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beyondthecosmicvoid · 5 years

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Afterword of First Book of Dune, "Dune"

“I knew Frank Herbert for more than thirty-eight years. He was a magnificent human being, a man of great honor and distinction, and the most interesting person at any gathering, drawing listeners around him like a magnet. To say he was an intellectual giant would be an understatement, since he seemed to contain all of the knowledge of the universe in his marvelous mind. He was my father, and I loved him deeply. Nonetheless, a son’s journey to understand the legendary author was not always a smooth one, as I described in my biography of him, Dreamer of Dune. Growing up in Frank Herbert’s household, I did not understand his need for absolute silence so that he could concentrate, the intense desire he had to complete his important writing projects, or the confidence he had that one day his writing would be a success, despite the steady stream of rejections that he received. To my young eyes, the characters he created in Dune and his other stories were the children of his mind, and they competed with me for his affections. In the years it took him to write his magnum opus, he spent more time with Paul Atreides than he did with me. Dad’s study was off-limits to me, to my sister Penny, and to my brother Bruce. In those days, only my mother Beverly really understood Dad’s complexities. Ultimately, it was through her love for him, and the love he gave back to her, that I came to see the nurturing, loving side of the man. By that time I was in my mid-twenties, having rebelled against his exacting ways for years. When I finally saw the soul of my father and began to appreciate him for the care he gave my mother when she was terminally ill, he and I became the best of friends. He helped me with my own writing career by showing me what editors wanted to see in books; he taught me how to construct interesting characters, how to build suspense, how to keep readers turning the pages. After perusing an early draft of Sidney’s Comet (which would become my first published novel), he marked up several pages and then wrote me this note: “These pages…show how editing tightens the story. Go now and do likewise.” It was his way of telling me that he could open the door for me and let me peek through, but I would have to complete the immense labors involved with writing myself. Beverly Herbert was the window into Frank Herbert’s soul. He shared that reality with millions of readers when he wrote a loving, three-page tribute to her at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune, describing their life together. His writing companion and intellectual equal, she suggested the title for that book, and she died in 1984 while he was writing it. Earlier in Dune, Frank Herbert had modeled Lady Jessica Atreides after Beverly Herbert, with her dignified, gentle ways of influence, and even her prescient abilities, which my mother actually possessed. He also wrote of “Lady Jessica’s latent (prophetic) abilities,” and in this he was describing my mother, thinking of all the amazing paranormal feats she had accomplished in her lifetime. In an endearing tone, he often referred to her as his “white witch,” or good witch. Similarly, throughout the Dune series, he described the heroic Bene Gesserit women as “witches.” Dune is the most admired science fiction novel ever written and has sold tens of millions of copies all over the world, in more than twenty languages. It is to science fiction what the Lord of the Rings trilogy is to fantasy, the most highly regarded, respected works in their respective genres. Of course, Dune is not just science fiction. It includes strong elements of fantasy and contains so many important layers beneath the story line that it has become a mainstream classic. As one dimension of this, just look at the cover on the book in your hands, the quiet dignity expressed in the artwork. The novel was first published in hardcover in 1965 by Chilton Books, best known for their immense auto-repair novels. No other publisher would touch the book, in part because of the length of the manuscript. They felt it was far too long at 215,000 words, when most novels of the day were only a quarter to a third that length. Dune would require immense printing costs and a high hardcover price for the time, in excess of five dollars. No science fiction novel had ever commanded a retail price that high. Publishers also expressed concern about the complexity of the novel and all of the new, exotic words that the author introduced in the beginning, which tended to slow the story down. One editor said that he could not get through the first hundred pages without becoming confused and irritated. Another said that he might be making a huge mistake in turning the book down, but he did so anyway. Initial sales of the book were slow, but Frank Herbert’s science fiction–writing peers and readers recognized the genius of the work from the beginning, awarding it the coveted Nebula and Hugo awards for best novel of the year. It was featured in The Whole Earth Catalog and began to receive excellent reviews, including one from the New York Times. A groundswell of support was building. In 1969, Frank Herbert published the first sequel, Dune Messiah, in which he warned about the dangers of following a charismatic leader and showed the dark side of Paul Atreides. Many fans didn’t understand this message, because they didn’t want to see their superhero brought down from his pedestal. Still, the book sold well, and so did its predecessor. Looking back at Dune, it is clear that Dad laid the seeds of the troublesome direction he intended to take with his hero, but a lot of readers didn’t want to see it. John W. Campbell, the editor of Analog who made many useful suggestions when Dune was being serialized, did not like Dune Messiah because of this Paul Atreides issue. Having studied politics carefully, my father believed that heroes made mistakes…mistakes that were simplified by the number of people who followed such leaders slavishly. In a foreshadowing epigraph, Frank Herbert wrote in Dune: “Remember, we speak now of the Muad’Dib who ordered battle drums made from his enemies’ skins, the Muad’Dib who denied the conventions of his ducal past with a wave of the hand, saying merely: ‘I am the Kwisatz Haderach. That is reason enough.’” And in a dramatic scene, as Liet-Kynes lay dying in the desert, he remembered the long-ago words of his own father: “No more terrible disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a Hero.” By the early 1970s, sales of Dune began to accelerate, largely because the novel was heralded as an environmental handbook, warning about the dangers of destroying the Earth’s finite resources. Frank Herbert spoke to more than 30,000 people at the first Earth Day in Philadelphia, and he toured the country, speaking to enthusiastic college audiences. The environmental movement was sweeping the nation, and Dad rode the crest of the wave, a breathtaking trip. When he published Children of Dune in 1976, it became a runaway bestseller, hitting every important list in the country. Children of Dune was the first science fiction novel to become a New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback, and sales reached into the millions. After that, other science fiction writers began to have their own bestsellers, but Frank Herbert was the first to obtain such a high level of readership; he brought science fiction out of the ghetto of literature. By 1979, Dune itself had sold more than 10 million copies, and sales kept climbing. In early 1985, shortly after David Lynch’s movie Dune was released, the paperback version of the novel reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. This was a phenomenal accomplishment, occurring twenty years after its first publication, and sales remain brisk today. * * * In 1957, Dad flew to the Oregon coast to write a magazine article about a U.S. Department of Agriculture project there, in which the government had successfully planted poverty grasses on the crests of sand dunes, to keep them from inundating highways. He intended to call the article “They Stopped the Moving Sands,” but soon realized that he had a much bigger story on his hands. Frank Herbert’s life experiences are layered into the pages of the Dune series, combined with an eclectic assortment of fascinating ideas that sprang from his researches. Among