PODCAST · business
33 Tangents
by 33 Sticks
Imagine walking into a coffee shop and overhearing a small group of people talking about work. That is 33 Tangents. You may hear anything from digital analytics, to business & technology, to working remotely.Jason Thompson and Jim Driscoll are part of 33 Sticks, a boutique analytics agency focused on improving how clients feel about analytics and their futures. The day-to-day conversations of the team often go in various different directions and are the inspiration for this podcast.
Episodes
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#304 - What Can Digital Analytics Learn From Industries That Try To Be Everything To Everyone?
We’ve all experienced this kind of scenario. A new company arrives on the market with a product that is highly functional and meets our needs phenomenally. The product is well designed and is of high quality. The care and focus of the manufacturer is obvious. The company gains a good foothold in...
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#303 - What Role Does The Concept Of Sustainable Analytics Have In Making Digital Analytics Indispensable To A Business?
We talk regularly, both internally and externally, about the concept of Sustainable Analytics. This is the practice of running your digital analytics program so that it focuses on providing value and support the key areas of the business while ensuring it is maintainable and accurate. When…
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#302 - What Is Preventing Digital Analytics From Becoming Indispensable?
On last week’s episode we talked about the concept of businesses that can be seen as boring, but are very profitable. One of the key things with those businesses is that they are indispensable to their customers. Over the years we’ve talked about the struggles with digital analytics, and while...
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#301 - What Does It Mean To Be Boring Yet Profitable?
What comes to mind when the term “boring yet profitable business” is used? Often times these are businesses that have developed & refined offerings that are integral and indispensable to their customers. They can often be derided for not being flashy or trendy, but that treatment fair? What goes...
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#300 - Developing A Testing Roadmap
We’re currently doing a series of episodes looking at the concepts of getting back to basics and simplicity. We’re looking at the benefits of refocusing attention on the key concepts and practices that can get overlooked or forgotten as analytics and testing programs age. When working with a...
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#299 - The Core Analysis Your Analytics Practice Must Be Doing
In recent episodes we’ve looked at the concept of getting back to basics and simplicity. We’ve discussed the benefits of refocusing attention on the key concepts and practices that can get overlooked or forgotten as analytics and testing programs age. When a large amount of data is collected, it…
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#298 - Tag Management Methodologies
We’ve started a series of episodes about getting back to basics and the value of simplicity. We’re looking at the benefits of refocusing attention on the key concepts and practices that can get overlooked or forgotten as analytics and testing programs age. What are the best practices when it…
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#297 - The Draw Of Over-Engineering Analytics Data Collection Solutions
A new implementation can be exciting! It’s a fresh canvas to work with. A new client can present opportunities to try out ideas you’ve only thought of. These are just two of the scenarios that analytics implementation engineers are presented with that create the pull to collect all of the data....
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#296 - The Architecture Pitfalls of Single Vendor Solutions
Architecting data collection for multiple tools within a single vendor solution can be appear to be beneficial from the stand-point of reduced logic and streamlined integrations. It can seem simplified and streamlined resulting in a solution that can be managed with greater ease. Are there…
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#295 - The Risks, Costs, And Potential Benefits Of Vendor Lock-In
Vendor lock-in occurs when a customer is made dependent on a vendor for products & services, unable to utilize other vendors without substantial cost. How can organizations fall into a vendor lock-in situation? What are the costs that are associated with vendor lock-in? How can point analytics...
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#294 - Customer Experience Breakdowns Caused by Siloed Data
Risks of point analytics solutions include myopic vision and teams working in isolation. Teams implement solutions that fit a small amount of needs that do not take the needs of the organization, or the impacts to the organization, into account. The downstream result is siloed data creating...
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#293 - What Can Be Done To Prevent An Analytics Practice From Developing Conflicts Of Interest?
When people think of analytics data, many often think of “cold hard facts”, but this is can be very inaccurate. Like many other things in life, data can be skewed, biased, or even outright corrupted. Everyone has a bias and for an analytics team to act as an independent voice in an organization,...
