#015: Digital Analyst Skills vs Talents

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[00:00:25] Hello everyone and welcome to the digital analytics power hour.

[00:00:29] This is Episode 15. You know before we start the show I need to make this small disclaimer and resembles personal demystify demystifies cuenta Delanie capitally productions broadcast most have expressed a bit of British power. There’s know. All right well hey welcome back. Our last episode we got really focused on a really specific area of digital analytics which is mobile. This episode we’re going back to where we feel comfortable talking about all the soft skills and then maybe the hard skills we’re talking about analysts skills versus talent. As always I’m joined by Jim Kane head up the Babbage systems and the napkin empanada you know and of course Tim Wilson partner at analytics demystified not in Canada. Yes. Good evening Chan. I’m Michael Helling digital analytics practice leader at search discovery. Not so. Not in Canada.

[00:01:32] All right so guys this is interesting because talent and skills sort of sound like the same thing but they’re not. And we’re talking about sort of a question that I think has been put to a few of us over the years is is there someone who just can’t be an analyst. They don’t have the talent. They don’t have the skills. Could we teach them the skills and then they could be a good analyst. Or is there a component of being an analyst that just have to be in the you like nature versus nurture. Right. So what do you guys think.

[00:02:04] So I will I will start with saying that I think the skill versus talent distinction is an important one. And I realize we did an episode way back when for for three oil listeners who say Gee haven’t you talked about these sorts of things before.

[00:02:21] I do think this is something that that was four or five months ago and I feel like I’ve been spinning a lot of time thinking about it and I’ve started to come to a kind of bleak or somewhat depressing conclusion but it is that some people aren’t cut out to be analysts or digital analysts. And we talked about this on an earlier episode like you know do you have a pulse you know demand is so high supply is so low you can get into this job and from discussions and other factors have started feeling like no you know what. It isn’t easy. It is a relatively easy field to get into because demand is so high and supply is so low. And there are a lot of people in there that are not helping our profession. And in my mind that is a talent issue not a skill issue.

[00:03:16] You know going back to an author that Michael you and I both really like although separate books none other than Mr. MARCUS BUCKINGHAM I believe you were talking about Eric Peterson also the other author we adore. We know he doesn’t listen to the whole podcast. We don’t know that he doesn’t make it to the first five minutes. Right. So to get that in early. But we’ve we’ve had this discussion in the past.

[00:03:44] I think the greatest management book that I’ve ever read is First Break All the rules and then I also absolutely don’t want to ever manage anyone again. You think that one of the best books is now discovering your strengths and you actually adore managing people. But first break all the rules makes the distinction between skills knowledge and talent. And really what I actually realized I forgot about knowledge but skills versus talents and skills being effectively defined as something you can teach you can teach somebody. Google Analytics you can teach them how to use Excel to a certain extent whereas talents are kind of more innate characteristics and those are things where our feel like the analysts who really shine are the ones who really have. Talents that are suited to the analytics profession and Buckingham makes the claim that you cannot teach talent. And that’s kind of a colossal waste of management effort to try to identify a weakness. And if you take something like a competency which is a nice term and I like competency frameworks and the DA has done a bang up job on a competency framework competencies often have a mix of skills and talents and I do believe that talents aren’t fixable and have. I’ve spent time in my career going back 10 plus years trying to teach somebody a talent. And if you’re not wired for some of the things that make analytics so much fun and it has drawn me to the field and I think drawn you guys the field. You can’t teach it. Import Jim is not even going to attend because he can’t get a word in edgewise.

[00:05:34] So they think I wanted to say stop.

[00:05:39] So yeah. Jim why don’t you give your take on this a little bit and then I have a couple of rebuttals from Mr. Wilson.

[00:05:47] I agree that there’s kind of three different types of strengths. And I referenced my favorite management book of all time which is the Advanced Dungeons Dragons player guide second edition and the a second edition. I’m like a hella old.

[00:06:02] You get wisdom you’ve got charisma you’ve got intelligence you’ve got what you know what you’ve learned.

