Blogs

Member Ken Williams Shares His Best Tip for Analysts

By Marilee Yorchak posted 10-04-2016 01:21 PM

  

ken%20williams.jpgRecently, 2016 Rising Star nominee Ken Williams, Search Discovery, shared what he considers the very best advice he can give other analysts along with his thoughts about the analytics field, DAA, and his personal career development.

In a field that offers so much potential, how did you find your path to success?

When I was in college I was focused on entering the helping professions and never intended on becoming an analyst. My first nonprofit position led to being hired by the American Cancer Society. I soon noticed a need for a deeper level of analytics than anyone on staff could provide. American Cancer agreed to pay my tuition so that I could gain the analytic skills they needed.  I started helping out the team with analytics in 2011 and became the team lead in 2012. The next year I joined Search Discovery as an analytics manager.

How has your work at Search Discovery helped your clients?

As project lead my role is to understand clients’ needs and determine how analysts can best support them. I spend a lot of time listening to Directors of Analytics complain about what makes their job difficult and reflecting on my own similar experiences leading an analytics team for the American Cancer Society. I’ve found that if I can really understand where a client is struggling, I can better identify solutions. The segmentation strategy we developed for the American Cancer Society is a good example of how we’ve made a difference for our clients. This work was written up in a case study on the Google Analytics website.

To what do you attribute your 2016 nomination as a Digital Analytics Rising Star?  

I’ve been very fortunate in my career to have a series of impressive and dedicated mentors who took an interest in investing in me and my skill set. My first year at Search Discovery was like an intensive crash course in front end development, and in the past two years I’ve been challenged to grow our business and improve the way I manage clients.

I think I was nominated because all of this support has allowed me to grow my skills very quickly.

What is the best analytics tip you can share with other members?

Be active in the analytics community. Ask a lot of questions, and help others out when they need it. Nothing will help you build your skills more than carving out a little time each day to participate in the analytics conversations that are going on.

What do you enjoy most about working in the analytics field?

I like the change. The way we solve problems is evolving so quickly that there is always something new to learn. The way I help clients solve tagging, analysis, or data visualization problems is dramatically different today than it was just two or three years ago. This is due partly to the new tools that are entering the market and partly to us getting smarter and more streamlined in how we conduct business in our industry as a whole.

What do you consider the greatest benefit of DAA membership, personally and/or professionally?

For me, the benefit comes from the network that I’ve been able to build. It’s important to me to have a community of people within my industry that I know and can reach out to with questions from time to time. Even though many of us work for competing agencies, I’ve found that everyone in this industry is supportive and happy to help each other.

Do you have any thoughts about how DAA could be even more valuable to you?

The DAA is doing a good job of fostering community in our industry, but I think there is an opportunity for the DAA to be a resource to connect industry people like myself with new technologies. Today, I use the Google and Adobe Summits to learn about new products in the industry, but I feel like I’m often missing the little startups that have a lot of value to offer.

Ken, congratulations on your nomination and thank you again for sharing your expertise with DAA.

Permalink

Most Recent Blogs

Log in to see this information

Either the content you're seeking doesn't exist or it requires proper authentication before viewing.