other things, the Dune universe is a spiritual melting pot, a far future in which religious beliefs have combined into interesting forms. Discerning readers will recognize Buddhism, Sufi Mysticism and other Islamic belief systems, Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, and Hinduism. In the San Francisco Bay Area, my father even knew Zen Master Alan Watts, who lived on an old ferryboat. Dad drew on a variety of religious influences, without adhering to any one of them. Consistent with this, the stated purpose of the Commission of Ecumenical Translators, as described in an appendix to Dune, was to eliminate arguments between religions, each of which claimed to have “the one and only revelation.” When he was a boy, eight of Dad’s Irish Catholic aunts tried to force Catholicism on him, but he resisted. Instead, this became the genesis of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. This fictional organization would claim it did not believe in organized religion, but the sisters were spiritual nonetheless. Both my father and mother were like that as well. During the 1950s, Frank Herbert was a political speechwriter and publicity writer for U.S. senatorial and congressional candidates. In that decade, he also journeyed twice to Mexico with his family, where he studied desert conditions and crop cycles, and was subjected unwittingly to the effects of a hallucinogenic drug. All of those experiences, and a great deal from his childhood, found their way onto the pages of Dune. The novel became as complex and multilayered as Frank Herbert himself. As I said in Dreamer of Dune, the characters in Dune fit mythological archetypes. Paul is the hero prince on a quest who weds the daughter of a “king” (he marries Princess Irulan, whose father is the Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV). Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam is a witch mother archetype, while Paul’s sister Alia is a virgin witch, and Pardot Kynes is the wise old man of Dune mythology. Beast Rabban Harkonnen, though evil and aggressive, is essentially a fool. For the names of heroes, Frank Herbert selected from Greek mythology and other mythological bases. The Greek House Atreus, upon which House Atreides in Dune was based, was the ill-fated family of kings Menelaus and Agamemnon. A heroic family, it was beset by tragic flaws and burdened with a curse pronounced against it by Thyestes. This foreshadows the troubles Frank Herbert had in mind for the Atreides family. The evil Harkonnens of Dune are related to the Atreides by blood, so when they assassinate Paul’s father Duke Leto, it is kinsmen against kinsmen, similar to what occurred in the household of Agamemnon when he was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra. Dune is a modern-day conglomeration of familiar myths, a tale in which great sandworms guard a precious treasure of melange, the geriatric spice that represents, among other things, the finite resource of oil. The planet Arrakis features immense, ferocious worms that are like dragons of lore, with “great teeth” and a “bellows breath of cinnamon.” This resembles the myth described by an unknown English poet in Beowulf, the compelling tale of a fearsome fire dragon who guarded a great treasure hoard in a lair under cliffs, at the edge of the sea. The desert of Frank Herbert’s classic novel is a vast ocean of sand, with giant worms diving into the depths, the mysterious and unrevealed domain of Shai-hulud. Dune tops are like the crests of waves, and there are powerful sandstorms out there, creating extreme danger. On Arrakis, life is said to emanate from the Maker (Shai-hulud) in the desert-sea; similarly all life on Earth is believed to have evolved from our oceans. Frank Herbert drew parallels, used spectacular metaphors, and extrapolated present conditions into world systems that seem entirely alien at first blush. But close examination reveals they aren’t so different from systems we know…and the book characters of his imagination are not so different from people familiar to us. Paul Atreides (who is the messianic “Muad’Dib” to the Fremen) resembles Lawrence of Arabia (T. E. Lawrence), a British citizen who led Arab forces in a successful desert revolt against the Turks during World War I. Lawrence employed guerrilla tactics to destroy enemy forces and communication lines, and came close to becoming a messiah figure for the Arabs. This historical event led Frank Herbert to consider the possibility of an outsider leading native forces against the morally corrupt occupiers of a desert world, in the process becoming a godlike figure to them. One time I asked my father if he identified with any of the characters in his stories, and to my surprise he said it was Stilgar, the rugged leader of the Fremen. I had been thinking of Dad more as the dignified, honorable Duke Leto, or the heroic, swashbuckling Paul, or the loyal Duncan Idaho. Mulling this over, I realized Stilgar was the equivalent of a Native American chief in Dune—a person who represented and defended time-honored ways that did not harm the ecology of the planet. Frank Herbert was that, and a great deal more. As a child, he had known a Native American who hinted that he had been banished from his tribe, a man named Indian Henry who taught my father some of the ways of his people, including fishing, the identification of edible and medicinal plants in the forest, and how to find red ants and protein-rich grub worms for food. When he set up the desert planet of Arrakis and the galactic empire encompassing it, Frank Herbert pitted western culture against primitive culture and gave the nod to the latter. In Dune he wrote, “Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.” (Later, in his mainstream novel Soul Catcher, he would do something similar and would favor old ways over modern ways). Like the nomadic Bedouins of the Arabian plateau, the Fremen live an admirable, isolated existence, separated from civilization by vast stretches of desert. The Fremen take psychedelic drugs during religious rites, like the Navajo Indians of North America. And like the Jews, the Fremen have been persecuted, driven to hide from authorities and survive away from their homeland. Both Jews and Fremen expect to be led to the promised land by a messiah. The words and names in Dune are from many tongues, including Navajo, Latin, Chakobsa (a language found in the Caucasus), the Nahuatl dialect of the Aztecs, Greek, Persian, East Indian, Russian, Turkish, Finnish, Old English, and, of course, Arabic. In Children of Dune, Leto II allowed sandtrout to attach themselves to his body, and this was based in part upon my father’s own experiences as a boy growing up in Washington State, when he rolled up his trousers and waded into a stream or lake, permitting leeches to attach themselves to his legs. The legendary life of the divine superhero Muad’Dib is based on themes found in a variety of religious faiths. Frank Herbert even used lore and bits of information from the people of the Gobi Desert in Asia, the Kalahari Desert in Southwest Africa, and the aborigines of the Australian Outback. For centuries such people have survived on very small amounts of water, in environments where water is a more precious resource than gold. The Butlerian Jihad, occurring ten thousand years before the events described in Dune, was a war against thinking machines who at one time had cruelly enslaved humans. For this reason, computers were eventually made illegal by humans, as decreed in the Orange Catholic Bible: “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.” The roots of the jihad went back to individuals my parents knew, to my mother’s grandfather Cooper Landis and to our family friend Ralph Slattery, both of whom abhorred machines. Still, there are computers in the Dune universe, long after the jihad. As the series unfolds, it is revealed that the Bene Gesserits have secret computers to keep track of their breeding records. And the Mentats of Dune, capable of supreme logic, are “human computers.” In large part these human calculators were based upon my father’s paternal grandmother, Mary Stanley, an illiterate Kentucky hill-woman who performed incredible mathematical calculations in her head. Mentats were the precursors of Star Trek’s Spock, First Officer of the starship Enterprise…and Frank Herbert described the dangers of thinking machines back in the 1960s, years before Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator movies ...

