INBOX INSIGHTS, June 5, 2024: Root of the Problem, Generative AI Data - Trust Insights Marketing Analytics Consulting

INBOX INSIGHTS: Root of the Problem, Generative AI Data (6/5) :: View in browser

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Getting to the Root of the Problem

Over the weekend, I noticed that I had poison ivy growing within my hydrangeas. I wanted it gone. I’m allergic to poison ivy and being an invasive plant, it spreads fast if you don’t remove it. After putting on disposable gloves, I started pulling out the plant. The leaves can be small and unassuming. I pulled up as many as I saw, disposed of them, and patted myself on the back for a job well done (after washing my hands).

When I went out the next day, I saw new growth. I thought I’d gotten it all, but I’d clearly missed something. Again, with a fresh set of gloves, I pulled the plant. The new leaves came up easily. But, this is the same thing I did the day before, right? And it didn’t work. That’s why I’m doing this all over again.

Here’s the thing about poison ivy. The plant isn’t deep, but its roots spread wide. The roots of a single plant can spread 20 feet underground. Yikes! Only pulling what you can see isn’t going to cut it. There’s a lot more buried underground, waiting to surface over and over.

The root of my problem is a literal root. A little on the nose, right?

When companies start evaluating solutions, the root of the problem is often missed. Shiny object syndrome gets the best of us as we get swept up in the excitement of what’s possible.

You have to dig. You can pull at the leaves that you can see, but your problems likely go deeper. This is where user stories really shine.

As a reminder, a user story is a simple, three-part sentence.

As a [persona], I [want to], so [that].

This is a great way to back into the Trust Insights 5P Framework when your purpose is a little murky.

The 5Ps are Purpose, People, Process, Platform, and Performance. A user story neatly maps to the 5Ps. The “persona” tells you the people. The “want to” tells you process and platform. The “that” tells you the purpose and performance. You can reverse engineer the 5Ps by generating a series of user stories.

When creating user stories, many people get as far as “As a [persona], I [want to]”. The last part of the sentence, which is the intention, gets forgotten. This is when you start solving for the wrong problem, or not getting to the root. Why did I want the poison ivy gone? What would happen if I keep letting it come back?

I could go outside every day and only pull out the leaves of the poison ivy that I see. But it will keep coming back. I have to dig. I have to do my research. I have to explore the options. If my goal is to be rid of this plant altogether, pulling the leaves when I see them won’t work.

When I went out for the second time to pull up the poison ivy, I dug deeper. I found the root of the plant. It was huge! Since I pulled that out, I haven’t seen any more leaves lurking about.

I thought about using AI as an example this week, but it’s true for any business problem. Unless you’re digging deep and getting to the root, you’re not solving the right problem. Keep asking why. Dig into the intention. Find the root.

Why do you want to use AI? Is it because everyone else is, or do you have a solid user story? Why do you need a new CRM? Is it lacking functionality, or aren’t you using everything you have? Why isn’t Google Analytics telling you what you need to know? Is it an infrastructure issue, a data issue, or it’s a human issue? Outline your intentions. Get to the “why”. Keep digging so that you’re solving the right problem.

Are you getting to the root of your problems? Reach out and tell me, or come join the conversation in our Free Slack Group, Analytics for Marketers.

– Katie Robbert, CEO

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In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss how to spot an AI snake oil salesman, a vital skill in today’s hype-filled environment. Learn the questions to ask that reveal true expertise and understand the hallmarks of genuine AI knowledge. Discover the red flags to watch out for so you don’t fall prey to fleeting trends and empty promises. Tune in to gain valuable insights that will empower you to navigate the world of AI with confidence.

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In this week’s Data Diaries, a bit of a reminder when it comes to generative AI. Right now, as business folks work on becoming proficient at generative AI, the quality and quantity of prompts you write confers advantage. Those people and companies who are great at this practice will generate better results faster than competitors. It’s one of the reasons we recommend our prompt frameworks like RACE and PARE to get you up to speed quickly.

That advantage is temporary as people skill up. So what’s an enduring advantage?

Unsurprisingly (especially given the name of this column), it’s the quality and quantity of your data.

Let’s walk through an example. Suppose you wanted to improve your social media marketing on a specific channel like LinkedIn. How would the average marketer go about doing this? You might fire up the large language model of your choice and tell it what you’re currently doing in broad strokes on LinkedIn, and ask for recommendations and best practices. This would generate fairly generic but likely helpful practices for LinkedIn marketing:

This is okay, and certainly if you’re not doing the basics, this is a solid standard operating procedure. However, this is also relatively plain; none of this information will confer any particular advantage to your company unless your competitors are in even worse shape.

What if you were to insert your data into the language model? How would that change things? I did exactly that, extracting data from our Agorapulse account for LinkedIn, and then asking the language model to come up with more specific recommendations:

Gemini screenshot of revised tactics with data

You can see we’ve gone from generic advice to advice specific to Trust Insights, which is a major improvement.

Now, what if you were to add some bespoke data, say… a comprehensive, data-driven guide to the LinkedIn algorithm? Over the weekend, I created an enhanced version of this guide. The guide itself is a useful read, but that’s not what I built it for. I didn’t build it for humans. I built it as data fodder for AI to use, a condensed summary of more than 70 blog posts, more than a dozen academic papers, etc. into a compressed format that AI can use as a reference. Suppose I add that in? How does that change our recommendations?

Now we’re cooking. We’ve got specific recommendations based on our data, plus recommendations tuned based on unique data that we built. It would be a strategic advantage if we weren’t giving it away, but you get the idea – if you had this data of your own, you could create recommendations and strategies that other companies couldn’t match because they wouldn’t have the data you have.

Even better, because we’re supplying so much data, the risk of hallucination (AI just making things up) goes down dramatically. One of the key rules of thumb with generative AI is that the more data you bring, the less it’s likely to make things up.

Your strategic advantage going forward in generative AI is based on the quality and quantity of data you have that you can provide to generative AI systems. Whoever has the most, best data will win. It’s critical that you not only get your own house in order in terms of data governance, but that you collect as much relevant, specific, bespoke data as you can.

Here’s a roundup of who’s hiring, based on positions shared in the Analytics for Marketers Slack group and other communities.

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Imagine a world where your marketing strategies are supercharged by the most cutting-edge technology available – Generative AI. Generative AI has the potential to save you incredible amounts of time and money, and you have the opportunity to be at the forefront. Get up to speed on using generative AI in your business in a thoughtful way with our new offering, Generative AI for Marketers, which comes in two flavors, workshops and a course.

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