[00:06:10] You’ve got the ability to be smart and then you’ve got the ability to talk people into thinking that you’re smart thing makes sense. The thing I think as one of the reference Dungeons Dragons and dare I did it but I think the thing that we need to take into account is that this is something we’ve covered before. This is a very young discipline and there are schools that are offering courses. Those schools are very formative but you know if you were to look at a more traditional career set like accounting you come out of an accounting degree with all of the required skills and kind of a basic knowledge base because you’re forced to do stuff over and over and over no Web analyst has ever got to kickstart her career with that level of structure and training. So all of us especially guys our age have had to wing it and that means I think that if you don’t have the talent to figure out which skills to develop you know it’s still very wild west and 50 years of this role still exists it hasn’t been absorbed into VI or into something else. You’ll see people coming out of four year university courses and they’ll probably have figured out in four years because they were told exactly what to do when they bought the books. It took us 10 years of winning into Segre out I don’t think that trumps talent entirely.

[00:07:32] There’s a reason why we’re more senior and other people are not and it’s not just that we were there first but I think that it’s again that the nature of a very new industry in five years there will be another net new and a great example of data science younger than we and we’ve had our opinions about it but the concept of data science is even younger than web analytics and it’s even more formative. Therefore you need people with a much higher level of talent and so you know that’s where I really see us evolving out of as a discipline.

[00:08:04] No it’s interesting you don’t still going first back to what you said Tim because you said a couple of things to describe me which were inaccurate. One is my favorite book is not now discover your strengths or strength finders 2.0. I do like that book and I think it has a lot of merit in the context of this conversation. I would say there’s a book called The Talent Code which I think is very helpful for understanding things like talent. And then also I don’t adore managing people as much as I adore seeing people achieve their goals and knowing that they are fulfilled and happy. So I’m actually in a lot of ways not a very good manager but to the extent I am it’s because I care about individual people and that’s one of my strengths. If you’re looking for carrying that’s your resume that search discovery in Atlanta. Well no because actually the funny thing is that’s what makes it so darn difficult for people to make it through our interview process because I don’t trust my inclinations on people because I care I’m like oh yeah they could do it for sure. But you know other people on my team have a way to put a voice to that you know and say well we should be nervous about this or the skills aren’t there. So we’re very picky as all of our organizations are as we should be. The other thing going back to what you said Jim you know this concept of skill versus talent.

[00:09:32] I sometimes think if I had not joined digital analytics when I did I’m not sure I can make it in this industry does that sound terrible. And maybe that’s being too self-effacing or whatever you think you might make it. You still think there’s a chance you’re going to make it in this industry. I well I’m holding out hope it’s but it’s keep going to keep reading those books. The thing is truly care too much. Yeah exactly. You know the thing is is that you’re right. When we got into this field we had to wing it.

[00:10:04] There wasn’t a point of reference there wasn’t someone we could watch and learn from. Most of the time now there are opportunities for people to really get a chance to work alongside observe and imitate and learn from people with deeper experience maybe even people like us. Again a resume to resumes. That’s not the point. The point being there’s been a shift and it’s much different because I would say before you know he had a critical mass of like there being just one analytics person for a corporation or organization right. It’s very rare now to see that and you mostly see teams of analytics people and sometimes very decent sized teams depending on the company in the organization. And I think it was more critical to have talent back then and sort of this ability to sort of see what needed to be learned and done figure it out. Be very adroit and be able to shift in and have the ability to be very curious and learn new things and really pry information out of people. And now I think you can train people in various skills and they can function and things like that. But I think when we get into this conversation or sort of what kind of talent level needs to be there versus what skills can you train people to do. You also have to go back and talk a little bit about what an analyst is expected to accomplish. Right. And so to your point Tim you know the competency framework from the DA might be a place to start with that or you know we could just define analyst ourselves. Well.

[00:11:47] I wind up having kind of short patience for. Sometimes I get a little bit of a little bit of a tick when I hear us talking about. Back when we were getting into this we really had to figure it out. And today they don’t really have to because I will claim that there are a ton of analysts who have been doing this for a long time and aren’t very good at it. And there’s a danger of those people bringing in other people that they’re then teaching the wrong ways to do things to it to state it a little more positively. I’ve had some experiences where I’ve worked with people for a while and said Wow you are just not fit for this this industry. I’ve had the exact opposite. Which doesn’t help those people because somebody who’s 24 years old and isn’t coming into organization with fantastic mentorship doesn’t have a four year degree in Digital Analytics because it didn’t exist for her either and literally knocked my socks off with like every single interaction. And I want to ask why what is it that she does well she’s got the curiosity she’s got the inquisitive nature she’s going to figure it out. She really really enjoys digging in and trying to figure out what can I do that I can bring something data enabled to the table to give somebody an answer that they couldn’t have gotten without me. And I look at those and think there’s a lot of those people aren’t. They’re not getting some handed to them. Here’s the formula to do great with analytics.

