Skip to content

Timely Insights

Regardless of its origin, or whether it is a blessing or a curse, Steve Weiss, Content Manager at LinkedIn Learning, appreciates the context of where we find ourselves.

“These are crazy times we live in,” says Steve, “and they require us to understand that we are human beings working in a crazy world and working with other human beings …. Learn to be kind in your interactions and expectations of your teammates, your customers, your clients—everybody. I’ve been amazed at how far that can take you in terms of getting through the next day, the next week, of overcoming potential obstacles in your relationship with somebody you’re working on a project with, a potential customer, or anybody you’re serving.”

What crazy times are we talking about? Is Steve referring to life in a post-pandemic society, and the host of changes that experience has brought us? Is he talking about the division in the country that affects everyone, from the halls of government to the evening dinner table?

The answer is all of the above, but Steve is also talking about something closer to his heart. He’s talking about data.

“How do we survive this tsunami of data,” asks Steve, “and things we can do with it?”

In this current world of technical innovation, data engineers are learning each day of new and powerful tools that are available to them. There is so much more they can realize, but it requires data professionals to build more time into achieving their deliverables.

“One of the mantras of doing data science and analytics is always asking the right questions,” explains Steve, “and never being afraid to stop and reiterate. Look at what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what you’re trying to accomplish.”

Steve also points out that these challenging times translate to challenging decisions for leaders, too. Business and technology still comes in cycles of challenges, but these cycles are closer together now, and the highs and lows are more extreme. Leaders must be responsive rather than reactive in their decisions. Those involved in responsive leadership see these cycles through the lens of opportunity. What can be tried? What can be learned? What can be achieved? Each day, data engineers are finding more powerful tools in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

“In the next couple of years, especially in the coming year, try to stay focused on what you and your team want to accomplish,” says Steve. “Then ask yourselves, ‘Is this realistic?’ And then be fearless in setting your way forward by using the tools you think are good. Talk to other people and go forward.”

Steve’s final piece of advice, though, brings us back to his original point of how to treat each other during these crazy times.

“Be yourself,” says Steve. “Be your best self.”

Contributors

  • Seth Adler

    Seth Adler heads up All Things Insights & All Things Innovation. He has spent his career bringing people together around content. He has a dynamic background producing events, podcasts, video, and the written word.

  • Steve Weiss
 
 

Related Content

insights leadership

The Strategy Behind Insights Influence

Josh Goldfinch, Director Consumer Insights, Verizon, presented a panel discussion on leadership and influence at TMRE @ Home. All Things Insights’ S…

insights purpose

Advocating for More Insights Influence

The latest edition of the Insights Spend & Trends Report has just been released. Brought to you by TMRE and All Things Insights, this benchmarking rep…

Data Science & Analytics Strategy
data analytics

Reinventing the Data Relationship

The reinvention of the relationship between enterprise data science and business stakeholders is upon us. The focus is now on what the data can do for…

actionable growth

Actioning Insights

Providing insights is not a barrier. Ensuring those insights actually move the needle is the job at hand. Is where the insights are reported the probl…

data science

Unifying Data Analytics and Insights

To be human or not to be human? That is a relevant question in today’s technology-driven society, and one we posed when thinking about unifying data…

insights strategy

Gaining Insights Leadership

The role of today’s Insights professional is evolving as Insights teams are increasingly pressured to connect data sources, surface consumer stories…

actionable growth

Taking Action to Spark Growth

Actionable growth is the process of taking action to achieve a desired outcome. It involves making strategic decisions and implementing tactics that w…

media insights

Redefining the Home Experience

All Things Insights’ Seth Adler caught up with David Schliecker, Group VP, HGTV Insights and Strategy, Warner Bros. Discovery, at the Media Insights…

data science

Measuring OTA Programming

Television audience measurement is on the precipice of innovation due to the opportunity to leverage data from set top boxes, smart TV’s, and other…

strategic insights

Building Strategic Insights

The world of data is evolving and ever-changing. A data insights strategy is built in part on the potential data that one hopes to accumulate, the ins…

