The NY Times posted this interesting article recently about Mayor Bloomberg’s Geek Squad, centering on the city’s “Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, a geek squad of civic-minded number-crunchers working from a pair of cluttered cubicles across from City Hall in the Municipal Building.”

Over the past 8 years I’ve worked closely with various NYC governmental offices, so I’ve been a witness to the slow change to more effective functioning.  From a wide perspective, there is a long way to go – and a LOT of bureaucracies remain.  However, from an operational and strategic standpoint, this article points out that data-driven geekery can shape your strategy.  This can – and should – be adapted for a company of any size.

What is data geekery?  It’s more than data collection and packaging statistics.  Operationally, It starts with a solid understanding of a problem and what data is needed.  Numbers without context and analysis can be misleading.  As the simplest of examples, looking at the change in revenue from year to year neglects the change in the costs associated with generating that revenue.  

Rather than start with a strategy in mind and then seek supporting data for that strategy, it’s important to gather and analyze data that will shape the strategy – especially when looking at growing your business outside of your core marketplace.  Some points to consider, when attempting to grow into a new market:

1) Retroactive data mining – what data do you already have?  As brought up in the article, looking at data retroactively attributes accountability – including realizing that you’re not tracking data you SHOULD be tracking (example: referral sources, cost itemization, etc.)

2) Using data prescriptively to determine coming trends.

In particular to growth-stage strategies:

1) Who’s already in that market space, and how do they price?  I have seen many businesses try to copy & paste an old strategy in a new market, oblivious to the current players and price-points.

2) What are the competitors NOT doing?  Surveys are too often ignored by thinking you already know the answer. Go and gather this data – you might be surprised.

3) What do you best – and is it better than others already in the market?  If so, you can build on this as your reason to charge a premium.

As a final note – who in your organization is the data geek – and do they have the analytical ability to tie the data with the strategy, or use the strategy to drive data collection?