An insight is a piece of information that drives or changes action. But how do you get to an insight? What steps do you have to take? 

In this episode of The Insights Factory, Host Ian Cook, CTO of Seek, sits down to discuss this with two Seek teammates: Jordan Kassof,  Director of Engineering, and Andrew Breton, VP of Data. They dive into the modern data stack and the resulting evolution of roles in the industry, presenting and scaling insights, and more. 

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Key Quotes:

“If the dashboard is where you lose interest in the problem, then you're not solving the problem. You can't affect change in that business through a dashboarding tool directly.” - Jordan Kassof

“It's really hard to recruit people to work on an old system because they know they have to be investing brain space and time in learning something that is a dead technology that they cannot transfer.” - Andrew Breton

“What I saw a lot of was people making the decision that they were going to migrate to a new modern system and then it taking years to get there….You’ve got to build everything for the old world and then also build it out to prepare for the new world, which you're never really sure is even ever going to come. Business priorities could change before they even complete that project.” - Andrew Breton

“Transparency is incredibly important. Transparency around where the numbers are coming from, how you're calculating them, how they relate back to those source systems, if there are discrepancies or changes over time. Being able to show and explain those to your business users is incredibly important because trust is really hard to earn and it's really easy to break.” - Jordan Kassof

“Insight-driven action...says, Hey, what question am I trying to answer? Why did this happen? What am I going to do? When am I going to do it?” - Andrew Breton

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Show Timestamps:

(01:57) Describing the modern data stack 

(06:35) Have job functions evolved with the modern data stack? 

(09:25) Does everyone love the modern data stack? 

(13:36) Steps to take after getting your data stack right 

(18:18) Should you pursue a “single source of truth” in your data? 

(27:00) The presentation of data: is a dashboard enough? 

(30:54) Can you scale insights? 

(32:51) Lessons from Jordan and Breton to get better insights from data

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Sponsor:

This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.

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Links:

Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn

Connect with Jordan Kassof on LinkedIn

Connect with Andrew Breton on LinkedIn

Follow Seek on LinkedIn

https://seekinsights.com/

In the age of data-driven enterprises, many organizations are drowning in their data. But being data-driven may not be all that it is cracked up to be. What are the symptoms of being data-driven? Is there a better way? 

In this inaugural episode of The Insights Factory, Host Ian Cook sits down with his fellow leaders at Seek, Founder and CEO Erik Mitchell, and Industry Principal for Retail and CPG, Sean Cline. They discuss the importance of insights, what they are and how they drive businesses forward. They share case studies across retail verticals to demonstrate, not only what differentiates an insight from mere data, but also the tangible ways retail leaders can use insights to impact the bottom line.

“You have the ability to not only see the information, but then tell the story around it. I think systems and tools and insight functions need to be able to do that, be able to tell that story and an insight does that.” – Sean Cline 

“The difference between, let's say a dashboard and or a report and an insight, is the report's going to tell you that you lost people. An insight is gonna tell you why, and it's gonna tell you, now what do I do?” – Erik Mitchell

“I always like to think about somebody who's a master craftsman at something. Whether that's creating things out of wood or distilling whiskey and bourbon, things like that. These companies are all masters at their individual craft, but, their craft is not analytics.” – Erik Mitchell

“There are constraints and rules around how that data's presented as well. It's a challenge and to automate that function, or systemize that function, if you will, is key to having success in this speed to insight type conversation.” – Sean Cline 

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(00:33) Episode backstory 

(02:23) Erik and Sean’s comments on the backstory 

(6:51) What is a challenger brand? 

(7:11) What is an insight? 

(10:48) Erik and Sean’s experience finding insights 

(17:30) The data supply chain and the last mile of analytics 

(21:26) Hurricane data example

(24:24) Product weight and shopper demographic example

(26:17) Can you scale insights across companies? 

(29:25) Advice for business leaders starting to look for insights

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This podcast is proudly sponsored by Seek, the leader in cloud-based creation and delivery of industry-focused insights.

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Connect with Host, Ian Cook, on LinkedIn

Connect with Erik Mitchell on LinkedIn

Connect with Sean Cline on LinkedIn

Follow Seek on LinkedIn

https://seekinsights.com/

 We are buried alive in data. Yet our appetite for true insight only grows. The Insights Factory podcast tackles this paradox head-on, helping you go beyond just accumulating data to engage in truly evidence-based leadership. Join us as we simplify the often daunting process of deciphering raw data to find the core insight amidst all the noise. Hear how insights can serve as a compass to guide your decisions and give you a competitive advantage. Adapt faster. Create more stakeholder value. Increase agility. Make better decisions. Hit your goals faster. Subscribe to The Insights Factory to start leading through insights instead of being driven crazy by data.

Proudly presented by Seek, the trailblazers in cloud-based insight creation and delivery.