I\u2019ve always been passionate about the ability of data and analytics to transform the world.<\/p>\n
It has always seemed to me to be the closest thing we have to modern-day magic, with its ability to conjure up benefits from thin air. Over the last quarter-century, I\u2019ve had the honor of working with thousands of \u201cwizards\u201d in organizations around the world, turning information into value in every aspect of our daily lives.<\/p>\n
The projects have been as simple as Disney using real-time analytics<\/a> to move staff from one store to another to keep lines to a minimum: shorter lines led to bigger profits (you\u2019re more likely to buy that Winnie-the-Pooh bear if there’s only one people ahead of you), but also higher customer satisfaction and happier children!<\/p>\n Or they’ve been as complex as the Port of Hamburg: constrained by its urban location, it couldn’t expand to meet the growing volume of traffic. But better use of information meant it was able to dramatically increase throughput<\/a>\u00a0 — while improving the life of city residents with reduced pollution (less truck idling) and fewer traffic jams (smart lighting that automatically adapts<\/a> to bridge closures).<\/p>\n I’ve seen analytics used to figure out why cheese was curdling in Wisconsin; count the number of bubbles in Champagne; keep track of excessive fouls in Swiss soccer, track bear sightings in Canada; avoid flooding in Argentina;\u00a0 detect chewing-gum-blocked metro machines in Brussels; uncover networks of tax fraud in Australia; stop trains being stranded in the middle of the Tuscan country side; find air travelers exposed to radioactive substances; help abused pets find new homes; find the best people to respond to hurricanes and other disasters; and much, much more.<\/p>\n The reality is that there’s a lot of inefficiency in the world. Most of the time it’s invisible, or we take it for granted. But analytics can help us shine a light on what’s going on, expose the problems, and show us what we can do better\u2014in almost every area of human endeavor.<\/p>\n Data is a powerful weapon. Analytics isn’t just an opportunity to reduce costs and increase profits — it’s an opportunity to make the world a better place.<\/p>\n So to paraphrase a famous world leader, next time you embark on a new project:<\/p>\n “Ask not what you can do with your data, ask what your data can do for the world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What are your favorite “magical” examples, where analytics helped create win\/win\/win situations?<\/p>\n Photo Credit: Me!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Analytics isn’t just an opportunity to reduce costs and increase profits — it’s an opportunity to make the world a better place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[100,204,305,327,1354],"class_list":["post-14309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thoughts","tag-analytics","tag-business-intelligence","tag-csr","tag-data","tag-purpose"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Ask-not-what-you-can-do-with-your-data%E2%80%94-ask-what-your-data-can-do-for-the-world-1.jpg?fit=2000%2C940&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3X9RF-3IN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timoelliott.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}