[00:13:28] They’re wired for the space in that that’s what they want to do. They get energy from tinkering around with. How can I do this new thing and excel. How can I figure out how to capture this data that I know would be super valuable and it’s kind of hard to capture what is a question that I realized I might have the potential to to answer.

[00:13:53] And I don’t necessarily think that five years from now or ten years from now now that we’re suddenly going to have training where we’re giving people a menu and say forward that you know follow this menu and you will be a great analyst.

[00:14:06] Wait. This is this is important is this being recorded.

[00:14:10] Good. I agree with everything Tim just said.

[00:14:13] Well we’re done. Thanks for listening. Thanks Jeff. Next week.

[00:14:17] Great show everyone let’s stop says and I don’t necessarily disagree although I do think it’s very interesting because I just heard you Tim Wilson describe strength’s finders pretty nicely in the way you were talking about people and their ability to kind of just naturally have some strengths in an area like strategy being analytical and being able to place things in context and thinking through rubble to that point though.

[00:14:48] The there’s a lot more budget there’s a lot more headcount requirements for analysts. I don’t think the industry has particularly matured that’s fair in the last 18 years.

[00:15:03] I’m willing to say that’s that’s fair and I kind of agree with that and I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your second point directly but maybe just in degree which is I think there are better opportunities for people to learn today than there were before. And I do think the demands are a little clearer today than they were. I know they’re clearer today than they were 10 years ago. Companies still write the laundry lists job descriptions that sort of have everything in them from you know being able to code Jake Wherry as well as you know have master’s level data visualization skills and also know every tool out in the marketplace.

[00:15:46] It always kind of made me laugh when you know a company just uses one analytics tool but they want you to have experience across like five different ones up to 10 years ago I would say there weren’t jobs ascription the people who were getting successful had sort of developed into the role. Like now there are so many tools and there are so many search for job descriptions you have the ability to list a bunch of different tools that are needed.

[00:16:16] And I will look back to where I don’t know when I became a web analyst I sort of know when web analytics kind of went into my back. The expectations were super low it was like maintain this tool that the Kranks through VOD files and spits out reports every month.

[00:16:33] So there wasn’t much being asked of web analytics. Now there’s a lot being asked of was being asked is being asked in the wrong way or with unrealistic expectations.

[00:16:47] So when you had an opportunity and an interest and talents could kind of draw you to that opportunity and sort of discover and bold this role that added value.

[00:17:00] The expectations are kind of zero and you’re finding a way to add value and people say hey that’s great. And next thing you know you actually have a new a new title because they’ve created a role for you whereas now they’re saying we need to hire an analyst. And now it was an analyst and all of a sudden it’s off into rickrolling hand and you’re putting the unicorn job description out and now you are sort of this defining these roles and skills that may or may not be realistic and somebody is looking at it and saying how I know excel and I’ve been in Google Analytics and there and they’re chasing after it.

[00:17:36] So I think you can make a case that it was easier when we were just being drawn to something that nobody was explicitly defining. This is exactly what we need and how we expect you to do it because we have the freedom to actually do it in the way that we felt was right and if we had the right talent we were going to do that the right way but who of us was an amazing analyst just because we were talented coming out of the gates.

[00:18:05] Well we were all we were all heading towards that but we all have a past littered with you know things that were like if I would have known don’t project your failures on me hobbling whatever Jim came.

[00:18:22] Well but I think I think the talent meant that we sought out knowledge and were able to stay two or three steps ahead of the people who were you know expecting stuff from us. I get I get a little uncomfortable when we talk in our cell when we’re putting ourselves on a pedestal is like the glorious you know follow the right path. I would do it again I’ll go back to look at some tips today where I’m like damn you doing stuff at 24 that I wasn’t doing it 34 which was still much in my rearview mirror and I’m like yeah you wouldn’t you would run circles around me no matter when you were dropped into into this profession until they walk into a boardroom and completely fall in their flayed face because they have no experience talking to an executive. That’s actually a fantastic example because of course I’ve got like willand image in my head and that’s like the Conant’s is the one thing that’s not there.

