If you don’t know how data products works, but want to understand how data operates in your life an changes social systems, ask the people who do know.
Madeleine Want, VP of data for Fanatics Betting and Gaming, has a data product background spanning diverse web and app services. She was Index Exchange’s senior director of product management, and has held similar roles at Audible and at upday, a news app co-venture between Samsung and Axel Springer.
“Being a generalist is incredibly valuable,” Want told AdExchanger.
It’s easy for a data-driven prodyct manager to be “pigeonholed” by experience in one category, especially ad tech or privacy tech, she said. But a valuable piece of advice for anyone considering the field is to stay committed to general product experience.
Put it in the books
Want’s ethos also came in handy over the past five years as she cowrote a book titled “Precisely: Working with Precision Systems in a World of Data” with Zachary Tumin, a professor at Columbia University’s school of International and Public Affairs, where she was getting a post-grad degree in public policy.
“Precisely” came out last month and chronicles data-driven change agents across a spectrum of businesses and organizations that needed to quickly put structures in place under tight time constraints. Think implementing COVID-19 contact tracing during the early days of the pandemic or how live data analytics helped improved the New York City Police Department’s crime-solving rate.
But other examples are spot-on for Want’s ad tech background.
She features interviews with The New York Times data and analytics group on the development of new advertising and business metrics, and recounts her own experience launching programmatic products at Axel Springer and upday.
Upday was the default news app on Samsung phones in Europe, and, in 2015, it pushed the Axel Springer’s digital ad supply beyond what the publisher had been selling to direct advertisers. Want’s team developed Axel Springer’s first programmatic system to accommodate the surplus ad space.
Want doesn’t cite stories from her current role at Fanatics. But she told AdExchanger that it’s a “dream job” because it’s an opportunity to oversee the launch of an entirely new product without inheriting people, data and problems from a preexisting business. (There’s another lesson in that, to be sure.)
Despite not mentioning Fanatics by name, there are sports-related examples in the book, including a case study on the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, which under coach John Harbaugh upended decades of conventional wisdom in favor of data and live analytics under coach John Harbaugh.
Previously, coaches kicked the ball away on fourth down, and rarely attempted an onside kick except out of desperation. Harbaugh followed the advice of math whizzes on staff by attempting more fourth downs than any former NFL coach in history, as well as going for onside kicks.
Now, many more coaches attempt fourth down conversions, having seen the gains. And the NFL actually changed the rules of onside kicks, to make it more difficult, since Harbaugh’s Ravens demonstrated an edge for the kicking team.
Precision advice
According to Want, her book is primarily for non-data people, and relays the perspective of data scientists and CTOs to anyone interested in sharpening their perspective on data and experimentation.
“I think the level of public awareness about the policy side of data is way more advanced than the general technical understanding of data,” she said.
“Precisely” reflects how the same systems that form the foundations of Big Tech or data-driven advertising companies like Instacart or Axel Springer are put to use for important public health services, railroad management, policing and all sorts of other purposes that affect people’s lives and aren’t purely commercial.
“It’s an idea that is true and deserves to be taught,” Want said.
The higher awareness of data and privacy policies in the past five to 10 years should also be met by more general awareness of how data products and experimentation works, she said. “Those public discussions shape policy and laws, which shape the way businesses must behave.”
Even in the past few years, while Precisely was being written, data policy and privacy laws have grown and morphed. Even in the few weeks since the hardcover edition was released, it seems, things change that fast.
But don’t expect a second edition. Want isn’t lining up to spend more long nights and weekends interviewing and drafting.
“I do believe that it was worth writing, though,” she said. “Even with all the unique applications of data, there is a generality that can help people understand what data is and what it can do.”
