One of the best things about growing your career is the increased exposure you have to people with a ton of experience.
In the recent years, my remit has scaled. I moved from analytics on a single tactic, to multiple tactics for a single business, to multiple channels with multiple tactics on a single business. Then one year, my remit really exploded. I was producing work across 5 brands in one franchise, each with multiple channels and tactics. Things did not slow after that, but only accelerated–more clients, more franchises. Upper-funnel, lower-funnel, bottom of the funnel. 1:1. I was doing so well at it that I was bringing analytics business in hand over first. Even DOMO wanted to hear how we did it, and we ended up giving a lecture on scaling analytics work in 2018.
At the same time, the data industry was also proliferating. There were many people like me out there, whose exposure to projects was becoming exponential. Our focuses became deeper–some of us went into Data Strategy & Engineering, some into Data Governance, some (ahem, me) into Data Culture Transformation. And then there are the industries–banking, healthcare, consumer goods, entertainment–each one bringing its own unique set of problems to solve.
Enter The Seasoned–the people who rolled up their sleeves, and, in a world of smoke and mirrors, made data work.
As you might expect, as with any growing industry, data has had its fair share of charlatans. But, within that teeming group, there is a subset of people who aren’t afraid of a lil Excel. We light up at the flicker of a SQL screen. Where you see a Netflix profile, they see a data infrastructure.
As your experience grows in this business, inevitably, you have the opportunity to work on businesses so big that they might need 4 or 5 of you. If you’re lucky, those three or four who join you bring the same mindset and value system to the work.
There’s nothing like finding your tribe, and building a new thing together–trusting each other, delighting in work you see that each other have done.
So for those of you feeling a little off-to-the-side in your organization, keep plugging away. Eventually you’ll rise and find your folks. And when you find them, prepare for adventure.
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