"If only we knew what we know" - why data collection is not the most important thing

There is this current myth that data collection should be your primary focus on the information arena - after all, "data is the new oil" so of course you want to make sure you have acquired as much of it as possible. But, you need to ensure something as important - that data is flowing, being worked and actually being used for decision making. 

Now, I know this seems obvious, but the number of times we have seen data flow processes broken is probably countless. In many companies, there is even this sentence, ready at one's lips, when people find this great insight that was dusting on some shelf for a few years - "if only we knew what we know"...

This became even more critical in the past years, as the pace of markets accelerated exponentially. Nowadays, if you set a social listening tool, some of those insights or opportunities will have a very short life, sometimes just hours. And you cannot expect that your main competitor will not pick up the same deep insight you are finding in your data analysis. Data collection is critical, but the way and speed it flows into decision making is as critical.

A few tips:

- ensure that everyone (including decision makers) knows about the tools you have for data collection, what data and information they can provide, who to contact if their use is specialized and requires dedicated teams. In a way, just check that you have a clear operating framework for data collection, work and decision, and that this is on everyone's minds.

- make the data collection and decision making as physical close as possible. If data flows in from a specific team (like a social listening team or a more traditional market research one), try to sit them in the middle of the brand managers / directors. Enable informal contact, quick conversations about data, insights, needs, marketing plans, strategies,.... This will make sure that you are on top of those short-lived opportunities ("Quick, Kylie Jenner just posted a photo drinking our product") or longer running trends, and that decision is taken quickly.

- if physical proximity is not an option, try creating a close contact habit between the teams. Encourage brand managers to message or text the data managers, asking them questions ("Jeff, did anything caught your eye today or this week?"). Try to manage this carefully, to ensure it doesn't go to the extent of creating unwanted pressure on the data team, but also don't rely on passive, monthly sharing meetings, where you are overloaded with so much information you might lose track of what makes the difference.

- try to have a circular flow of data. So that it just doesn't flow from data teams to decision makers, but that there are clear conversations that ensure clarity between everyone - so the data guys can really understand what are the information pearls that could make a difference for your business.

Data collection can be incredibly complex and expensive - especially when you want to reach the "big data" realm. So, it would be a shame not to use it for actual, fully-informed decision making.