Riddle: How are Analytics Like a Mosquito in a Nudist Colony?
There are so many opportunities to apply analytics today- it’s like being a mosquito in a nudist colony.
There is a problem, however, that not everyone thinks or behaves like a mosquito. They do not always inherently sense opportunities – the opportunities to apply analytics.
Perhaps I stretch this mosquito analogy too far when I presume that many opportunities may have insect repellent applied to them. For example, let’s consider the high expectations of service at a five star hotel. Ever wait in a long line at your hotel check out during the morning rush with others checking out? It might not appear cost-justified to the hotel, but it may be a very valuable extra expense to add one or more front desk staff if you irritate an important and delayed social media influencer who will complain on Twitter or TripAdvisor.com. How would you know? It is an opportunity for an analyst’s experiment or survey. The insect repellant analogy implies that an analyst may not “sense” an opportunity.