Why Did This Dogbert Tweet About Dashboards Travel So Far?
I have always been sceptical of dashboards and command work centres and judging by the success of this tweet - Iām not alone...
Dogbert on big data consulting and dashboards ~ pic.twitter.com/MCd5rPH8vF
ā Jeremy āļø (@jeremywaite)
April 21, 2014
300+ RTās is a big deal on Twitter these days ~ so this one has obviously struck a nerve with a few peopleā¦
Regardless of how amazing the technology is that drives a dashboard, they are only ever as good as the people who configure them. Given that the vast majority of people in the social industry havenāt been in it that long, this could be a big part of the problem.Ā Iām planning to write a comprehensive post about social war rooms and dashboard best practise over the next few weeks (Tumblr isnāt the right place for it), but if youād like some reading in the meantime,Ā Jeremiah Owyang wrote a really useful post here.
Weāve all seen our fair share of sexy dashboards that sparkle and look gorgeous on a big screen (maybe they even look news-worthy or win an award), but ultimately many of them add very little to an organisation. The dashboards that I love the most are the ones that not only display the most useful information, but can be exported as one page reports (ones that c-suite execās might actually read).
"Only 14% of senior executives read digital marketing measurement reports" ~ According to a survey by eConsultancy
The main screen Radian6 dashboards Iām working on internally display my 5Ā Wās - these are the main audience components that matter the most to me (alongside ROI and financial metrics obviously) ~
Who are you customers? (Influencers, advocates, promotors and detractors)
What are they saying? (Topic / keyword analysis)
Why are the talking? (Trends / predictive analytics)
When did these conversations take place? (Recency / time)
Where did these conversation happen? (Share-of-voice on each platform)
Itās not really rocket science is it? But perhaps the fact that so many BAD dashboards exist explain why this tweet seems to have travelled so farā¦
Note: Notice my intentional omission of (pretty worthless) āreachā stats. Any smart brand marketer publishing content with commercial intent, would append a conversion tracking link to any such tweet, so that they can track any sales or uplift back to that initial piece of content.
Anyway ~ if good dashboards are your thing, feel free to check out this Radian6 video from MarketingCloud and let me know if youād like any more info. It might be the tool that powers most of the worldās most successful social dashboards and command centres ~ but donāt forget that as with all technology, itās only ever going to be as good as the people who set it up.
"We demand too much of technology and not enough of ourselves". Nate Silver
