You’re right: it’s interesting how businesses try to learn “something new” by asking for something they already know. I guess addressing that is the first step to creating implementations that enable good analytics. But even before that, it feels to me that businesses have to get out of the mindset that data drives questions, rather than the other way around. Of course, we can always find dips in charts that raise questions, but the real analytics is also in asking hard-to-answer questions first, then digging for answers using the tools we have.

Not every dinosaur bone was found half sticking out of the ground. Sometimes people have to set out with the intent to find something without knowing exactly where to look first.

That’s the essence of my own humble stress on the idea of “Multiplicity”.

The thing I think you should cover, with your background, is how can companies be significantly more agile and nimble. I feel most web analytics implementations are failures because the outcome is predictable reports. The problem is the web is unpredictable and insights come from analyzing, looking, poking and all that. Not from preset predictable reports.

Good luck Evan!

-Avinash.