If there is one thing the universe agrees on, it is that you should just provide data… You should provide INSIGHTS!!!

In the 807,150 (!) words I’ve written on this blog thus far, at least 400,000 have been dedicated to helping you find insights.

In posts about advanced segmentation, in posts about how to build strategic dashboards that don’t suck, in encouraging you to reimagine how you pick metrics to obsess about using the magnificent Impact Matrix, and on and on and on.

Go for insights!

The Problem.

In time, I’ve come to hate the word insights.

In our world – marketing research and analytics – that word has come to represent data puking.

It has come to represent telling people, with dozens of reports or eighty slides, that water is wet.

I’ve observed, during my work across the world, when we deliver insights, we mostly deliver to our audiences things in-sight – things they can already see!

As in, the blue line is 20% above the red line. I CAN SEE THAT! Or, life-time value of California purchasers is 3x when compared to those who reside in Georgia. Oh, please, I can also see that on the table with my eyes.

This, unsurprisingly, ends up being a massive waste of your incredible talent, and an insult to the intelligence of our audience (the people who pay your salary).