Commentary

The Devil Made Him Do It

You can’t call Jim Sterne a frivolous guy.

Founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, he’s also founding president and current chair of the Digital Analytics Association. Sterne has written 11 books on advertising, Web metrics, social media and customer service, including 101 Things You Should Know About Marketing Optimization Analysis.

The Devil’s Data Dictionary: Making Fun of Data, with fantastic illustrations by Yevgenia Nayberg, is Sterne’s 12th release, written because he thinks everybody is way too serious and the buzz words were getting out of control.

Marketers who are deep into data should get a chuckle out of it and pure data people will laugh out loud.

Herewith, from A-W (no J), are some samples:

Algorithm – Regularly recurring remarks from the former U.S. VP who invented the Internet.

Business Requirements – A negotiated settlement between what the business needs and what the system can do after Business Requirements are ignored.

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Cloud Computing – That one looks like an IBM Mainframe! … or a bunny rabbit.

Data Warehouse – Five million dollar apparatus for storing cleaned and pressed data the CEO once asked for after reading an in-flight magazine. Once finished, CEO leaves company; repeat.

Enriched data – Data with ties to Congress.

Feasibility study – Locating the power behind the budget.

Gap analysis – Competitive assessment performed at American Eagle Outfitters, J. Crew and T. J. Maxx in a nice pair of khaki slacks and a button-down shirt.

Hypothesis – An assumption with no emotional attachment.

Inference – Three people in Okemah, Oklahoma, liked “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”; therefore, it follows that everyone wants to see four seasons and seven specials.

Knowledge Management – Capturing, distributing and effectively using knowledge to bend others to your will.

Late Binding – Tying up data at the last minute before torturing it to tell you what you want.

Machine Learning – Autonomous hair-splitting between good and bad with no grasp of right and wrong.

Null Hypothesis – The assumption that this Tinder date is also not your soul mate.

Outlier – A data point you delete because it blemishes the chart.

Pivot Table – A spreadsheet button for twisting the numbers until they support your point of view.

Regression Testing – Ascertains whether you were a Scientologist in a previous life.

Sample Size – As many as you can afford.

Testicle – List of the tests you would run if you had the time, money, data and balls.

Unstructured Data – Seven, otter, sophistry, farming, 404 Error, vision, falling, belabor, selfie, plethora, piano-playing cat video.

Variable – Depends.

Wisdom – An argument that convinces others you had solid reasons for your rash decision.

To justify this column in the category of Cross-Channel Marketing, I asked Jim: Where do you see the gaps continuing between data collected and the ability to truly connect it to sales?

His reply: “Technically, we're still discovering what data there is ... then we have to figure out how to capture it reliably ... then we need to clean it continuously ... then we need to integrate it with the other data we've been collecting ... then we need to derive insights from it that are meaningful to the advertisers, marketers and product managers so that they can take action ... and then we need to keep doing it until the advertisers, marketers and product managers realize that it's valuable and actually start using it.

Piece of cake.

4 comments about "The Devil Made Him Do It".
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  1. Doc Searls from Customer Commons, April 11, 2016 at 9:31 a.m.

    Jim is possibly the world's best source of marketing wisdom, and a great neighbor as well. (I can vouch.)

    But what, no links? Come on. Let's fix that.

    Jim's author page at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Sterne/e/B000APGX7Y

    His Devil's Data Dictionary: http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Data-Dictionary-Jim-Sterne/dp/0978940474/

    His 101 Things: http://www.amazon.com/Things-Should-Marketing-Optimization-Analysis/dp/1452846642/

    Lots more Sterne Wisdom where those came from.

    Enjoy!



  2. Laurie Petersen from PSS, April 11, 2016 at 10:05 a.m.

    Thanks for the service, Doc! (Was thinking the same thing.)

  3. Peter Rosenwald from Consult Partners, April 11, 2016 at 2:14 p.m.

    Good fun Laurie but I think Jim Sterne (or someone) needs to tip his hat and acknowledge Ambrose Bierce, author of the first Devil's Dictionary.

    Because as Bierce says: "Acknowledge, v.t. To confess. Acknowledgment of one another’s faults is the highest duty imposed by our love of truth.

  4. Jim Sterne from Target Marketing, April 13, 2016 at 7 p.m.

    Quite right, Peter!

    And so, allow me to reproduce the Preface

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


    When Stéphane Hamel coined the description of Big Data as, "That which doesn't fit in an Excel spreadsheet", I realized it was well past time for the datarati to have some fun poked at them... well... us. There is no better example for what I had in mind than Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary (1906); an absolute gem that includes such treats as:


    Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.


    Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage.


    Politeness , n. The most acceptable hypocrisy.


    Self-evident, adj. Evident to one's self and to nobody else.


    Success, n. The one unpardonable sin against one's fellows.


    Bierce also included anecdotes, phrases and verse.


    With no hope of meeting Bierce's intelligence, wit or stamina, I nonetheless offer up my own accumulation of definitions for the data obsessed in a form that Bierce described thusly:



    • Dictionary, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.


    Like Stéphane's definition of Big Data, some of the definitions in this volume were borrowed perforce from George Box, Albert Einstein, Stephen Colbert, Andrew Lang, Aaron Levenstein and Stan Kelly-Bootle.


    I owe great thanks for those data scientists, data detectives and data junkies who tore themselves away from their pivot tables, dashboards and visualizations to correct, advise and enhance these terms. Specifically, Alistair Croll, Bob Page, Dean Abbott, Eric Siegel, James Taylor, Jim Novo, John Marshall, Ken Rona, Lisa Morgan, Mark Gibbs, Ned Kumar, Sam Michel, Pramod Singh, Ronny Kohavi, Rufus Evison and Vicky Brock. Without them I would have only myself to blame.


     


    Jim Sterne


    Santa Barbara, September 2015

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