Over the weekend, I got into my wife’s car as we were headed out to dinner, and her phone suddenly popped up a message that said we were 18 minutes from our friend’s house. But we were not going to our friend’s house, we were going out to dinner. Is it possible that the technology wrapped into my wife’s vehicle had simply made the prediction that we might be going to our friend’s house at 7 PM on a Saturday night? Whenever we do meet up with our friends, it is typically on a Saturday night and it is around 7 PM. So I was completely baffled by the fact that the technology in the car actually took a chance and had our directions pre-loaded to go to our friend’s house when in fact we were not. The technology took a chance. It was wrong, but it took a chance.
Are we taking chances with our data today? Are we taking chances with our analytics routines? As we continue on the journey of building a business about data, this is a concept we must not forget. Data will undoubtedly bring us down paths where we do not know the answer or perhaps the answer is that this group of members is the most likely to open a checking account, but there is no absolute certainty and that is ok. Taking the chance, and taking the at-bat (if you are into baseball…) is what matters most. Put yourself in the batter’s box and give yourself a chance. Put yourself in the data and send out a message. If you don’t send the message, someone else could be sending the message, or worse yet your audience may not hear your message.
What spaghetti have you recently thrown against the wall?