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#292 - How Can Conflicts Of Interest Happen With An Analytics Practice?
Conflicts of interest can do significant damage to an analytics practice. It doesn’t take much for conflicts of interest to occur and in many cases all it takes is the perception of one. What are the potential conflicts of interest that an analytics program can face? What impact do they have on…
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#291 - Running An Analytics Practice So That It is Viewed as More Than Just A Cost Center
Many organizations view teams and divisions in very basic terms. They are either profit centers or cost centers. Profit centers are those parts of the organization that have direct impact on revenue while cost centers are essential parts of the business but don’t impact revenue. Cost centers are...
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#290 - From The Archives: How Can A Low Level Of Data Literacy Impact An Organization?
We’re currently taking a break for the holidays. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on January 3, 2024. This episode originally aired on November 16, 2022. As the saying goes, one rotten apple spoils the bunch. In the real world, one person can ruin an entire team. How will a low level of...
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#289 - From The Archives: What Will Make Someone Successful in Digital Analytics?
We’re currently taking a break for the holidays. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on January 3, 2024. This episode originally aired on August 3, 2022. The people that make up the digital analytics space come from a variety of backgrounds and have wildly different educational backgrounds…
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#288 - Building An Analytics Practice Like It Is Its Own Business
Analytics teams are realizing that it’s no longer good enough to just check boxes to show value. They need to show how the organization benefits from both the team in place and the tools that have been implemented. Analytics practices need to evolve and directors have to look at the practice as...
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#287 - From The Archives: What’s The Deal With Server-Side Tracking?
We’re currently taking a break for a new addition to the family. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on December 6, 2023. This episode originally aired on April 13, 2022. Server-side tracking is being pitched as the next great leap forward in analytics and marketing data collection. It is...
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#286 - From The Archives: Buying and Selling Services: Do RFPs Actually Provide Value?
We’re currently taking a break for a new addition to the family. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on December 6, 2023. This episode originally aired on February 16, 2022. Requests for Proposal (RFPs) are a staple when it comes to the procurement of products and services. They are often...
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#285 - From The Archives: Why Is Unlimited PTO So Polarizing?
We’re currently taking a break for a new addition to the family. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on December 6, 2023. This episode originally aired on July 20, 2022. Over last couple of years, the summer vacation season has provided the opportunity to talk about what is often seen as a...
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#284 - From the Archives: Employee Autonomy and PTO
We’re currently taking a break for a new addition to the family. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on December 6, 2023. This episode originally aired on April 21, 2021. Four years ago in the episode “Is Unlimited Time Off Actually Unlimited?”, Jim, Hila, and Jason took a hard look at the...
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#283 - Talking About The Value of Data, or Rather, The Cost Of Bad Data With Stewart Alaniz
It’s often stated that “data is the new oil’ and while that may be true, it oversimplifies the value of data. Data by itself isn’t inherently valuable. The value comes when it is properly collected, processed, refined, and injected into the right conversations. What is the value of data? Is all...
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#282 - What Are Ways Analytics Creates Value For An Organization?
The value a team produces isn’t always apparent. This is why it is critical for individuals and teams to ask themselves about the value they produce. As discussed in previous episodes of the 33 Tangents podcast, the value of analytics is not usually tied directly to revenue and since that is the...
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#281 - How Does An Analytics Team Show Value Without Being Tied Directly To Revenue?
As industries and organizations continue to recover from the covid pandemic, providing value is critical. This is value provided by companies to their customers as well as the value provided by teams within those companies. What does it mean to show value? Is value always associated with a…
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#280 - What Is Value?
Value is a term that is easily thrown around, often with implied expectations. When it’s used are all involved aligned on the definition and outcomes? What is value? What is value when it comes to digital analytics? What are the expectations when the term is used? On this week’s episode of the 33...
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#279 - Working With Agencies That Make You Dependent On Them
Vendor lock-in is a tactic employed across multiple industries and anyone in the digital analytics and martech space needs to be aware of it. This tactic sees organizations you’ve partnered with implementing features and processes in such a way that you become completely dependent on them. Any...
