Easy availability of data has fundamentally changed the game when it comes to validating business activities.<\/p>\n
But if we\u2019re all data and no gut we risk becoming mindless drones who only pursue demonstrably ROI-positive activities.<\/p>\n
Data is ideal for answering questions like whether developing a new product feature was a profitable move, if a Facebook ad campaign is paying off, or which version of a subject line will get more message engagement. Long gone are the days of yore where you launched a product and had to wait until the end of the quarter to even find out if customers liked it.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s easy to see why we\u2019ve become reliant on, even addicted to, data. The right data significantly reduces the risks associated with decisions. The problem occurs when our addiction becomes so acute, we can\u2019t act without data. Peter Drucker was extremely prescient when he said: \u201cwhat gets measured, gets managed\u201d. The tendency is to favor activities where we can easily show we\u2019ve succeeded; and that tendency has got more pronounced in a world awash in data.<\/p>\n
Of course, Drucker wasn\u2019t saying if you can\u2019t measure it, you can\u2019t manage it i.e. don\u2019t do anything without data. For really important decisions you\u2019re unlikely to find the answer buried in Google Analytics. If it was that easy algorithms would be far more effective at running startups than entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n