Yes, data analyst really need to understand how the business and the sector work if they want to deliver insights, otherwise they are just providing commentary on the data. Glad you found the video useful, please keep watching.

Great to hear it helped. Good luck with the switch to consumer behaviour insights. The best question you can always ask yourself when in that role is Why? Why did they do that?

@@Shorful I will. Thank you Shorful

Yes and many of them think they do insights because people refer to observation as insights.

Glad you found it useful

Good luck with the side hustle. Doing data analysis as a side hustle is a good choice and easy to do. Check out my other videos where I give advice on how to do data analytics as a side hustle.

This is the hardest challenge for data analysts, its when all the stakeholder is looking for is confirmation of their ideas. If you provide it, they listen, if you don't they question your numbers or worse your abilities.

@@Shorful yes! Especially difficult when you’re a small team. It’s just me managing one person. I get regular requests to just provide figures to back up presumptions. Or it’s clear there’s a result the stakeholder wants to see and you’re made to feel bad if the data doesn’t fulfil that!

Thanks, glad you found it helpful. Please do keep watching. Thanks.

Thanks for watching

Glad you found this useful

Hi Imposter syndrome is quite common when working in a field that straddles multiple expertise. What I would suggest you do is the following. A. Decide what you enjoy doing and are also good at. Is it building dashboards, is it running analysis, is it providing commentary. What ever it is, position yourself to recruiters and being good at that core skill set and emphasise you know the other components. B. Write your CV in a way that highlights all the different work experience you have. Instead of just saying you were a digital analyst for 2 years at company X, you should write the different things you did as a Web analyst for company X. For example, if you helped define what metrics or data should go in a report, then state that you worked on the KPI framework and defined the tracking specification. If you then built reports or dashboards in GA or Datastudio then state you gathered requirement from clients and built the relevant data visualisation. The aim here is to breakdown all the things you do as digital analyst, which to you are not different things, but to a recruiter and hiring manager are, and highlight them in your work experience. C. Even though you might get a job title from a company, when you are applying for a role, you should pick the job title that best matches your skill set. That way when you apply for a role you like, the recruiter is not focused on what your job title was before, but what you can do now. I once hired someone who had senior a analyst in his job title, but most of his role was managing a team and they were the skills I was looking for. He didn't write he did management role, so I would have not interviewed him, but I saw in his CV he did some management so that's why I interviewed him. So choose the job title you want, and highlight the skills in your CV that show you already have experience on that area. D. For insights, my recommendation is that you start to think about what do these numbers mean for the business. So let's say sales are going down and you notice that visitors and conversions on one part of the website has also gone down. Don't just state this as commentary, but ask your self why does this matter. If I ran this company, why would this data matter to me, does it tell me anything that I can do to get my sales back up. Even if I can't, does it tell me why my sales are going down and what I might need to do good or bad. You should always be thinking is my commentary going beyond just observing what I am seeing and connecting information from other areas. So sales is going down, do a quick search to see how the economy is doing, if anyone has written anything about sales going down in your sector, anything around consumer confidence, etc. Once you start bringing all this other information into your commentary you are moving away from just observations to insights, and then finally, what does all that information mean for the business. If there is anything you want me to explain more of, just let me know and I might make a video about it.

A more indepth video on the last bit would be interesting and what combination of university subjects would be optimal in getting one to improve on it

@@Shorful this was so detailed and help. The last bit on turning commentary into insights could be a whole video on its own. Do you think you could make one? Maybe showing us how to do it? Practically. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon a WHOLE new skill to learn altogether. A video on this would be highly appreciated

When I get time, I will try and do a video on this. In terms of university subject's that's a bit difficult as I've hired people from various backgrounds and those that excel at insights are those who have done a degree where they've had to conduct primary research, social science subject's are good as is economics. Maths and Computer Science not so much.