[00:19:17] Eurex Well that’s unfair. That’s a that’s it. There’s a there’s talent associated with that as well. Right.

[00:19:24] Some people are preternaturally have amazing talent and the ability to communicate with others and identify and read a room and see what’s working and modify on the fly and all those kinds of things those are all amazing skills or talents actually skills but they’re all for those of us who aren’t naturally talented in their skills. We had to acquire. The reality is our talent led us into this industry and showed us the skills we needed to develop with experience to be successful analysts. And as we get more experience we’re able to streamline the skill set necessary so that future generations don’t have to have the exact same talent as we did. I still like very smart people. I like people who are intellectually curious I like people who are strategic. I like certain talents but the reality is is that I can define skills that people can spend time learning and again this is where that book The Talent Code is very helpful because it actually shows you hey there’s ways that people can actually significantly advance their skillset or their talents based what they’ve observed people doing so you know plus one for that book for my for me. Did you say for future generations future. Yeah like Internet generations. I get doubles every day next Thursday. Next Thursday exotically.

[00:20:52] It’s like back in my day you know. Not that I’m not fond of say that and I know you’re not trying to say that either. But it’s we’re right to be impressed by people coming out of school now and the skills and the talent they’re bringing to the table.

[00:21:07] I do think we because analytics is growing we are drawing a larger talent pool and we’re drawing I’m I’m always out there talking to you. I just had a conversation with someone who just graduated from high school and is getting ready to go into college and is going to study computer engineering. And I said you know it’s a really exciting field and I launch into my little stump speech on why you should use analytics. I will always be doing that. I’m always looking for people to be excited about analytics because I’m excited about it too. And there’s so much opportunity for people.

[00:21:44] I want people to be excited but I want them to like explore it and then it’s going to become apparent. I guess that’s when we talk about I am a hundred percent maybe it’s because I’m I just want to be simplistic about it that you can’t teach talent. You can refine if I and I think relationship relationship development or communication or reading a room. I do believe that I was not great at that but I had a kernel of talent for it and because I had a kernel of talent I realized I had the recognition that there were things that I could do better and I would say there are high school football programs out there who win year in and year out for years and years and years.

[00:22:35] And those schools are not more talented than the other schools. You’re starting to talk about programs rather than individuals but that’s what I mean is they found a way to build skills that highlight what talent there is the candidate prognostic.

[00:22:55] Can we use hard verbs and adjectives and stuff. Now we keep saying skills and talent. And Tim is talking about talent and skills.

[00:23:05] What if we what if we started at a baseline common understanding. So I’m going to say two phrases and hopefully we all agree with them. The first phrase is a digital analyst is a very complex and multifaceted profession. Is that something everybody agrees with that every profession wants to say that about themselves. Sure yeah well we’re more special than most other professions. I’ve worked in a way that’s hard retailing is a multifaceted and. All right. That’s right. Like I told my bartender come join analytics.

[00:23:45] The other thing is is that not every person is cut out to be in digital analytics. Yes. Any single person and be like oh you’re a natural. And I think those people who aren’t cut out will actually not enjoy doing analytics anyways. So it works out like we know that they’ll keep doing it because they listen. I mean I get that there are some there is some of that.

[00:24:10] I promise you there are analysts because much is this idea that everyone is Dell or you pay and has an army of analysts it’s so big that they have to rent out like stadiums to have their departmental meetings to me. Now what happens is there are huge companies that have one digital analyst and if you’ve got one digital analyst who is not that wired for the for the field but they have no one there who can say wow you don’t have the talent or interest in this field. There are lots of people who were like you know what I come in. I have the tool skills. I know how to get into site catalyst. I know how to pull these reports.

[00:24:56] I am going to punch a clock and I’m going to go nine to five and I’m going to pull this data I’m going to doing a lot of time telling the business that no that data is not available and this data is bad and it’s let me give you all the caveats and I’m not going to be able to communicate my way out of a paper bag.

[00:25:12] And those people will work for decades in that field and they will get marginally promoted and they will have trained an entire fucking organization. That’s what a digital analyst does well and that’s I think that’s the failure of the organization not that individual person to write love. When they say it is happening all the time. It is happening.

