Meet your new Marketing VP

A couple of days ago I visited the subjective nature of ‘expertise’, and how online community software and social networks are actually exacerbating the relative nature of perceived expertise in any given field. I’d like to continue with a direction where I think the true expertise is developing: it’s all in the numbers.

IBM just bought CoreMetrics. Adobe bought Omniture. The job boards for quantitative analysts are a mile long. Why is this? My take is that the culture of hyperanalysis and sweating over every small trackable bit of behaviour that began with successful dotcoms is finally seeping into the larger marketing departments of larger companies. “Marketing” is no longer those guys from Mad Men thinking up new creative copy while sloshing martinis, it’s Anthony Edwards from Revenge of the Nerds now telling you the exact percentages of retention you’ll need from exact zip codes using precisely worded tweets (the text of which was likely written by a robot algorithm).

But let’s be clear– this isn’t a race to hoard data. This isn’t a contest to see who can lumber through the largest spreadsheets. The data is everywhere, many times for free (thank Google). The real expert is the person with enough classical logic training, statistical classes, and– most importantly– the ability to write well enough to convey a coherent story that explains all the minutiae into some sort of actionable plan. (there’s hope for all those philosophy majors after all).

Relative Goodness

Forrester Research understands this well. They’ve acknowledged the subjective nature of expertise in their data sets: all software rankings and application analyses are based on executive surveys. They figure that if they ask enough questions of enough executives they can get some relevant (subjective as it is) data points from which to present a decent story. Notice that Forrester rarely draws conclusions– they simply present enough data and a nice set of graphics that you can draw your own subjective conclusion. Forrester even gives you the source spreadsheet so you can monkey with the variables and draw your own story. Their success, I believe, is in the strength of their storytelling abilities and presentation skills.

Who is the expert? The person that can divine a coherent direction out of a sea of numbers, that’s who. If Edwards can comb his hair and write well, he’s got the job.