By the time we complete those stories, there will be a wealth of Dune novels, along with the 1984 movie directed by David Lynch and two television miniseries—“Frank Herbert’s Dune” and “Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune”—both produced by Richard Rubinstein. We envision other projects in the future, but all of them must measure up to the lofty standard that my father established with his own novels. When all of the good stories have been told, the series will end. But that will not really be a conclusion, because we can always go back to Dune itself and read it again and again, ” -Brian Herbert

This shows the appreciation that Brian had for his father. Many fans are still on the fence regarding Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson continuation of Frank’s work. Some think some of their sequels and prequels are good while others think their attempt to expand on the Dune lore is a failed attempt and don’t believe they have based their works on Frank Herbert’s alleged unfinished manuscripts. I fall somewhere in the middle. There are things I like from the Dune Expanded Universe and other things that I could care less about. Nevertheless, I love that Brian Herbert has continued with his father’s passion and is currently working with director Denis Villeneuve and others to bring his father’s vision on the big and small screens and stay loyal to it.

#frank herbert #dune #brian herbert

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un-enfant-immature · 5 years

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Confluent adds free tier to Kafka real-time streaming data cloud service

When Confluent launched a cloud service in 2017, it was trying to reduce some of the complexity related to running a Kafka streaming data application. Today, it introduced a free tier to that cloud service. The company hopes to expand its market beyond large technology company customers, and the free tier should make it easier for smaller companies to get started.

The new tier provides up to $50 of service a month for up to three months. Company CEO Jay Kreps says that while $50 might not sound like much, it’s actually hundreds of gigabytes of throughput and makes it easy to get started with the tool.

“We felt like we can make this technology really accessible. We can make it as easy as we can. We want to make it something where you can just get going in seconds, and not have to pay anything to start building an application that uses real time streams of data,” Kreps said.

Kafka has been available as an open source product since 2011, so it’s been free to download, install and build applications, but still required a ton of compute and engineering resources to pull off. The cloud service was designed to simplify that, and the free tier lets developers get comfortable building a small application without making a large financial investment.

Once they get used to working with Kafka on the free version, users can then buy in whatever increments make sense for them, and only pay for what they use. It can be pennies worth of Kafka or hundreds of dollars depending on a customer’s individual requirements. “After free, you can buy 11 cents worth of Kafka or you can buy it $10 worth, all the way up to these massive users like Lyft that use Kafka Cloud at huge scale as part of their ride sharing service,” he said.

While a free SaaS trial might feel like a common kind of marketing approach, Kreps says for a service like Kafka, it’s actually much more difficult to pull off. “With something like a distributed system where you get a whole chunk of infrastructure, it’s actually technically an extraordinarily difficult thing to provide zero to elastic scale up capabilities. And a huge amount of engineering goes into making that possible,” Kreps explained.

Kafka processes massive streams of data in real time. It was originally developed inside LinkedIn and open sourced in 2011. Confluent launched as a commercial entity on top of the open source project in 2014. In January the company raised $125 million on a $2.5 billion valuation. It has raised over $205 million, according to Crunchbase data.

Open-source leader Confluent raises $125M on $2.5B valuation

#TechCrunch

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changebikeuk · 4 years

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The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Folding Bikes

Folding Mountain Bikes: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Folding Bikes

Choosing the right folding bike for your needs can be a daunting task. What does it all mean, and what should you be looking out for when you’re shopping for a folding bike? Today we take a look at this!

