Making Sense of Big Data: Insights from the Google Partner Summit 2018

At Indago we are particularly obsessed with collecting and using meaningful data, so our challenge evolves into how to squish all this information down into a palatable format for those less excited by exceeding the row limit in excel (1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns per worksheet if you were wondering).

In September, we attended the Google Partner’s summit in Sydney, and a lot of the discussion was around harnessing big data in a meaningful and useful way, rather than just celebrating how much data we all have access to. Elizabeth Fox, a Director at Google Marketing Solutions for AUNZ talked about how Google is levering products and providing resources for others, to solve for humanities big problems. We heard a collection of inspiring case studies: how a U.S. Teenager used Tensor Flow to create an image recognition algorithm that can detect early stage breast cancer in mammograms; how Scientists in Western Australia partnered with Google to track Dugong migration patterns with AI and Machine Learning (cutting their process time from 730 hours, to 34 hours); and that you can point your phone at a lamp and it will sing you a song about it. The latter is not quite as significant a problem for humanity but, a powerful application of image recognition and natural language usage.

We are into our M.L. and A.I., taking every opportunity to leverage the amazing capabilities of intelligent computing to make our work lives easier and increase the breadth of data we can process.

But even with all the technology and data in the world, drawing insight and creating actionable items remains the key to every aspect of what we do. Enter Dave Booth from Cardinal Path. Dave always steals the show at the Partner’s Summit, with his ridiculous imaginary product marketing scenarios and his ability to talk digital marketing and Google updates without living in the rose-coloured glasses version of digital marketing that some presenters seems to. You’re guaranteed to be entertained and learn something at the same time. This year my key takeaway was Cardinal Path’s approach to analysing data and presenting insights, something that a lot of data analysis seems to miss. In that vein let’s look at some simple checkpoints that Cardinal Path use when communicating about data, that you can incorporate in your reporting to ensure you’re driving value for your clients.

Does it tell you something you didn’t already know?

It seems simple, but it’s a fundamental facet of drawing insight. You can tell someone about all the exciting revelations you’ve drawn from the petabyte of data you had your Machine Learning algorithm analyse, but if it doesn’t tell them anything they don’t already know, what’s the point?

Have you gone beyond merely sharing facts and observations?

Again, a simple concept. But it’s unlikely your client is paying you to tell them that the 500% in the ROI column means they made $5 for every $1 they spent, or that the USA had more sales than Australia. Your job is to answer the WHY. Was it the remarketing strategy that drove the higher ROI? Was it the updated region-specific ad copy that increased US Sales?

Can the audience explain it to someone else?

Just because you can explain your process and insights to your team and your manager, doesn’t mean your client can understand what you’re on about! Think about how easy it would be for your client to explain it to their CEO or to the company in the all hands-on Monday. It’s all well and good to pat yourself on the back for how clever you are, but what use is that if no one else can communicate what you’ve told them?