insights talent

Insights Talent: Ask, Listen, Act

“Ask, listen, act.” If the pandemic has taught us one critical lesson, it’s that environmental changes don’t occur in a vacuum and can dramatica…

data translation

Translating Data Into Action

“Data is the new oil,” and it seems like everyone wants to get a piece. But what is it that most major companies are missing when it comes to harn…

insights strategy

Insights Synergy

As the political climate changes, so do our working habits. Going through a pandemic also changes things, as Jim Newswanger, the Senior Market Intelli…

data analytics

Interpreting Data

Data isn’t just a set of numbers in a spreadsheet that sits there collecting digital dust. Michael Nevksi, the Director of Global Insights at Visa,…

data analytics

Data Fluency

Data fluency and how it applies to an organization is essential for a business to thrive – according to Bob Bress, Vice President and Head of Data S…

data analytics

Digestible Insights

Business founders and leaders are proud of their accomplishments and with good reason. They have led their operations, often for decades and through s…

insights strategy

Insights Enablers

Over the past two and a half years, there “have been more DIY projects” thus “Insights teams are moving more to becoming consultants and enablers…

data analytics

Pandemic Analytics Insights

It is reported that after the pandemic that 50% more customers and teams will use Business Intelligence tools. “Adapting, moving online, and having…

actionable insights

Data, Analytics, Insights & Action

If you watch June Dershewitz when she’s not looking, you might catch sight of her cape. She is a superhero in the world of data. Her goal is to make…

inclusion

One Way To Insights ROI

“It’s not only a ‘feel good’ thing anymore. It is actually something that is reflected in profits.” DEI is a business issue. Once nice to ha…

data science

Insights On Outpacing Further Disruption

The axiom, ‘May you live in interesting times,’ is cited as both an expression as well as a curse. Its origin is foggy. For the past couple of dec…

user experience

UX Insights

Shilpi Sinha is not only speaking at TMRE but joining the pre-event Innovating Insights Workshop as a table co-host. Both the session on the agenda an…

consumer

Insights Hacks

What are the hacks, the shortcuts, the clever or elegant solutions which can be applied now? To answer this question we checked-in with three executiv…

data science

Data Culture

Global society and business continues to shift from decisions informing data to data informing decisions. That is to say, for most of human history, a…

data science

Insights Resilience

Way back at the beginning of our modern almost apocalypse, there was one term used across the globe and up and down the organization- resilience. Faci…

insights talent

New Work Order: The Future Of Work Is Here

2022 still has some work to do in figuring itself out. We’ve clearly not yet definitively evolved to what’s next. That said, some patterns have em…

insights talent

Internal Insights

Think back to the office of February, 2020. In many ways it felt like the office in February, 2010 and February, 2000. For the most part, every single…

media

Measurement, Currency and Attribution

Keeping pace with innovation is always a challenge. The Media industry not only has to keep pace with that innovation, many players have offerings tha…

actionable insights

Consistent Breakthrough Insights

All Things Insights brought the community together for a live session focused around the concept of providing consistent breakthrough brand insights o…

insights strategy

Mental Fitness In Business Culture

In the first century, it was the Christian Church which accounted for a substantive portion of societal change. In the fifth century, it was Greek Dem…

insights strategy

Empowering Breakthrough Insights

Empowering insights through a broader understanding of the business can happen if there are consistent breakthrough brand insights being served to the…

insights strategy

Slow Power: Pacing The Speed Of Insights

We know from Aesop’s “The Tortoise And The Hare” that the ability to achieve great speed doesn’t always mean finishing first in a given journe…

insights strategy

Achieving A Renaissance In Purpose

How many people painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?
Reportedly, one.

How many people are painting the picture of each transforming global b…

insights purpose

Insights From Seizing The Moment

Remember the young students at Welton Academy of “Dead Poets Society,” huddled around the photos of their predecessors who were no longer living….

consumer

The Missing Link Between Data And Business

2022 has proven to be a year of change. While lingering reminders persist, the past two years are falling further and further back in the rear view mi…

insights strategy

A Contemporary Insights Organization

We are in the process of experiencing the second paradigm shift of human behavior in just a three year period. For a prepared organization, this is a…