[00:25:33] We’re all making a very valuable thing off of it.

[00:25:39] And full disclosure I feel like I am in a I am my is the of us that are actually wired and awesome and maybe our next episode. The what the flip side of we that works out.

[00:25:52] Yes it does. But the reality is is that my goal for any client of ours is that we work ourselves out of a job and they’ve got an amazing team because I feel like that’s the best way for companies to get maximum value from their analytics is they have people who are not only amazing analysts but also contextually plugged into the organization just need that as a Kabia it can be a heavy lift to walk in and now go farther back in my. Absolutely. So I don’t disagree with you Tim. I just think that what you run into is people lingering in a profession that doesn’t match their abilities. And I agree that there are people that don’t match the analytic skill set but they’re not getting appropriate feedback. That’s what’s happening. They’re not being asked to do the things that an analyst actually does because an analyst doesn’t just run the reports from the tool and show up nine to five and punch the clock. The analysts should be making some people extremely happy and other people are extremely pissed off and they’re having a ball while they’re doing it and have enough to last while they’re doing it.

[00:27:02] And so you know if that’s gentle listener if that’s not you you should look at your organization really hard and say am I getting the right feedback and not because you’re something is wrong with you. I don’t want people to walk away from this me like while these guys are all douchebags are telling us we are not cut out to be good analysts. So I feel like we’re basically telling half the analytics industry that they’re terrible and they should get out of analytics. No I think there are people listening to this podcast which is I do think we’ve established before that if you listen to this podcast you’re probably the right kind of analyst.

[00:27:37] We have said that and historically it’s been true based on and you have not actually discovered the search function on iTunes to find better content to listen to.

[00:27:48] You know I’ve spoken to a an interesting cross-section of people in my kind of recent conversations and getting out on the road and a number of people are listening to this thing who are direct practitioners and you know I mean the things that I would hope that they take away from the episodes so far is a this is not an established industry yet. This is not like hiring a CTO. You know this this this is a skill set and I’d be interested to compare all of our mutual job descriptions for the role because that could be interesting but it’s a new career path where there’s a little bit of caveat emptor when you bring a new person on board. You do need to run someone through an interview process and check certain skills. There are certain gut checks we do on things like a kind of creative problem solving that we hope will lead to the right hire. But per Tim’s point there are a lot of people who you know if you work at the grocery store long enough you just go up and say it’s time I get to be manager. I’ve been at this grocery store for 20 years and there are people in the industry who are maybe not a great fit for it but I’ve been here long enough it’s time to make me a manager at a nickel for everybody who said that hey I worked in Adobe analytics before I know I know Adobe.

[00:29:05] I will say that the largest group of analysts that ever were ever managed. I look around at the best people we had and they were 75 to 90 percent of them were people who were hired internally within the organization because they had been drawn to the field they wanted to understand the structure of the data they wanted to be challenged to do more. You know when I would it they had an attention to detail right. That is to me an attention to detail which is probably a weaker talent for me but I’m aware of it enough that I will push myself really hard to make sure that I am I have that I’m unaware of it. You know a technical tap into that I want to understand how the bits and bytes are flowing and I can teach somebody this is how javascript works or I can teach them this is how I can try to teach them this is how the internet works. In my experience if they don’t have it I hate to use the P word that they don’t have a kind of a passion for this is really cool. It’s kind of a miracle what shows up on people’s screens and I want to understand how that happens and how I can collect data from that and how I can to how that data can go into this thing called a database and how I can access it and then how I can transform it. If they are not jazzed about all of that then I’d like to think they realized that quickly and say you know what I’m going to get the hell out.

[00:30:38] I’m going to go do something else. But I think that’s just a little bit of a commentary on the the White Collar worker that there’s a crap ton of the work force that just has a Nursa. I’m getting a paycheck. I do this thing that other people at the company don’t know how to do. So nobody can really effectively judge whether I’m doing it well or not. I like the fact that I’m the only person who can do it and I’m going to go home and maybe pass them on a little bit but I’m not going to go look for a new job tomorrow. I’m certainly not going to introspect and say what makes me not a fit for this profession. And that is insidious and horrible thing that is happening to audit profession because of the supply demand gap.

