I am a fan of blogs having personalities and for the author to shine through in terms of being their honest selves (see here for more). But non-personal blogs, like this one, provide one facet of the author and I agree that the person does not come through completely because some personal context is missing.
With that in mind I have agreed to participate in the game of Blog Tag that has been going around the blogosphere. It originated with Jeff Pulver, and I was “tagged” by Dave Gale who is a peer blogger from South Africa.
The objective of the “game” is really simple: Share five things about yourself that relatively few people know, and tag five other bloggers to be “it”. I know it sounds like a ponzi scheme! :) But never the one to miss doing the wave in a stadium, and what with it being the season of sharing and what not, my list of five is below.
Before we go on here are my “you’re it” bloggers: Aaron Shear, Andy Beal, Aurélie Pols, Justin Cutroni & Jonathan Mendez. Guys are you up for some fun? :)
Five Things You May Not Know About Avinash Kaushik:
1) I have had the privilege of experiencing three different religions to a small amount of depth. I grew up and am a Hindu (which is really not a religion but rather a way of life). Having lived in Saudi Arabia for a few years I was exposed to Islam quite a bit (in all its flavors as applied across the Middle East). When I did my internship at Delco (GM at that time) in Indiana I went to Bible Baptist Church for three months, every Sunday and listened to the wonderful Pastor Tice.
It amazes me how much is common between religions (especially Islam, Christianity and Judaism) and yet how different they have managed to become. They all preach inclusiveness and just being good in this life, yet……
2) My favorite sport is badminton, though it is hard to find courts in the US and so I play racquet-ball here (when I have time because I spend 14 hours a day in front of a computer, and atleast one in front of a blackberry). I used to play badminton every day during my youth in India (on a nice indoor wooden court no less) and I have such fond memories of the sport, the people and in general that time of my life. I wish I could play more now, it is sport of such amazing skill, grace and speed.
The only American sport I am into now is the NFL. It is perhaps a nod in some weird way to the fact that I played lots of soccer in school and represented my school at several state level competitions, or that my MBA school, Ohio State, is in the National Championships. GO Buckeyes!!
3) I love all kinds of live music (though I don’t get to hear enough of that now, do you sense a story about time management here! :)). Somehow everything sounds good when the volume is cranked up high.
I not financially well off during my school years and I was so desperate to see my favorite band U2 when they came to Columbus, OH, that I volunteered as a Usher for the event hoping to get a close glimpse of the band. While I did get selected I spent most of the night directing people to their seats with my back to the stage (and very far from it).
You would think once the concert starts people would sit (or stand) and watch. :)
4) This is perhaps going into the deep end but…. My Myers Briggs Personality Type is ENTJ (Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging). If you know anything about MBTI then you know a lot more about me now. :) If you don’t know MBTI click here for summary descriptions of the different personality types.
If you want to take the test you can visit http://www.kisa.ca/personality/, though it is a shortened version of the full MBTI test (which costs $150 or so, but this one is free). For more detailed descriptions of all the types you can go to http://typelogic.com/. The whole exercise can be quite helpful in terms of self awareness (it is important to note that all Types are equal, there is no such thing as a good type).
5) This might not be so much of a secret but my life are my kids (its not my blog, even if my wife Jennie will disagree :)). I always wanted kids, a long time before I had a spouse, and I can attest to their power to change lives. My goal in life (the one single goal) is to leave two individuals behind me on this lovely planet who are better than me. You have met Damini already, here’s our wonderful and precocious two and half year old son Chirag.
This is only the second off-topic post on the blog, hope it was interesting in some way. We’ll get back to Web Research & Analytics next week.
Please share your feedback via comments.
PS: As my “tagg’ed” friends post their own Top Five You Don’t Know About Me lists I will add a link to their posts here, more fun for you all! :)
Aaron Shear’s list
Andy Beal’s list
Aurélie Pols
Justin Cutroni’s list
Jonathan Mendez’s list
A reader asked this simple question recently:
> thought you might have some ideas on what kind of skills or experience you see as essential in leading a Web Analytics group
Ahhh… a bigger challenge. I started my reply with:
This is such a big question, I don’t know if I can give a pithy answer.
But then did go on to give a pithy answer outlining six key skills that I thought were essential. : )
Hypothesizing that there are perhaps others who might find the answer helpful I wanted to post it here as well. Since I have a few more minutes now than when I replied to JH I’ll add a bit more context, hope you find it useful.
Ok here are six (plus one bonus) absolutely obvious things to look for in a Senior Manager, Web Analytics:
1) Deep passion for the space.
Web analytics is a tough, sad and an overwhelming business. It is hard to find answers, it is harder still to find insights that will move you beyond the normal “how can we stay afloat for another month” business. If you don’t absolutely love the space and have a deep rooted passion for it then it will be really hard for you to survive, even harder to lead a team.
You have to love the web, you have to love its life changing power, you have to believe that at some level you, yes you, have the power to change people’s lives by killing reports that shows, in 8 font, conversion and visitors stats and replacing them with analysis that will fundamentally improve the experiences of your customers and ease their stress. Got Passion?
2) Loves change.
This one wipes out even the very best out there. The web changes and grows and morphs a like a alien being. You just got used to pre-fetching and here is google trying to guess searcher intent (and now “personalized search” where even your awesome organic listing might not result in you being #1) and then come RIA’s and Ajax and then will come something else and like a tidal wave it keeps coming. It takes a special person to build things today with the mandatory mindset that you will throw them away next week or next month.