I will see what I can do when I get some time. It's interesting the journey I've taken turning commentary into insights. It mainly started when I had to report to senior managers early in my career and when doing some analysis, was told they don't want to know what the numbers are, they want to know what the numbers mean to them. As I had a research background, having done a PhD this came natural to me, but I'll try and pick put what skills are needed to turn commentary into insights and do a video

This is a difficult one, as you don't have a related background that would let you move neatly into an insights analyst role. My suggestion would be to either 1. Apply for a data analyst role, your background is related and if you can demonstrate your skills in data analytics then you should be able to get a data analyst role. Once in that role, you can exhibit your insight abilities and then do more insights and less analysis, until you've positioned yourself as an insight analyst. 2. The other route is to look for roles within the research or consulting field. From there you can start to develop your insights skills and combined with your data analysis skills you should be able to position yourself as an insight analyst.

Thank you

Yes, nothing operates in isolation and so data analyst need to consider all external factors, both direct and indirect.

Hi I'd love to do more mentoring but I'm extremely busy. Feel free to ask questions on here and I will either answer or might even make a video about it.

To be more insightful with your analysis you need build knowledge about the domain area. Let's say you are looking at retail data, to generate insights you need to consider things like - how is the retailer performing now - how did it perform in the past - what are targets for the future - how are other retailers performing - how did other retailers perform in the past - are there new competitors and how are they performing and is that impacting your company - how is economy performing, is this impacting your company - what is consumer confidence like and are buying trends changing, and how is this impacting your company - are there any micro or macro trends, like new technologies, government policies, etc., which are impacting your company Taking into a broader set of data and knowledge and then connecting all the data points is where insights come from.

Every company has different KPIs so best for you to find out what is important to your organisation, I can't advise if I don't know your company and not having interviewed your stakeholders. To avoid just bringing just observation, after every piece of analysis ask yourself 'So what does this mean?' If you can't answer that then it's probably just an observation

You and I in the same boat.

Hi Adnan I've never thought about how you would train your brain to deliver insights. I guess my recommendation would be that every time you run a piece of analysis you ask yourself what does it mean for the business. To deliver insights, you need to think about how the business will use the information you give them. Your analysis can't just be interesting, it has to have some purpose. If the analysis can't be used by business to do something, then its probably not an insight. So next time you write up a piece of analysis, ask yourself what can the business do with my analysis, have I provided the context and business expertise which means that the business can now take what I have written/said and make a decision. Even if they don't make the decision, your insight should have the potential for the business to make a decision or take a direction.

Thank you Shorful! That's a very good way to put things

Thanks

That's a good point Sometimes there are no insights, but you can always draw some conclusions from beyond the data you see, like contextual information. This is to some extent insights, but may be limited in providing a wow moment. For example, you might notice that your sales is going down by x% and there is some external data which also shows that sales in your sector is going down by y%. You can conclude that the decline you observe is consistent with your sector and is higher/lower.

@@Shorful Thank you.

It's not the case it's a primary factor but it is an essential factor. If you don't have domain knowledge, how do you know what your data means.

Thanks

Hello Ejaz I've actually made a video on this. Have a look and let me know if it answers your question. If not let me know what else you want to know and I will do a video on it. Link to the video-> kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rZqkfpycqdCcaWQ.html

You might also want to check out this video --> kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ZtCHerOGzrHZl6c.html

@@Shorful Thanks 🙏

I'm sorry to hear that. Please feel free to email me your CV and what type of roles you have been applying for and I can review your CV and give you my feedback.

@@Shorful Thank you for your kindness. I will send it to your email.

There is no need to apologise. I think you failing to understand is what I'm trying to get across in the video. Analysts don't generate insights and one of the main reasons is that they don't understand what insights are. I'll try and do a simpler version when I get a chance

Keep looking out for my other videos

Indeed, we have found a gem... Hey Dr. Shorful, thanks for all these videos! It is wisdom that one needs, in order to land great insights...and emotional intelligence; thats' why it is so difficult to discover talents. Good luck!

Hi Reza Interestingly, I just used this model in a workshop with a client, I talk about how at an organisational level, if you don't build institutional wisdom, then anything that is learnt from data, gets forgotten when people leave, and you need to build processes to ensure that knowledge is retained within an organisation, by building institutional wisdom. I will plan a video on this topic, keep an eye out for it