Have you ever read a business book that you refer to again and again for years? What about a blog post? On the book front, I fell in love with First, Break All the Rules in 2005 and still cite it as my top recommendation for first-time managers. And, I will be referencing Social Media Metrics Secrets—my marked-up copy or my signed edition—for years to come.

On the blog front, I haven’t been able to get Stéphane Hamel’s post about The Three Heads of Online Analytics out of either of my two heads. Perhaps that is because, in addition to working with some great clients to measure and optimize their digital and social experiences, I’m also tasked with expanding Resource Interactive’s bench of analytics talent. That has led to some great internal discussions:

• Do we need analysts who are comfortable with SAS and SPSS and crunching massive data sets…or do we need analysts who know the precise definitions of the myriad metrics available from Facebook Insights?

• Do we need analysts who can translate “I need to do a Tumblr blog” into a clear set of objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs)…or do we need analysts who know the ins and outs of getting Google Analytics working on a Facebook page?

• Do we need analysts who know how to harness the power of Adobe SiteCatalyst and the myriad technical minutia of the platform…or do we need analysts who can explain (in excruciating detail!) how to interpret the phrase “95% confidence interval?”

The answer, I’ve realized, is “Yes.”

Stéphane’s post breaks down three dimensions of digital analysts:

• Business Acumen – All analytics work starts with having a clearly defined set of objectives. That sounds simple, but it’s often the analyst—involved at the outset of a project —who facilitates the discussion of what the true objectives of the initiative are. This is because, without clear objectives, it’s impossible to measure performance (and optimize and improve!)
• Technical Knowledge – SiteCatalyst, Google Analytics, Webtrends, Coremetrics, Facebook Insights, FQL, Twitalyzer, TweetReach, Klout, PeerIndex, Radian6, Flurry, Localytics, ForeSee, OpinionLab, CRM Metrix, DART…and the list is growing. The physics of the internet is complicated. There is an explosion of tools for capturing digital and social media data, and understanding what data can be captured, how to capture it, and what it means, is an incredibly complex challenge. No brand can rely on a single tool to get the full set of data they need to garner meaningful insight.
• Analytics – There are lots of ins and outs when it comes to actual data crunching. How do you distinguish signal from noise? What is a t-test (and why do you care)? Is a fractional factorial or a full factorial design most appropriate for testing the new home page? This is the realm of statisticians, and, as the data becomes more complex and the tools become more powerful, it becomes increasingly important to have true data scientists on hand who have the curiosity and creativeness to determine the best way to approach an analytic problem and get to an actionable solution.

These are three very distinct skills. I agree with Stéphane’s claim: “Nobody can claim to be fully skilled at all three dimensions, thus, the importance of a multidisciplinary team.”

Do you have a multidisciplinary analytics team, or do you simply have multiple people pulling reports?