Experimentation

Last week I threw a handful of random posts at you ... several links, with the goal being to see what you click on. Is it marketing-related information? Is it analytics-related information? Is it random information?

What was the number one most-clicked link last week?

• Crappie Bites.

This is the reason all those data-driven gurus are WRONG. Wrong. Horribly wrong. If I followed all of you down the click-centric rabbit hole I'd be out of business within a month.

Don't do what the data tells you to do.

There's a certain amount of intuition you must have. Many of you possess it. If you are early in your career, you lack intuition, so data is really important. The intuition of your boss/leaders is important, it balances the experience you lack. Yeah, now you see the importance of strong leadership.

But at some point in your career (it's been my experience that intuition becomes important in the 30-35 year old range ... a decade +/- of experience) your intuition takes center stage. You know when you see something (crappie bites) that you shouldn't pay attention to. Or you realize you should do the opposite of what the data suggests.

Somewhere in your fifties a fusion of intuition, calm, and practicality takes over ... you are no longer at the forefront of technology and modern marketing/analytics, nor should you be. You have other gifts that are needed. Individual data points (crappie bites) take on a different meaning. Experimentation becomes more important than testing (this is an important distinction, FYI).

Experimentation is important. You can learn more from experimentation than you can from properly-calibrated tests, especially if you combine your intuition with experimentation results.