Original source: datazuum
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Most organisations invest heavily in data capabilities while leaving the decision-making process itself largely unchanged. Schmarzo's account suggests that gap is not accidental — it reflects who analysts actually talk to.
Yahoo Assignment Convinced Analytics Veteran That Decisions, Not Data, Are the Real Product
Three weeks into a two-month listening tour designed to build advertiser analytics for Yahoo's ad network, Bill Schmarzo had learned almost nothing — and was quietly calling his former employer to check whether his old job was still available. The turning point came not in a boardroom but at a bar in New York, when a colleague pointed out that the team had been interviewing analysts rather than the media planners, buyers, and campaign managers who actually controlled spending decisions. What this exposes is a structural confusion that underpins much of the data industry: the assumption that improving analytical output is equivalent to improving organisational outcomes, when in fact the two can operate in near-complete isolation from each other.
The real question, as Schmarzo concluded that evening, is not how to ask better questions of data, but how to make better decisions with it — a distinction that reframes analytics as a support function for human judgement rather than a discipline unto itself.
"It isn't about asking better questions from a data and analytics perspective — it's about making better decisions."
Summarised from datazuum · 32:23. All credit belongs to the original creators. Streamed.News summarises publicly available video content.
