MAP, REAN and WHY: starting a journey with data analytics

Intro

When Steve Jackson reached out and asked me to review his latest book, "Asking Why", I was very surprised.

First, because we did not know each. See, a book is also a bit like a baby, we go through pregnancy (write them), watch the birth (publishing) and then the growth into maturity, hopefully while contributing to the world.

I appreciate his trust and I am thankful for the opportunity.

Next, I was surprised because he felt this exercise could be of help, supporting the book during the maturity phase by getting people interested about it through my review. Which meant... he was confident his book was good!

It's such a great experience working with people when they feel confident.

Is the book good, then?

First Things First... What is the book about?

One could narrow it down to "a book about website data analytics".

There is some truth to that. And maybe this is the only criticism I would through at the book: it has a huge potential to be developed further extending it's scope, because of how good and practical the ideas presented are.

Or in other words: this book is something else for me. It is a book about driving business growth, it is a book about good business analyst practices and it is a book about becoming business results-oriented.

Ah - and there is a lot about data analytics, too!

The Author's Journey

Everyone reading my summaries know this, I like stories.

And Steve doesn't disappoint: he writes about his writing (this is his third book), writes about how he got into data analytics (personal story) and writes the stories about some of his clients who got fantastic results through the usage of the practices he suggest.

Will get to the practices in a moment.

Before that, something that needs to be said: this choice of format for his message, associated with templates and exercises, is a fantastic contribution to the audience and a great example of using the read medium to deliver the right message.

Long form text in social media, or even articles, wouldn't be able to handle the wisdom the author shares, while the book format fits perfectly, and also works great as a marketing tool to support either a consulting business or other services like trainings and seminars.

A.k.a.: consider writing a book yourself!

Back to the Practices

Without blowing up some good surprises for the readers, the "Asking Why" is part of a Measurable Analytics Process (MAP) - which is the subject of an online webinar offered by Steve, therefore it is one of the steps when you are setting up a robust analytics process for your business.

The WHY is a question that I ask myself a lot, and I do see the meaning of asking it within the business. Well, it is even the foundation of a technique (5 WHYs)!

But when do you ask why?

The idea is that you first understand your customers journey based on a framework named REAN:

??Reach an audience of potential customers, then

???Engage or interact with them in some way, hoping to

???Activate them, when they first buy your product or service and finally

????Nurture them, take good care of those customers.

Then, you use data analytics and, through the identification of segments and flags, design and test theories that will help the business achieve their goals.

And ask the why question based on the results of the experiments, having the data at hand to be able to find the answers.

About Case Studies

A big value of the book are the case studies, because they are real and because they help the reader to understand how to re-frame technical findings and translate them into business language.

In one or the other case, I would have wished to know more about it... the famous "what happened next".

Still, in all cases Steve proves that looking into data can help businesses to find meaningful answers to their problems and make the right investment decisions, while keeping a close eye in the customer journey.

It reminded me of the posts from Dr. Theodora ZIAMOU - as she writes and suggests that we should be mindful of the behaviors of our clients and the journeys they go through while interacting with us (virtually or not), the work of Steve explains how you can collect data to either understand or prove your theories about such a journey.

What is More

The book does not stop there in the theory and goes through lengths of explaining how to do certain setups using Google Analytics, not going through too many details or examples but giving a good first experience for those who never tried it.

What is more, it gives the examples leveraging the concepts of segmentation and flags shared in the book, walking through the MAP process.

It doesn't get more practical than that!

Observations

The danger of reviewing this book is that it's goal, it's purpose and it's story won't fit with a lot of the other reading I have done and shared here. Yes, it means it may come across a bit harsh.

To balance that, let me make this clear: I do recommend the book for anyone who is new to data analytics, to anyone who likes learning about new frameworks and to anyone interested in business analysis.

I would give an extra recommendation to those willing to engage and work with Steve, because it tells a lot of what he can do, and between the lines you can get a lot of the how as well.

All that said, here comes the ratings:

• Easy of reading: 3 stars. The language is business, and since that's the target audience it shouldn't be a problem but for a more general audience, it may require a bit more explanation and background. Which is again positive for the target audience, since it gets straight to the point. Short book, a bit over 60 pages which makes it for a couple hours reading max.
• Learning something new: 2 stars. There is a lot of overlapping between Steve's experiences and mine - starting with the use of Webtrends! (yes, I am that old) Probably, this was a reason why I was not overly surprise going through the pages but it can add a lot to someone starting in this space. The highlight for me was the REAN framework.
• Interesting and Engaging: 3 stars. What I find most engaging are the exercises. They are good and a great stimulus for asking better questions and creating better experiments.

I am curious about the reaction of the community to this book review. How does it resonate and interest you? Let me know.