What was your journey/career path to your current position?
I'm a scientist at heart. A mathematician, to be precise. I always loved data. When data helps people make decisions it feels like magic. So I set about doing that. First in strategy consulting, then in philanthropy, politics, retail and finally in entertainment insights teams, where I feel really at home.
What's your proudest achievement of your career to date?
I'd say the transformation of EMI Music from a company led almost purely by passions to one that embraced data, alongside passions, to help it make decisions. It was a genuine corporate transformation but a tough journey. We changed the fortunes for rock stars, pop stars, superstar DJs as well as for artists that were launching their careers. We were the 'data people' and we taught the artists and creative people a LOT about how data can help them ... and the artists and creatives taught us data people a LOT about the limitations of data and the role of creativity and expertise in decision-making. That partnership and those lessons will stick with me forever.
What does social intelligence mean to you?
To me it is the use of social signals to help make business decisions. I'm most interested in big strategic business decisions (e.g. which audiences should I target and what does that mean for my product, marketing etc) versus tactical ones (e.g. how do I target an advert). I'm also interested in how social signals sit alongside other signals from research and transaction data to tell the whole story (for strategic decisions, they're just one part of that story, after all).
What's been the biggest challenge you've faced while trying to get brands to integrate social intelligence within their growth strategy?
Many people take social data too literally. They think, for example, that Twitter data is only useful in helping to think through how they do marketing on Twitter. The reality is that, if used wisely, Twitter data can help you to understand your whole product and marketing strategy!
What do you think is the biggest missed opportunity for social intelligence?
We need to make clear what jobs we're helping people to do. It isn't enough to provide good tools, we need to show people what jobs those tools can help them to do. Then we need to refine the tools so they are very easy to use for those specific jobs
What's on the cards for you and your team/organisation in 2022?
At a high level we are focused on streamlining how we help our clients to do two big 'jobs': developing an audience strategy and prioritising partnerships across talent, brands, media channels etc. Even after more than a decade of success in helping clients do these jobs, there is still room to simplify, improve and better communicate them. So they are more impactful more often and so that they can be made available to smaller and smaller organisations, brands and artists.
How do you see social intelligence and its use evolving?
I believe it can be more impactful to the overall strategy of organisations, brands and artists and that's the key thing I'm trying to help it evolve to do.
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