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#278 - We Have All Of This Software, But We Don’t Know How To Use It. What Do We Do?
Analytics teams were decimated during the COVID pandemic and still recovering. Many analytics teams are smaller than they were pre-pandemic and are showing no signs to returning to prior staffing levels. This is leading to cases where the organizations have a substantial amount of analytics...
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#277 - Where Should The Analytics Team Live?
Where does analytics live within an organization? Does it live with Marketing or Product? Does it live completely on it’s own? Properly positioning the analytics team is critical to enable the development of unbiased information and guidance for the organization. What do organizations need to...
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#276 - How Can You See Through The FUD And Fear Porn To See What Is Truly Going On?
Fear, Uncertainty, & Doubt, also known as FUD, is a commonly employed sales tactic. Decisions made out of fear are often drastic and wrong and martech sales in particular knows how to tap into the fear of opportunity cost. With organizations pushing analytics teams that are smaller than...
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#275 - Vendor Pitches: Having The Wisdom To Know When To Ask Why
Everyone has sat through vendor pitches where: The problem and solution are oversimplified The vendor doesn’t fully the situation and specific problems The vendor’s product doesn’t actually address the stated problems If not you’re not careful to recognize these things, it becomes easy to get…
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#274 - How Can You Be Successful With A Smaller Analytics Team?
The typical business response to the need to deliver more work is to hire more people and grow teams. There are cynics out there that will dispute that statement and say business response is to drive employees harder. That may be true in some cases, ultimate you have to hire. While in many...
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#273 - Using Agile To Manage The Analytics Program
It feels as though there is a movement to apply agile development methodologies to analytics teams, both the data collection component and the analysis component. What does this mean? What is the driving force behind it? What are the risks? What are the benefits? Does this strip out the curiosity...
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#272 - How Can Automation Make Your Analytics Team More Insightful And Valuable?
Many analytics teams are looking to be more effective with their time so it is spent more on using data to reach business goals and less on basic reporting. To solve for that, many are looking find ways to automate the routine tasks and reporting the team does. What does it mean to automate…
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#271 - Driving Users To Not Use Web Analytics Platforms For Analysis
There is a growing trend amongst organizations to centralize all of their data, including their web analytics data, in an internal database solution with a visualization tool layered over top. One of the results of this is analytics teams moving, or being pushed, to use other tools for analysis…
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#270 - What Does It Mean, And What Is Involved, For An Analytics Team To Provide A Self-Service Offering?
Many analytics teams are looking to be more effective with their time so it is spent more on using data to reach business goals and less on routine reporting. To solve for that, many are looking to make part of their analytics program self-service. What does it mean for an analytics program to…
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#269 - What Does It Mean To Be “Mobile First”?
What does it mean when an organization says it is “Mobile First”? What does that mean for the customer experience? What does it mean for employees and partners? What does the organization need to do to ensure it follows through on being “Mobile First”? On this week’s episode, Jim is joined by Jon...
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#268 - Digital Marketing Technology & The Digital Customer Experience in South East Asia
As we gain experience in an industry, it’s easy to develop blinders based on the region of the world in which we live and work. How are digital analytics and digital marketing different in South East Asia as compared to the US and EU? What is a “super app”? What are some of the key differences in...
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#267 - From The Archives: The Art of Being a Consultant
We’re currently taking a break for some summer travel. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on July 19, 2023. This episode originally aired on September 21, 2022. Like many things in life, there is an art to being a consultant. The problem though is that the word consultant has come to take…
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#266 - From The Archives: Discussing Storytelling For Brands with Stephen Marshall and Chase Friedman
We’re currently taking a break for some summer travel. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on July 19, 2023. This episode originally aired on January 25, 2023. Merriam-Webster defines story as: 1) an account of incidents or events and 2) a statement regarding the facts pertinent to a…
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#265 - From The Archives: What is Data Literacy?
We’re currently taking a break for some summer travel. We’ll be back with new episodes starting on July 19, 2023. This episode originally aired on November 2, 2022. What is data literacy? The text book definition as per Gartner is the ability to read, write and communicate data in context,...
