Posted by Ajay Kelkar on Sat, Sep 24, 2011
I read this wonderful article by Srividya Sridharan of Forrester. Here is her comment:
“Analytics and creativity are seldom used in the same sentence. The natural instinct is to delineate the two as left-brain and right-brain pursuits. Analytics and creative teams speak different languages, use different tools, and find inspiration in different places. Customer Intelligence (CI) professionals are usually closer to the world of analytics. They capture, manage, analyze, and apply heaps of customer data using advanced analytical tools and techniques. But in order for them to step out of a perceived geeky image, CI professionals should think about how to add a dash of creativity into their roles”
I do believe that creativity is critical for analytics to take shape in an organization. Here is the link to her article: http://bit.ly/pUOHkQ
I see it as critical at 3 stages:
1. Building the analysis/model/scorecard-at this stage the need is for creativity about imagining customer behavior. The more creatively one imagines behavior the more impact it will have on the analyst's hypothesis & therefore the derived variables that she creates.
2. In this stage Creativity is about how she should present & visualize her findings. For years advertising agencies have found really creative ways of presenting their "Central ideas". Analysts need to learn from that & make compelling presentations. This almost needs the equivalent of having "Phd's with a personality" in your analyst team!!
3. And finally Analytics folk need to be creative about bringing the result of their analytics closer to the decision making process. The more creatively you embed analytics into the customer path, the more you will see impact!
So creativity is critical, but in my view in multiple dimensions! Strangely here is another thought from Forrester:
This also reminds me about how radically views can change over time. I really liked this Forrester chart which almost predicted the death of creativity & the rise of Left brain rational thinking.
Maybe the “death of the right brain” was a bit exaggerated!
I would love to hear your views about this!!