The Ultimate Guide to Understanding Folding Bikes

Bikes have come a long way and have seen transformation than any other human-powered vehicle. They are also popular worldwide since they can get you around even in places considered impassable. The best innovation that has ever happened in the cycling world is the introduction of a folding bike. Cyclists will tell you the feeling of owning this bike is much greater than that of driving a sports car. There is some truth in that considering that this bike can get you to places and fit in spaces no other vehicle can. This post is all about that. After reading this guide, you will have a deeper understanding of what folding bikes are, the different types available, who it is meant for, and what to look for when buying.

What is a Folding Bike?

Just as its name suggests, this is the type of a bicycle designed to fold down into a size that can be carried around, transported or fitted into limited areas. The folding mechanism of these bikes is not the same. Each offers a distinct combination of folding speed, compactness, folding ease, durability, weight, price and ride. The folding complexity also sets each type of bike apart. A quick look into the market and you will notice that the structural requirements, parts and the market appeal make this bike quite costly than your ordinary bicycle. The convenience and features make these machines worth every penny.

Types of Folding Bicycles

Most folding bikes are similar, and even some cycling hobbyists can’t tell the difference. What differentiates them are the folding methods and wheel sizes.

The Wheel Size

Small Wheels: This type is common among city-dwellers and commuters who don’t have the pleasure of space. They are the most common types too for bike enthusiasts who are also collectors of the ‘classics’. The wheel size ranges from 16”-20”. This may sound too small for an adult bike, but you will be shocked that they have the usual and unusual accessories you will find on an ordinary bicycle. This includes mudguards, bells, racks for your luggage, chainguards, and so much more.

This commuter bike is designed to be ultra-compact when folded to fit into the car boot or carry around places you cannot cycle. The only drawback is that this may not be the best folding bike for off-road use considering its wheel size. If you are a long-distance traveller, then you may also need a different folding road bike. However, getting around the city or town can be quite hectic, and that is where smaller-wheeled bikes come in handy. If you are also a user of the public transport that doesn’t permit the regular bicycles, you can discreetly store this ‘pocket-size’ cycle under your train seat.

Full-size Wheels: If you are looking for a folding mountain bike, then this is the category to consider. Several manufacturers have decided to give the conventional small-wheeled a new look for the off-track hobbyists. They come with 26″ or 700c wheels to offer high-performance when cycling on different terrains. Although this type is not as compact as the small-wheeled, it still offers the convenience of storage as compared to the non-folding bike. You will also not incur any extra cost when using public transport as they are compact enough to fit in limited space. Enjoy a whole new mountain biking experience with this type of cycle as it’s easy to carry when crossing the river or climbing mountains.

Folding Method

Mid-Folding: Most models in the market are folded halfway. This means that the frame breaks at the halfway point. As a result, it has a strong hinge that’s reinforced with a clamp. This type usually is easy to fold and assemble. To close the bike, you have to release the clamp and swing it to line up with the wheels. The seat post and handlebars also utilise a quick release clamp that makes your work easier.

Triangle Hinge: These bikes are unique than other folding counterparts as they have a triangle hinge in the frame. Once the wheel folds, the bike is flipped forward under the frame. Other triangle hinge bikes also fold the front fork. This makes the machine easy to fold and set up.

Magnet Folding: This is a sophisticated folding method that combines a magnet with a rear shock absorber. This magnet works by locking the back wheel of the bicycle to the frame. It then brings the rear wheel forward to fold the bike vertically. This means that you can roll the bike on its rear wheel if you don’t want to carry it around.

Breakaway: This method is common among bikes that utilise a diamond frame. The hinges, in this case, can be found around the seat post. The frame separates from the bike before you can fold them together.

Vertical Folding: Bikes that are folded vertically usually come with two hinges on the main tube. However, the seat stays to let you fold effectively. What makes this type common is that it’s more compact than a mid folding road bike.

Who Is This Bike Meant For?

Commuters are the most frequent users of this type of bicycles. So if you live in a large city and need multiple ways to get around the streets or run errands, then this could be what you need. There are train, subway, and buses that don’t allow bikes in. However, the folding concept solves this problem since they can be broken down and compacted for easy storage.

Mountain bikers can now rely on a folding mountain bike to take a higher amount of punishment. The new technology enables manufacturers to create machines that can take on rugged riding, off-roading and lighter trails. Mountaineers and hikers prefer this type as it fits into other climbing gear. Hobbyists mountain bikers can leave these bikes in the car and come back for them when the urge strikes.

Road bikers have also come to enjoy the convenience and style these machines offer. They can now choose from a wide array of bikes designed to function similar to an actual road bike. As a result, they come with accessories such as drop-down handlebars, the same riding stance and many gears. When they first made their entry into the cycling industry, these bikes were not great for road bikers. However, the newer road models offer a simple and stylish way to make your way across long stretches. This means that you can cycle from your house to your place of work without ever stepping in a public transit.

There are riders who don’t have a pressing urge or need to be on their bicycles on a daily basis. Such leisure riders can have casual fun with this machine. Since most of them don’t look for outstanding performances, they will be comfortable with this one.

Choosing the Best Folding Bicycle

The folding market is not what it used to be and finding the best bike may not be a walk in the park. There are more features, improved performance and added convenience in the new versions. But to simplify your search, consider the following factors:

Gear ratios: Regular bikes have more gears than their folding counterparts. However, the gear ratio will vary depending on the usage. The best folding bike should have a gear low enough to ride up the hills. The ideal low gear for motorboat owners going uphill after a long day at the sea should be 25 inches. A top of 70 is perfect for your city life, but you can go higher if you want a road monster.

