelligence | Worry about Humanity.
Through it all, my goal is to make the topic accessible, get you to understand some of the key terms, their implication on our work, our jobs, and in a bonus implications on the future we are responsible for (your kids and mine).
Let’s go!
AI | Now | Local Maxima.
AI also seems so out there, so hard to grasp. Let me fix that for you.
Here’s a
Cookies To Humans: Implications Of Identity Systems On Incentives!
A story where data is the hero, followed by two mind-challenging business-shifting ideas.
At a previous employer customer service on the phone was a huge part of the operation. Qualitative surveys were giving the company a read that customers were unhappy with the service being provided. As bad customer service is a massive long-term cost – and short-term pain –, it was decided that the company would undertake a serious re-training effort for all the customer service reps and with that problems would get solved faster. To ensure customer delight was delivered in a timely manner, it was also decided that Average Call Time (ACT) would now be The success metric. It would even be tied to a customer service rep’s compensation creating an overlap between their personal success and the company’s success.
What do you think happened?
There is such a thing as employees that don’t really give a frek about their job or company, they just come to work. You’ll be surprised how small that number is. (Likewise, the number of employees that go well above the call of duty, look to constantly push personal and company boundaries is also quite small.) Most employees work diligently to deliver against set expectations.
Reflecting that, in our story, most customer service reps, re-trained, took the phone calls with the goal of driving down Average Call Time. They worked as quick as they could to resolve issues. But, pretty quickly customers with painful problems became a personally painful problem for an individual customer service rep. They hurt ACT, and comp. Solution? If the rep felt the call was going too long, self-preservation kicked in and they would hang up on the customer. Another
Five Key Elements For A Big Analytics Driven Business Impact
There is, almost literally, an unlimited number of things you could focus on to create a high impact data-influenced organization.
And, as if unlimited is not enough, nearly every month your analytics vendors release new features, you discover new analytics solutions, and as your business is more successful (hurray!) there is a new mobile app to track or a new digital experience to problem-solve or a crazy online to offline campaign that upends everything unleashes a new layer of tactical activity.
In a world when your work will never be done, how do you assess that the core things necessary are present? How do you ensure that your can zig-zag with business strategy? What guarantees that agility and innovation are present in your analytics practice?
I believe there are five elements that have to be persistently present in the primordial soup at any company that expects amazing life to spring forth.
You’ll be surprised, there’s only one tool in that mix. It is not even an analytics tool. My reason for that is simple… At this point, it honestly does not matter which web analytics tool you use as long as it is a tool that is under active development by your vendor. Yes, some tools can dance on their left foot and others can only do so with their right foot. Not as important as you might think.
My recommended five elements are much more primal, their presence powers brilliant life to constantly evolve.
Here’s a little back story.
I was asked a few weeks back: “What companies should we proactively help with analytics, for free, so that they can make smarter data-influenced decisions?” I think the answer expected was my view related to
Five Key Elements For A Big Analytics Driven Business Impact
There is, almost literally, an unlimited number of things you could focus on to create a high impact data-influenced organization.
And, as if unlimited is not enough, nearly every month your analytics vendors release new features, you discover new analytics solutions, and as your business is more successful (hurray!) there is a new mobile app to track or a new digital experience to problem-solve or a crazy online to offline campaign that upends everything unleashes a new layer of tactical activity.
In a world when your work will never be done, how do you assess that the core things necessary are present? How do you ensure that your can zig-zag with business strategy? What guarantees that agility and innovation are present in your analytics practice?
I believe there are five elements that have to be persistently present in the primordial soup at any company that expects amazing life to spring forth.
You’ll be surprised, there’s only one tool in that mix. It is not even an analytics tool. My reason for that is simple… At this point, it honestly does not matter which web analytics tool you use as long as it is a tool that is under active development by your vendor. Yes, some tools can dance on their left foot and others can only do so with their right foot. Not as important as you might think.
My recommended five elements are much more primal, their presence powers brilliant life to constantly evolve.
Here’s a little back story.
I was asked a few weeks back: “What companies should we proactively help with analytics, for free, so that they can make smarter data-influenced decisions?” I think the answer expected was my view related to
The Magic of Universal Analytics: Strategy, Tactics, Implementation Tips
In a Q&A after a keynote a couple of years ago, I was asked: “When will traditional business analysis subsume the web analytics silo?”
My reply: “All business will ultimately be digital, so, if anything, web analytics will subsume business analysis!”
That was a half-cheeky reply. But, if you reflect upon the developments in analytics over the last couple of years it is incredible to see that we, web analytics, have moved so quickly towards the aforementioned outcome.
In fact, even the term digital analytics is too stifling. It is all just business analysis – with digital being a dominant factor in influence (marketing, advertising, experiences, connections, relationships et. al.), digital plus real world owning outcomes (of the commerce type) and some facets of influence.
Business analysis. No digital. No web. No offline. No just this or that silo.
And, 15 years later I get to go back to my first job title after graduating from MBA school. Senior Business Analyst! : )
So, in our world, web analytics, what is helping us embrace to this change? Moving us away from our digital only silo? A little something, that Google Analytics calls, Universal Analytics.
It was announced to the world perhaps 24 months ago – in classic Google fashion, with a bold vision that was not fully baked. Gotta love those betas! The team at Google, thanks to that bold vision, has continued to invest time and people, and execute quickly. Universal analytics has been out, in proper fully baked production release, for a little while. It has exciting new features, an exciting cluster of new analyses you can do, and a lot that was impossible before. It allows you to be a full-blooded Business