[00:31:23] When you said I hate to use the P word but I made this big list in my head of words I thought you were going to use none of that was passion.

[00:31:33] And in the words of Henry David Thoreau the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. It’s actually one of my favorite quotes because I think fantastic when it’s true. Right.

[00:31:46] A lot of people just slog along without evaluating or having a self-awareness about hey is this really the thing I want. At the same time you know to your point yeah. People bring passion that’s great. Although I would say it’s pretty rare to find a Rudy type situation. Rudy suffered really Shumpert. Replies the statement applies to both both cases. I have I go on there for somebody for somebody who does actually it us and really we love you know but in the movie Rudy the guy makes it onto the field at the end of his senior year for like one snap and it’s like then carry him off on everybody’s shoulders or something. It’s been a while. But he was a failure as a football player. He was a great habit. He did make me and Mr. Frodo. Was that a single skill or talent yet. I keep him right. How Blake will not let me play. I’ll give you a skill or a talent. I have said and now discover your strengths there’s I maybe you wouldn’t be amazed how many people in our practice are discovery have an analytical strength but that’s a cop out. That’s

[00:33:01] why that’s a. It’s a natural talent. You know what. You know what. An analyst should be analytical. Well thank you for that. Hey that’s what triggers should be a public speaker. What does that mean. Well it good most although I think I’ve ever got is so good. Are they all. Are they. Are they in the alphabetical theme challenges other people. Prove it. Show me what you were claiming is true in the face of this kind of questioning some will find their brilliant theories wither and die for you. This is precisely the point. You do not necessarily want to destroy other people’s ideas but you do insist that their theories be sound. You see yourself as objective and dispassionate you like data because they are you’re free they have no agenda like that to me is pap drivel describing analytical and by the way is still not plagiarizing that’s Tom Rath from strengths finder 2.0 strength finders 2.0. Everybody knows that. Do you think. OK. So this is this is unfair. So now a little bit farther you want to understand how certain patterns affect one another. Sure. How do they combine what is their accounts. Does this outcome fit with the theory being offered the situation they confronted. God damn you Michael Helling that actually fits a good analyst yeah.

[00:34:24] I’m not making this stuff up Tim. I’m just you know going along as best I know how.

[00:34:32] But so I think skill wise I think there’s a lot of skills in there too numerous for us to plunk in right. But if we define a good analyst it’s somebody who can tend bar who ask great questions and is able to pursue the answers to completion in a way that people can understand and accept that. I think that’s well put. We

[00:34:54] were against saying oh we need to have Adobe analytics experience as being on a resume and we kind of well those are skills like I have absolutely there but there is a talent for say programming. And so if you if someone is a talented programmer and that they are lucky enough to work with them in an analytics context as a technical analyst that’s a beautiful thing to behold as well. Usually it’s a different type of role that person would be most comfortable in. But it’s it’s an amazing thing to see because you know I can read a little bit of code but I’m not talented and I’ve seen people who are talented and it’s great. It’s just great. I don’t know Jim is this helping you out at all.

[00:35:38] You know we’ve had a whole bunch of episodes where we’ve kind of touched on this you know like Tim was saying at the beginning we had a very early episode that was kind of version one of this. I think the biggest thing that I’ve taken away from our chats that touch on that kind of concept is team building and skill development and hiring is that there is no such thing as a good web analyst that is led directly to the ways that we kind of look and are Skilling our staff had napkin. There are people who are really good at the technical side of measurement you know that analytics technology stack and they think intuitively about all the wiring and they’re good at it. There are people who are really good at asking questions of and getting answers from data and there’s a whole other kind of scale and OnTrack there.

[00:36:33] And the third piece is the ability to solicit requirements. Talk to a boardroom build consensus and those can really be three people and you know to get someone who can do all three of those things together hire them lock them into a 10 year LeBron James term. Is there something special.

[00:36:54] I think that’s if you’re building a team and you can look for those and I’m a big fan of that saying these are the complimentary skill sets. I do think that there are cases where you’re going to have one analyst. And so it does raise that challenge. It actually may be something for analysts to think about. Do I really want to be or can I be. Do I have that well rounded kind of nature that I’m going to keep pushing myself to expand on the talent that I have. Am I refining all of them so that I will be great as a sole practitioner inside of a company because I’m going to have to do all of that or must I my talent really falls what the the technical the wiring my talent really falls with the communication and they’re presenting my talent really fossils crunching the numbers. But I’ve got to get somebody to help me gather the requirements and present them. I need to be working as part of a team and to be brutally honest when I’m interviewing about this is what I do really really well and this is what I’m passionate about. So I think it can actually that level of introspection there. There are plenty of roles out there. So figure out what the the part is that you want to do and then go find the role that lets you be as narrower broad as necessary.

