The comments I provided in reaction to a community discussion thread:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7141087244055932928?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7141087244055932928%2C7141374343065784320%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287141374343065784320%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7141087244055932928%29
Chief Product Officer at Analytics Product Firm:
Self service analytics is a dumb goal, and I say that as someone building a product that is best in class at self service analytics.
Here's why: most people want answers without having to think about the 100 prerequisite questions. This is a fairy tale.
For example, "How many customers do we have?" can only be answered if you can define what a customer is. It takes rigour, discipline, and motivation to do that.
Most companies have blindly rolled out self service tools and crossed their fingers that they'll be adopted.
It's not working, because only a fraction of users have the motivation to overcome all of the disambiguation work that comes with doing analytics.
Here's why KAWA Analytics is different: we're not trying to build a product that makes analytics easy. We're trying to build a product that exposes why it's hard. We're trying to make people better at thinking.
Here's where we've seen success: business users who live or die on the decisions they make with data. A head of risk. A head of FX trading. A CFO. A marketing performance analyst. A revops analyst.
Data teams - forget about trying to service every question from every user in your company. Find the people who are motivated to invest brainpower in disambiguation work, and focus exclusively on helping them.
Gfesser: [Chief Product Officer at Analytics Product Firm] determining the definition of "customer" is mentioned in your post, as is determining the definition of "order" in one of your comments here. One important thing I see missing from this discussion is actually more foundational: determining the definition of the self-service user. I agree with you that the best candidates are those most motivated to tackle disambiguation. Whatever we call these self-service users (in the past, my teams and I have sometimes called this persona the "power user"), identifying these individuals and catering to their needs will go a long way to foster success, rather than making an attempt to use a relatively indiscriminate shotgun approach.
Chief Product Officer at Analytics Product Firm:
Brilliant point Erik!