Performance: High-performing machines are quite sturdy and comfortable. They also last longer than regular bikes. Most of them are 24″ wheeled bicycles. This means that if you are going to step on the paddle for more than 100KM per day, then you need to consider performance. Town dwellers can choose a normal commuter bike with 16″ wheels.

Foldability: Since foldability is the only thing that differentiates this bike from the conventional ones, you have to be keen about this feature. If you are always folding and unfolding your machine, why not choose one that’s fast at that. The slowest bike to disassemble should take 10 minutes, anything slower than that is not a folding bicycle, and you shouldn’t waste your money on it.

Frame size: Average riders will easily find the ideal frame size. However, if you are exceptionally tall or shot, you will need to compromise. The only setback is that not many manufacturers consider the extremely tall or short riders. As a result, you should choose something that will meet your basic needs.

With that in mind, you now understand why there is so much fuss around the cycling world when the word ‘folding’ is uttered. This is the time to dispose of your conventional bike and move with the wave. This guide has answered the common question ‘what is a folding bike’. It is now up to you to choose the shape, size and colour that matches your personality.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post! What would you like to see now?

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webanalytics · 6 years

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The Impact Matrix | A Digital Analytics Strategic Framework

The universe of digital analytics is massive and can seem as complex as the cosmic universe.

With such big, complicated subjects, we can get lost in the vast wilderness or become trapped in a silo. We can wander aimlessly, or feel a false sense of either accomplishment or frustration. Consequently, we lose sight of where we are, how we are doing and which direction is true north.

I have experienced these challenges on numerous occasions myself. Even simple questions like “How effective is our analytics strategy?” elicit a complicated set of answers, instead of a simple picture the CxO can internalize. That’s because we have to talk about tools (so many!), work (collection, processing, reporting, analysis), processes, org structure, governance models, last-mile gaps, metrics ladders of awesomeness, and… so… much… more.

Soon, your digital analytics strategic framework that you hoped would provide a true north to the analytics strategy question looks like this…

The frameworks above cover just one dimension of the assessment (!). There is another critical framework to figure out how you can take your analytics sophistication from wherever it is at the moment to nirvanaland.

A quick search query will illustrate that that looks something like this…

It is important to stress that none of these frameworks/answers exist in a vacuum.

Both pictures above are frighteningly complex because the analytics world we occupy is complex. Remember, tools, work, processes, org structure, governance models, last-mile gaps, metrics ladders of awesomeness, and… so… much… more.

The Implications of Complexity.

There are two deeply painful outcomes of the approaches you see in the pictures above (in which you’ll also see my work represented as well).

1. Obvious:

No CxO understands the story we are trying to tell – or, even the fundamentals of what we do in the world of analytics. Therefore, they are inclined to remain committed to faith-based decision-making and continue to starve analytics of the attention and investment it deserves.

2. Non-obvious:

Leaders of analytics organizations do not truly appreciate the wonderful effectiveness, or gross ineffectiveness, of their analytics practice (people, process, tools). You see… None of the currently recommended frameworks and maturity models aids analytics leaders in truly understanding the bottom line impact of their work. The result is analytical strategies that are uninformed by reality, and driven new tool features, random expert recommendations and shiny objects (OMG we have to get offline attribution!).

When one grasps these two outcomes – blind business leaders, blind analytics leaders – it is simply heartbreaking.

Simplifying Complexity.

The dilemma of how to simplify this complexity, to create sighted business and analytics leaders, has lingered with me for quite some time. I’ve intended to create a simple visual that absorbs the scale, complexity and many moving parts.

On this blog, you’ve seen numerous attempts by me to remedy the dilemma. To name a few: Digital Marketing & Measurement Model | Analytics Ecosystem | Web Analytics 2.0. Each aimed to solve a particular dimension, yet none solved the heartache completely. Especially for the non-obvious problem #2 above.

The hunger remained.

I wanted to create a visual that would function as a diagnostic tool to determine if you are lost, trapped in a silo or wandering aimlessly. It would help you realize the extent to which analytics impacted the business bottom line today, and what your future analytics plans should accomplish.

Then one day, a magic moment.

During a discussion around planning for measurement, a peer was struggling with a unique collection of challenges. He asked me a couple of questions, and that sparked an idea.

I walked up to the whiteboard, and excitedly sketched something simple that abstracted away the complexity – and yet preserved the power of smarter thinking at the same time.

Here’s the sketch I drew in response:

Yes, it was an ugly birth. But, to me, the proud parent, it was beautiful.

It took a sixteen hour direct flight to Singapore for the squiggly sketch to come to life – where else, in PowerPoint!

The end result was just five slides. As the saying goes: It's not the ink, it's the think.

I want to share the fully fleshed out, put into practice and refined, version of those four slides with you today. Together, they’ll help you fundamentally rethink your analytics practice by, 1. understanding data’s actual impact on your company today and, 2. picking very precise and specific things that should be in your near and long-term analytics plans.

The Impact Matrix.

To paint a simple picture of the big, complicated world of analytics, the whiteboard above shows a 2×2 matrix.

Each cell contains a metric (online, offline, nonline).

The business impact is on the y-axis, illustrated from Super Tactical to Super Strategic.

The time-to-useful is on the x-axis, illustrated from Real-Time to 6-Monthly.

Before we go on… Yes, breaking the x-axis into multiple time segments creates a 2×5 matrix, and not a 2×2. Consider that to be the price I’ve paid in order to make this more actionable for you. :)

Diving a bit deeper into the y-axis… Super Tactical is the smallest possible impact on the business (fractions of pennies). Super Strategic represents the largest possible impact on the business (tens of millions of dollars).

The scale on the y-axis is exponential. You’ll notice the numbers in light font between Super Tactical and Super Strategic go from 4 to 10 to 24 to 68 and onward. This demonstrates that impact is not a step-change – every step up delivers a massively higher impact.