You like change, you like learning new things, you have a solid .opml file that proves you are plugged in, you have patience. In interviews ask for how many different data collection mechanisms that candidate has used, how many tools, how many research methods they have been exposed to (if not actively used) etc. Ask for one thing they know of that will mess up analytics world in the next 180 days. If they have a answer, you have a winner. Don’t let go.
3) Questioning of data to to point of being rude.
The core problem with all the tools today is that they rely on data that usually tells you little, especially if you use only clickstream. You also get lots of different type of people coming to your website for different purposes, multiple times, using different browsers and locations. We take this really really complex behavior and apply simplistic reasoning to it (“x % saw the products page so that means z success for our goal”!).
More than analysts managers of analysts have to have a deep sense of humility about that is possible. They question the data and analysis and bring a new and different perspective and can overcome cool recommendations from the latest consultant. All with the simple goal of keeping it real.
(Lots has been written about the quality of data we have, this is not that. For more on that click here.)
4) CDI baby, CDI. (Customer Driven Innovation.)
Great web analytics Managers believe that people in the company are usually wrong about what your customers want. In fact they are shy about saying: “Omniture is saying qqq about the home page behavior hence we need a left navigation on amazon because I always use the left nav on amazon to find what I need.” [Replace Omniture with CoreMetrics or HBX or ClickTracks or WebTrends or …..]
True innovation and sustainable competitive advantage will come from actions that are Customer Driven. Not always but most of the time.
What this translates into is a Manager who has had exposure to Testing and Usability and Surveys and Site Visits and Field Studies or Market Research and all that. Or a couple of those. What you are looking for is someone who can bring to bear their experience to find the right ways for you to apply the power of analytics and research to find the right answers for your customers.
5) Not really good “numbers gods”.
This is bound to be controversial (so do share your feedback). I find that if your core qualification is that you are a Numbers God then you will probably not make a good people manager. Numbers God is defined as: Someone who chomps down massive spreadsheets for breakfast, lunches on SPSS and SAS, snacks during the day on a couple of complex multivariate statistical regression models and can’t go to bed without a warm glass of mathematical trend correlations.
You need this person, my suspicion is not as a manager.
Couple of reasons. Numbers Gods like to control things (that’s what makes they good at “godding” numbers). They like perfection and like to nail everything down. They like to predict and anticipate and might have a tough time with ambiguity.
Usually the best way to become a Web Analytics Manager is to become a good Web Analyst. That is of course possible, but being great with numbers, the very reason you consider someone (“afterall you are good with numbers Joey, why don’t you lead a team of “numbers people””), might not make them a good Analytics Manager. See all other skills above and below.
6) Raw business savvy and acumen.
Without this one can never escape the trap of numbers.
Recently someone shared the result of five days of deep analysis. The core output was correlations between two different trends trying to nail down the ability of one to predict the other. One look at it and it was pretty clear that this nice person had not asked two basic business questions that would have saved five days of work (and stopped sub optimal jumping of conclusions).
It is not that the person was not smart, she/he is numbers brilliant, it was that they did not have basic business acumen (I’ll define it as the ability to step away from the numbers and consider the business interaction that is being analyzed overlaid with business strategy).
Atleast in your Manager you need someone who is street smart, who has business experience, how understand business strategy, who can see the forest from the trees. Analytics moves fast, business moves smarter. Your Manager will put data in the service of business and not vice a versa.
7) Impressive people skills.
The number one reason people leave their jobs is not because they don’t like their jobs or companies or teams. They leave because they dislike their managers.
Hopefully above you have seen a consistent trends of emphasis on non-numbers experience but rather a stress on customers and analytics in general and change and business savvy. But the number one skill you are looking for is the ability to truly lead a team. Imagine some of the tough things above, your Manager not only has to deal with all of them but on top of it lead a team of, what is sure to be, diverse temperamental people and get them to sing in harmony. Really hard to do (trust me I struggle with this!).
Find a person with good people skills, find a person your Numbers Gods will respect, find a person who can schmooze up to Sr Management and get your analysts anything they want.
(I wrote a post a little while back called Three Spire’s of Great Leadership. I would recommend that post if you are really looking for a great leader, web analytics or otherwise. Very few people can pull of true Leadership as it relates to leading a team of people, the post shares my humble view of what the secret sauce is.)
Here’s a interviewing tip: Ask them if they will give you contact info for the last team they lead, the whole team. Then randomly just call two or three folks and ask them what they think of your candidate. I promise you that you’ll be surprised.
What do you all think? Many of you are practitioners, do your Managers have these skills? What makes them special? What am I missing (afterall I am a manager!)? Does the above make any sense? Please share your feedback.
I have to admit that for me moving from a Senior Individual Contributor to Manager was a tough transition. It took me a little time to realize that “people” were not “resources”. But I would never go back, even though financially I could make equivalent amounts being a individual contributor. It is amazingly empowering that you can take a group of people and together you can have exponentially higher impact than you by yourself ever could.
Managing people can be a pain sometimes, it can be like taking care of my two little children, but it can also be very personally rewarding and it can give you a sense of accomplishment that you can take home after your sexy web analytics report has reached the bottom of a recycle bin. : )
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