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#264 - How Do You Build A Proper Test Hypothesis?
Many assume that the measure of success for an optimization program is a high testing velocity. The problem here is that in order to support a high velocity, other parts of the test development pipeline become neglected, including developing a well thought out hypothesis. How critical is a test...
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#263 - Don’t Separate Your Analytics And Optimization Programs
It is very common to see organizations split out their analytics and optimization programs among different teams. What does it mean to integrate you analytics and optimization programs, or at least prevent them from being separated? What are some of the risks that are created when you keep them...
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#262 - What Should You Not Do When Getting Started With An Optimization Tool?
Launching an a/b testing & optimization tool brings with it a great deal of temptation. It is very appealing to just want to jump in and start deploying tests to see what it can do. What are some of the traps when launching an a/b testing tool and optimization program? What are some of the common...
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#261 - How Do You Stand Up An Optimization Program?
Launching an a/b testing & optimization tool brings with it a great deal of temptation. It is very appealing to just want to jump in and start deploying tests to see what it can do. What is involved with standing up an optimization program? Should you just jump in and start using the a/b testing...
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#260 - Are You Working On Cool Stuff For The Sake Of Doing Cool Stuff Only?
Let’s admit it, working on digital analytics can be fun. For many of us in this space, it gives us a creative outlet. That being said, doing good stuff alone is not good enough. Are you working on cool stuff for the sake of doing cool stuff? Does your work have value? Does it have it’s place? On...
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#259 - Are Your Efforts Tied to Organizational Goals Or Are You Just Window Dressing?
There is a fine line between valuable work and work that no one really cares about. Is the work that you’re doing closely associated with the goals of the organization or are you just doing superficial work? Do you know why your analytics team exists? What constitutes “valuable” work in your...
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#258 - Does Your Client Actually Care About Digital Analytics?
One of the faults of the digital analytics industry is that we often assume the value of what we’re doing is clearly apparent. Does your buyer actually care about digital analytics? Do they have a vested interest in the outcome of the project or are they just signing another SOW? Are you just…
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#257 - Do You Have Your Ultimate Buyer In Mind?
During the day to day of a project, whether client side or vendor side, it is easy to loose sight of who is ultimately responsible for the project. On the client side, this could be some senior level executive sponsor who seen infrequently. On the vendor side, this could be the person who signed…
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#256 - Do You Know Who Your Ultimate Buyer Is?
Whether you are working vendor-side or client-side, there is ultimately a buyer associated with the project you are engaged with. What does this mean and who is this person? As someone leading a project, do you know who the ultimate “buyer” of your services is? Are they your day to day…
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#255 - What Do You Do When Your Organization Always Thinks The Next Piece Of Technology Will Solve All Of The Problems?
Note: We encountered some recording issues in the early parts of this episode and recovered the audio that we could. While every organization deals with this issue to one degree or another, there are those where it is really bad. It can take the form of “we just need to implement this new project...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Imagine walking into a coffee shop and overhearing a small group of people talking about work. That is 33 Tangents. You may hear anything from digital analytics, to business & technology, to working remotely.Jason Thompson and Jim Driscoll are part of 33 Sticks, a boutique analytics agency focused on improving how clients feel about analytics and their futures. The day-to-day conversations of the team often go in various different directions and are the inspiration for this podcast.
HOSTED BY
33 Sticks
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does 33 Tangents have?
33 Tangents currently has 225 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is 33 Tangents about?
Imagine walking into a coffee shop and overhearing a small group of people talking about work. That is 33 Tangents. You may hear anything from digital analytics, to business & technology, to working remotely.Jason Thompson and Jim Driscoll are part of 33 Sticks, a boutique analytics agency focused...
How often does 33 Tangents release new episodes?
33 Tangents publishes regularly with 225 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to 33 Tangents?
You can listen to 33 Tangents on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts 33 Tangents?
33 Tangents is created and hosted by 33 Sticks.
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