[00:38:16] Yeah. So you know what’s nicely happening here is that we’re all kind of ramping up and giving some thoughts. So let’s just catapult ourselves into that portion of the show. So I agree with both of you and maybe the short way of saying this is that there’s people laboring in the digital analytics space for reasons that prowl Blee or not because they’re actually passionate and truly talented in the ways that a digital analyst needs to be talented and being analytical or strategic or other things. If you don’t have those specific skills or talents I don’t think that means you shouldn’t be in this space but your what you do in the space will probably match back to in my view they will match back to your strengths. And I would urge everyone to take a note from Tim Wilson tonight and maybe give Strengths Finder 2.0 another read. Maybe he’ll enlighten more than just him. I just think it’s funny because you have always been sort of anti that book which I never understood. I don’t mean to push it so hard because it is good it has its faults too of course. But anyways I’m glad you saw something that you may agree with. And yeah I know I always want to encourage people to pursue and be passionate and dig into what it is they truly love and you know if you’re doing that in this space of digital analytics and you’re not finding love they’re like you’re not finding success because when we’re successful we love it more like people say like follow your passion. Well when you work really hard on something you become passionate about it.

[00:39:57] But if that’s not happening then yeah there are so many other ways to be a contributor to the digital space and to be notable in digital.

[00:40:08] And I’m not in any and I would I would claim that it’s going to hold you in good stead. It’s like if you actually act and say you know what this is about X is not for me. I’m going to move on to something else. I spent one year two years or four years doing analytics. There is a very low chance that that will not hold you in good stead. We’ve worked in the past about getting very very general I feel like we were fairly specific on this one so it’s okay to wax a little bit general that if you don’t really love what you’re doing if you’re not kind of sad when you have to knock off for the day because there was more stuff that you wanted to do then keep thinking about Y and trying to figure out where you want to be. I mean I work long hours and I love what I do and it frustrates me that I work long hours. But I love what I do.

[00:41:00] So I don’t think that’s that’s maybe borderline unhealthy but it’s a better place to be than I’m punching a clock and getting a paycheck.

[00:41:10] I think this leads to a good quote from Gary Gygax the secret we should never let the game masters know is that they don’t need any rules. Gary Gygax as you know is the creative director the dragons. And I think that that’s relevant. Wow.

[00:41:25] Throw in guy draine strangely it is which I would I know suspected well actually Dungeons Dragons a fairly analytical game. So maybe there’s more influence there.

[00:41:38] Microsoft Excel at Sharpness plus 2 is ready to wind down for this guys.

[00:41:45] Yeah.

[00:41:45] This this is I think a strange one and hopefully we’re not convincing someone who we should be in this space to question themselves because that’s not our intent. If you’re listening to the show give us some feedback especially if you’re doubting yourself in this industry. Talk to Tim Wilson. He wants to set you straight. And of course join us on Facebook and Twitter. We’d love hearing from you. And the measure slack which I think we finally got around to posting on our Facebook page. How to join that. It’s a great community of like minded people who are there to help you in your journey to becoming a better analyst. So thank you again. We look forward to the next time we’re able to share a quote unquote hour. And for Tim Wilson and Jim Kane Michael Healthlink saying discover your strengths.

[00:42:38] Now even if this was a shit episode that left. Listen to how we get to record. Yeah clearly we’re passionate about it and we like to I just agree. And Jim likes them all right. Take it easy everybody cheers.

[00:42:57] Thanks for listening. And don’t forget to join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter. We welcome your comments and questions. Facebook dot com slash Donetsk’s now or on Twitter. Stargardt’s. Word.

[00:43:19] Tonight. Now tonight there is the show. For Thursday. It’s a peer to peer mobile app specifically for doctors using Nokia tablets who suffer from HPV. You have your looks. This is your web server rack mountable.

[00:43:38] This whole section is going to be cut right out.

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