Diving a bit deeper into the x-axis… While most data can be collected in real-time now, not all metrics are useful in real-time.

As an example, Impressions can be collected in real-time and they can also become useful in real-time (if actioned, they can have a super tactical impact – fractions of pennies). Customer Lifetime Value on the other hand takes a long time to become useful, over months and months (if actioned, it can have a super strategic impact on the business – tens of millions of dollars).

Here is a representation of these ideas on the Impact Matrix:

[You can download an Excel version of the Impact Matrix at the end of this post.]

Impressions can be used in real-time for decision-making by your display, video and search platforms (e.g., via automation). You can report Gross Profit in real-time, of course, but doing so is almost entirely useless. It should be deeply analyzed monthly to yield valuable, higher impact actionable insights. Finally, Lifetime Value will require perhaps the toughest strategic analysis, from data accumulated over months, and the action takes time to yield results – but they are magnificent.

Pause. Reflect on the above picture.

If you understand why each metric is where it is, the rest of this post will fill you with euphoric joy rarely experienced without physical contact.

The Impact Matrix: A Joyous Deep Dive.

In all, the Impact Matrix contains 46 of the most commonly used business metrics – with an emphasis on sales and marketing. The metrics span digital, television, retail stores, billboards, and any other presence of a brand you can think of. You see more digital metrics because digital is more measurable.

Some metrics apply across all channels, like Awareness, Consideration and Purchase Intent. You’ll note the most critical bottom line metrics, which might come from your ERP and CRM systems, are also included.

Every metric occupies a place based on business impact and time of course, but also in context of other metrics around it.

Here’s a magnified view that includes the bottom left portion of the matrix:

Let’s continue to internalize impact and time-to-useful by looking at a specific example: Bounce Rate. It’s in the row indicating an impact of four and in the time-to-useful column weekly. While Bounce Rate is available in real-time, it is only useful after you’ve collected a critical amount of data (say, over a week).

On the surface, it might seem odd that a simple metric like Bounce Rate has an impact of four and TV GRPs and % New Visits are lower. My reason for that is the broader influence of Bounce Rates.

Effectively analyzing and acting on Bounce Rates requires the following:

* A deep understanding of owned, earned and paid media strategies.

* The ability to identify any empty promises made to the users who are bouncing.

* Knowing the content, including its emotional and functional value.

* The ability to optimize landing pages.

Imagine the impact of those insights; it is well beyond Bounce Rates. That is why Bounce Rate garners more weight than Impressions, Awareness and other common metrics.

When designating a metric as a KPI, this is your foremost consideration: depth of influence.

With a better understanding of the Impact Matrix, here’s the full version:

[You can download an Excel version of the Impact Matrix at the end of this post.]

As you reflect on the filled out matrix, you’ll note that I’ve layered in subtle incentives.

For example, if you were to compute anything Per Human, you would need to completely revamp your identity platforms (a strategy I’ve always favored: Implications Of Identity Systems On Incentives). Why should you make this extra effort? Notice how high those metrics sits on the business impact scale!

Other hidden features.

The value of voice of customer metrics is evident by their high placement in context of the y-axis. Take a look at where Task Completion Rate by Primary Purpose and Likelihood to Recommend are, as an example. They are high in the hierarchy due to their positive impact on both the business and the company culture – thus delivering a soft and hard advantage.

You’ll also note that most pure digital metrics – Adobe, Google Analytics – sit in the tactical bottom line impact. If all you do day and night is just those metrics, this is a wake-up call to you in context of your actual impact on the company and the impact of that on your career.

At the top-right, you’ll discover my obsession with Profit and Incrementality, which form the basis of competitive advantage in 2018 (and beyond). Analyzing these metrics not only fundamentally changes marketing strategy (think tens of millions of dollars for large companies); their insights can change your company’s product portfolio, your customer engagement strategies and much more.

The matrix also includes what is likely the world’s first widely available machine learning-powered metric: Session Quality, which you’ll find roughly in the middle. For every session on your desktop or mobile site, Session Quality provides a score between 1 and 100 as an indication of how close the visitor is to converting. The number is computed based on a ML algorithm that has learned from deep analysis of your user behavior and conversion data.

Pause. Download the full resolution version of the picture. Reflect.

It is my hope that the placement of each of the 46 metrics will help you add metrics that might be unique to your work. (Share them in comments below, add to our collective knowledge.)

With a better understanding of the matrix, you are ready to overcome the two problems that broke our hearts at the start of the post – and do something super-cool that you did not think we might.

Action #1: Analytics Program Maturity Diagnostic.

Enough theory, time to some real, sexy, work.

The core driver behind creation of the Impact Matrix was the non-obvious problem #2: How much does your analytics practice matter from a bottom line perspective?

YOU matter if you have a business impact. You’ll have a business impact if your analytics practice is sophisticated enough to produce metrics that matter. See the nice circular reference?

In our case we measure maturity not by evaluating people, process, and layers upon layers of tools, rather we measure maturity by evaluating the output of that entire song and dance.

Answer this simple question: What metrics are most commonly used to make decisions that drive actual actions every week/month/more?

Ignore the metrics produced as an experimental exercise nine months ago. Ignore the metrics whose only purpose is to float along the river of data pukes. Ignore the metrics you wish you were analyzing, but don’t currently.

Reality. Assess, reality. No point in fooling yourself.

Take the subset of metrics that actively drive action, and change the font color for them to green in the Impact Matrix.

For a large European client with a multi-channel existence, here’s what the Impact Matrix looked like after this honest self-reflection:

More of the digital metrics are green, because there are more digital metrics period. You can see the company’s marketing strategy spans television and other offline advertising, including retail.

