Insights from INTERACT: Our Inaugural Summit

During the panel sessions and keynote discussions, we shared best practices and challenged each other to think a little differently about how we use data in our organizations.

Now, we’re relying on every person to take those insights from the summit back into their organizations, and then challenge us in turn, to keep making things better, faster – and more actionable.

Here are the key themes that were running through our sessions, for those of you who couldn’t be there.

The first was Data and Creativity. We’re not referring to just optimization, which could mean using data to pick between two not-great options, but how the two can work closely together further upstream, to create instead of being seen as natural enemies. Our panel discussion with Brian Robinson, (Facebook), Verity Wilson, (Mindshare), Sabeen Ahmad, (Publicis), Lauren Zupkus, (CBS Interactive) and our own Ann Sciandra set the tone for the day.

Another theme, was Measuring What Matters, because if we don’t become gurus at telling the story of the value we are creating, it’s (almost) as if it never happened. We heard, that by asking the right questions upstream, you can better assess what flows downstream, from panelists including Frank Kavilanz, (WarnerMedia), Katharine Ricci, (OMD), Eileen Lyons, (Hudson Rouge) and Beckie Turnbull, (PrettyLittleThing).

Amidst 800+ metrics, we need to hone in on the 5-10 that really matter to our businesses. Our panel on this challenge heard great examples from Allyson Hugley, (Prudential), Brian Buchwald, (Weber Shandwick), Jonathan Steuer, (OMG), Naimul Huq, (Lippe Taylor), Tim Rich, (Publicis) about how to fine tune your measurement strategy to create more, not less, understanding amidst a growing sea of data.

On best practices around Brand Resilience in a mobile/social world, we heard from JJ Ramberg, (Goodshop, MSNBC) and a panel including Ian Schafer, (Kindred), Rob Harles, (Accenture), Adam Hirsch, (Edelman Digital), Cecelia Izquierdo, (Filthy Food) and our own Greg Dale, (Shareablee).

We talked about the important topic of data privacy because we all need to be asking the right questions for ourselves, and for our businesses. Transparency and knowledge are key here.

Finally, we talked about Disruption. We live in it, we feel it and each of us needs to bravely CREATE or keep creating it in our organizations. How do we get better at it, faster, more effective is in large part down to data. Melissa Brenner shared how the NBA embraces innovation and emerging technology to continue to challenge the status quo, and then we heard multiple examples from Joe Mandese, (MediaPost), Jon Steinlauf, (Discovery), Deirdre Lester, (Barstool Sports) and Joe Carney, (The Player’s Tribune) in a discussion about what’s next for Video Storytelling.

So as you can imagine, over the course of 17 different sessions at INTERACT, we heard a range of answers to the question “how will this data help you succeed?”.

The feedback falls into two main categories.

On the one side, you’re telling us you need more. More metrics, more refinements, more of everything. We have over 800 metrics and that isn’t enough for you. You know the devil is in the detail, and you will not rest until you get every detail that a future decision could possibly be based on. And you want all of this underlying data to be portable for you, so you can merge it cleanly with your other datasets via API.

On the other side, you need much, much less. Less clutter, less going on – you need to know just the two or three things that are important, that you should change/double down on, or otherwise take back to your organization. You need data that is actionable.

On both sides, you need your organizations to support you even more, to set things up so that you don’t have to weather an ideological, or political fight, right after you’ve sorted through the analytics.

I think the future is a melding of all of this, and we’re taking all of these questions into account as we develop even more robust APIs, and beautiful dashboards that can be picked up and immediately put into action.

Tania