The Dynamics of Change

Let's start off-topic: statistically, only about 11% of you will make it to the end of this article (there's old data on this). It's attribution lies in the busy nature of your day, paired with consuming content on a crowded platform. You just don't have the bandwidth to process the information that's about to follow.

Are you in the 11% club? Just for fun, let's see how far you will make it:

Chat GPT: Tell Me About Adjusted Behavioral Data

Let's set the scene:?

Time: Right now?

Place: A dusty, tumbleweed ridden crossroads, staring at the intersection of data and intuition...

Uh... no thanks AI, I'll take it from here...

Wait... maybe you've mistakenly landed onto something there?

KPI equates to hard numbers, and while potent, they're diluted into the partial value from their composition from the whole.?

ROI? Gratifying.

High NPS scores? Cheers Mate!

Yet here we are, now looking at something different—the dynamics of change. Shifts in the tectonics of habits. It's in these shifts, subtle as a breeze yet powerful as a storm, where the essence of business success is often encrypted.

Picture this: A customer, Random Stand-in #1, floats through her day, her digital footprint strings along like hot gum on a shoe — a “like” here, a “share” there, a hesitant cart abandoned, an article partially read (you still with me? ??). Each of these acts - seemingly trivial, create a sticky, hot mess of data points, but at their core, speak to a global behavior, and the consensus is that it is changing. We, as data junkies, are the ones tasked with deciphering patterns from these data strands, to create a forwards trajectory from a backwards analysis. It's a riddle that defines one single data generator - whether that's a person, persona, company or country.?

Enter the pain point—tracking adjustments in behavioral models. The evolution beyond modeling behavior, but studying the changes themselves and what they mean for us all. The market’s chatter, the antithesis of inanimate, drowns out the subtleties of market shifts. We're in an era of data-deluge, where information pours in torrents, muddying the waters we so desperately try to navigate. Don't get me wrong, behavior has always been able to be interpreted by pattern, even if we didn't have the data to mine or the modern gifts of data-digestion. That's how we evolved beyond seeing data from the rearview, but developing predictive data that is forward facing.?

“Ok, divulge attribution then, if you're pulling that thread.”

Sound the Alarm ??

You can't have it - sorry, not sorry. I wouldn't deprive you of the formative quest of the wild goose chase you’ve found yourself on, the only way to succeed is to make that bird honk, and to do so yourself by catching it. Like that goose - the customer's journey is not a straight line—it's chaotic, intricate, seemingly unpredictable, but if you've stacked up experience, it hints to with something underlying that hits the core memory you've locked away that we all attribute to valuable gained experience. Something that we easily call “Intuition”.

Queue Lightbulb in 3, 2, 1.... ??

Random Stand-in #1 might see your ad on Monday, read a review on Wednesday, consult a business partner on Friday, and finally sign your contract the following week. Which strand led her there? Traditional models would have you believe it's the final click, but we know better. The truth is scattered, fragmented across each interaction, each brand touchpoint.

Wake Up

If you were asleep at the wheel, let me catch you up: we haven't always been here. We built these tools we use on a daily basis in a very short 20 years: the evolved usage of sophisticated CRMs, the budding A.I. with the sharpened teeth of analytics, the multi-touch attribution models with real-time data outputs - all displayed on a device exponentially more powerful than our moon-shot efforts. This was science fiction 20 years ago.?

But today? Our success is found in the burstiness of our craft because it matches that which we study. Yes, burstiness. I like the word and it's application here because its just too fitting not to use—the dynamic, the non-linear, the spontaneous bursts of clarity amidst the noise.

Let's re-spin it this way: we're in the constellations game, sorting out the mess of points on the dark canvas into what brings clarity from the chaos of stars. Here's the kicker my friend— those constellations rearrange themselves, some more quickly than others, but they're all moving. Behavior is fluid, ever-changing, a living entity that is being translated into the digital twin of what is, at the end of the day, being fed data points by very real people, or groups of people, into a single system. That system inherently resists being pinned down by nature.?

So How Do We Wrestle With The Stars?

Like travelers of antiquity, we turn them into narratives and instead focus on storytelling. True, we're not developing mythical fantasy stories, but this narrative is still valuable. The stars we see aren't in the place we see them. Were looking at their light,?millions of years in the past, when it left the surface of the star. Astronomy is translating the language of past behavior into actionable projected insights into the future. I'm jealous of the purity that astronomers are able to experience data management and processing by having observable items on display every clear night - the simplicity is a beautiful thing.

The Cheat Codes

Look, if you're looking to cut to the chase, and you're looking for a cheat code for data analysis, the closest thing I have is this:

Data comes in, and insights come out - not the other way around

Do the work, find the right questions, ask the questions, and take pause to deepen your understanding to set a new course. Sometimes you're in scary waters navigating data-blind, sometimes your propelled by data because you've taken the time to process it accurately. Do that, and you ignite fire in darkness. It's the magic of understanding, of connection, of a bond forged in the fires of something as simple as transaction, as rich as a shared experience and with values that resonate.

I see you squirming in attempts to still wrestle what I'm saying to conform to attribution and I'd instead like to introduce you to a higher cause that I'll go ahead and call my second cheat code...

Resonance?

Craft campaigns that speak WITH the consumer, in a dialogue that transcends to the relational, from the drudgeries of the transactional. If you wrestle with data to create transformational wisdom, converting noise into knowledge, you run the risk of angering your competition by forming bonding relationships (how dare you!).

The pursuit of our customers' hearts and minds is the art of our craft - it's the soul. In the end, we're attempting to focus on data that allows us to more effectively communicate through partnership. Never to momentarily captivate them. I hate the prevalence of that word with everyone's use of AI, but it's just so fitting. You can keep your captivation. When the luster of the captivated moment wears off, I'm tracking what's proven, what works, what matters, and prying the lid off of the dynamics of change to take a peek into the inner workings of how things are changing.

Oh, and revel in the superiority created from your commitment to what matters:?

Cheers, my friend - welcome to the 11% club! (or did patterns change in the 10+ years since Slate drop that data?...)