You’ll likely recognize many of these metrics as the one that your analytics practice outputs every day. They represent the result of a lot of hard work by the company employees, and external analytics partners.

We are trying to answer the how much does the analytics practice matter question. You can see that more sharply now.

For this company most green metrics cluster in the bottom-left quadrant, with most having an impact of ten or under (on a y-axis scale of 1 to a ). There is one clear outlier (Nonline Direct Revenue – a very difficult metric to compute, so hurray!)

As every good consultant know, if you have a 2×2 you can create four thematic quadrants. In our case the four quadrants are called Solid Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced:

For our company, the maturity of the analytics practice fit mostly in the Solid Foundation quadrant.

Is this a good thing?

It depends on how long the analytics practice has been around, how many Analysts the company has, how much money it has invested in analytics tools, the size of their agency analytics team, so on and so forth.

If they have a team of 50 people spending $18 mil on analytics investment each year, over the last decade, with 12 tools and 25 research studies each year… You can now infer that this is not a good thing.

Regardless, the Impact Matrix now illuminates clearly that highly influential metrics are underutilized. These are the metrics that facilitate deeper thought, patience and analysis to deliver big bottom line impact.

Recommendation Uno:

Conduct this exercise for your own company. Identify the metrics actively being used for decision-making. Which quadrant reflects the maturity of your analytics program? With the investment in people, process, tools, and consultants, are you in a quadrant where your bottom line impact is super strategic?

Recommendation Dos:

Identify your target quadrant. In this instance the company could move bottom-right and then up. They could also move top-left and then top-right. The choice depends on business strategy and current people, process, tools reality. This should be obvious; you always want the Advanced quadrant lit up. But, you can’t go from Beginner to Advanced directly – evolution works smarter than revolution. (If your Solid Foundation quadrant is not lit up, do that first.)

Recommendation Très:

Create a specific plan for the initiatives you need to undertake to get to your next desired quadrant. You’ll certainly need new talent, you’ll need a stronger strategic leader (less ink, more think), you’ll need to identify specific analytics projects to deliver those metrics, and you’ll most definitely need funding. Divide the plan into six-month segments with milestones for accountability.

The good news is that it is now, finally, clear where you are going AND why you are going there. Congratulations!

Recommendation Cuatro:

Start a cultural shift. Share the results of your assessment, the green and black reflection of the current reality, with the entire company. Inspire each Marketer, Finance Analyst, Logistics Support Staff, Call Center Manager, and every VP to move one step up or one step to the right. If they currently measure AVOC, challenge them to move to Unique Page Views or Click-thru Rate. It will be a small challenge, but it will improve sophistication and, as you can see in the matrix, the impact on the bottom line.

Most companies wait for some Jesus-Krishna hybrid to descend from heaven and deliver a glorious massive revolution project (overnight!). These never happen. Sorry, Jesus-Krishna. Instead, what it takes is each employee moving a little bit up and a little bit to the right while the Analytics team facilitates those shifts. Small changes accumulate big bottom line impact over time.

So. What’s your quadrant? And, what’s your next right or next up move?

Action #2: Aligning Metrics & Leadership Altitude.

When offered data, everyone wants everything.

People commonly believe that more data means better results. Or, that if an Agency is providing a 40 tab, font size 8, spreadsheet full of numbers that they must have done a lot of work – hence better value for money. Or, a VP wants two more histograms that represent seven dimensions squeezed into her one page dashboard.

If more data equaled smarter decisions, they would be peace on earth.

A core part of our job, as owners of the analytics practice, is to ensure that the right data (metric) reaches the right person at the right time.

To do so, we must consider altitude (aka the y-axis).

Altitude dictates the scope and significance of decisions. It also dictates the frequency at which data is received, along with the depth of insights that need to accompany the data (IABI FTW!). Finally, altitude determines the amount of time allotted to discuss findings.

Managers have a lower altitude, they are required to make tactical decisions – impacting say tens of thousands of dollars. VPs have a higher altitude, they are paid a ton more in salary, bonus and stock, because they carry the responsibility for making super strategic decisions – impacting tens of millions of dollars.

This problem has a beautifully elegant solution if you use the Impact Matrix.

Slice the matrix horizontally to ensure that the metrics delivered to each leader are aligned with their altitude.

[You can download an Excel version of the Impact Matrix at the end of this post.]

VPs sit at decision making that is squarely in the Super Strategic realm – on our scale ~40 and higher. This collection of metrics power heavy decisions requiring abundant business context, deep thinking and will influence broad change. Analysts will need that time to conduct proper analysis and obtain the IABI.

You can also see that nearly all metrics delivered to the VPs arrive monthly or even less frequently. Another reflection of the fact that their altitude requires solving problems that will connect across orgs, across incentives, across user touch points, etc.

So. Are the metrics on your VP Dashboards/Slides the ones in Super Strategic cluster?

Or. Is your analytics practice such that your VPs spend their time making tactical decisions?

Below the VP layer, you’ll see metric clusters for slightly less strategic impact on the company bottom line for Directors. The time-to-useful also changes on the x-axis for them. Following them is the layer for managers, who make even more frequent, tactical decisions.

The last layer is my favorite way to improve decision making: Removing humans from the process. :)

Recent technical advancements allow us to use algorithms – machine learning – to automate decisions made by metrics that have a Super Tactical impact. For example, there is no need for any human to review Viewability because advanced display platforms optimize campaigns automatically against this metric. In fact an expensive human looking at reports with that metric will only slow things down – eliminating the fractions of penny impact that that metric delivers.

Recommendation Cinco:

Collect the dashboards and main reports created by your analytics practice. Cluster them by altitude (VP, Directors…). Identify if the metrics being reported to each leadership layer are the ones being recommended by the Impact Matrix.

For example: Does your last CMO report include Profit per Human, Incremental Profit per Non-line Channel, % Contribution of Non-line Channels to Sales? If yes, hurray! Instead, if they are reporting Awareness, Consideration, Intent, Conversions, Bounce Rate… Sad time. Why would your CMO use his or her valuable time making tactical choices? Is it a culture problem? Is it a reflection of the lack of analytical savvy? Why?

Put simply, the big and complicated is not so big and not so complicated. This simple analysis will help identify core issues that are stymieing the contribution data can make to smarter, faster, business success.

Recommendation Seis:

Kick off a specific initiative to tackle automation. If data is available in real-time and useful in real-time, there are algorithms out there that can make decisions for humans. If there is a limitation, it is all yours (people, bureaucracy, connection points, etc.).

For the other layers, action will depend on what the problem is. It could require new leadership in the analytics team, it could require a shift in company culture, or it could require a different engagement model across layers (managers, directors, VPs). One thing adjusting the altitude will certainly require: Change in how employees are compensated.

As you notice above, the strength of the matrix is in it’s ability to simplify complexity. That does not mean that you don’t have to deal with complexity – you can be more focused about it now!

Action #3: Strategy for Analytical Effort.

One more slicing exercise for our matrix, this time for the analytics team itself.

Analytics teams face a daunting challenge when figuring out what type of effort to put into tackling the fantastic collection of possibilities represented in the Impact Matrix.

That challenge is compounded by the fact that there is always too much to do and too few people to do it with. Oh, and don’t get me started on time! Why are there only 24 hours in a day??

So, how do we ensure that each has an optimal analytical approach?

Slice the matrix vertically along the time-to-useful dimension…

[You can download an Excel version of the Impact Matrix at the end of this post.]

For any metric that is useful in real-time, we have to unpack the forces of automation. Campaigns can be optimized based on real-time impressions, clicks, visits, page views, cost per acquisition etc. We need to stop reporting these, and start feeding them into our campaign platforms like AdWords, DoubleClick etc. With simple rules – ranges mostly – automation platforms can do a better job of taking action than humans.

If you are investing in machine learning talent inside your team, even narrowly intelligent algorithms they build will learn faster and surpass humans quickly for these simple decisions.

With the day-to-day sucking of life spirit reduced, tactical impact decisions automated, the analytics practice has time to focus on metrics that have a longer time-to-useful and need deeper human analysis to extract the IABI.

For metrics available weekly or within a few weeks, reporting to various stakeholders (mostly Managers and Directors) should adequately inform decisions. Use custom alerts, trigger threshold targets and more to send this data to the right person at the right time. For weekly time-to-useful metrics, your stakeholders have enough tactical context that you don’t need to spend time on deep analysis since the metrics inform the tactical decisions.

More role clarity, a thoughtful shift of the burden to the stakeholders, and more free time to focus on what really matters.

For where time-to-useful is in the month range, you are now truly heading into strategic territory. Reflect on the metrics there – challenging, strategic, Director and VP altitude. It is no longer enough to just report what happened, you need to identify why it happened and what the causal impact is for the why factors. This will yield insights that will have millions of dollars of potential impact on the company. That means, you’ll need to invest in ensuring your stories have more than just insights but also include specific recommended actions and predicted business impact. Amazingly, you’ll have just as much text as data in your output (that’s how you know you are doing it right!).

Finally, we have the pinnacle of analytics achievement. Our last vertical slice includes metrics that measure performance across customer segments, divisions and channels, among other elements. This is where meta-analysis comes into play, requiring even more time, with even more complex analytical techniques that pull data into BigQuery or similar environments where you can do your own joins, unleash R, use statistically modeling techniques (hello random forests!) to find the most important factors affecting your company’s performance.

The distribution of your analytical team’s effort across these four categories is another method of assessing maturity as well as ensuring optimal impact by the precious few analytical resources. For example: If most of your time is occupied by providing data to decision-makers for metrics in the Automate and Reporting vertical slices, you are likely in the beginner stage (and not having much impact on the business bottom line).

Recommendation Siete:

Find an empty conference room. Project all the work your team has delivered in the last 30 days on the screen. Cluster it by Automated, Reporting, Analysis and Meta-Analysis. Roughly compute what percentage of the team’s time was spent in each category. What do you see? Is the distribution optimal? And, are the metrics in each cluster the ones identified by the Impact Matrix?

The answers to these questions will cause a fundamental re-imagination of your analytics practices. The implications will be deep and wide (people, process, tools). That is how you get on the road to true nirvanaland.

#sisepuede

At the core of the Impact Matrix is the only thing that matters: the business bottom line. Using two simple dimensions, impact and time-to-useful, you can explain simply three unique elements of any successful analytics practice. The reflections are sometimes painful, but bringing them to light allows us to take steps toward systematic improvement of our analytical practice.

That’s the power of a 2×2 (or a 2×5)!

Here’s an Excel version of the Impact Matrix for your personal use.

As always, it is your turn now.

When your CMO asks, “How effective is our analytics strategy?”, what’s your answer? How simply can you frame it? What are the primary inputs to your near and long-term analytics evolution plans? If your VPs are getting the metrics in the Advanced quadrant, what strategies have been effective in getting you there? If you’ve successfully implemented pattern matching and advanced classification meta-analysis techniques, care to share your lessons with us?

Please share your feedback about the Impact Matrix, and answers to the above questions, via comments below. I look forward to the conversation.

Thank you.

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nathandgibsca · 6 years