Experimental Mind: summer time with Avinash Kaushik
😎 Summer time with Avinash Kaushik
About: Avinash helps executive teams, marketers and data analysts leverage innovative digital strategies and emerging technologies to outsmart their competitors.
He’s the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google, and a passionate teacher who shares his perspective frequently via multiple channels: a weekly newsletter (The Marketing Analytics Intersect), a bi-monthly blog (Occam’s Razor) and two best-selling books that have been translated into over a dozen languages (Web Analytics: An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0). ... Read full bio
Is it simply 'working as normal' or do you slow down?
We do have a long vacation somewhere in the world during the summer. This year it was 16 days in Europe. Lots of hiking, with paragliding thrown in, museums, and eating way too many Fries and Waffles in Belgium.
One of my rules for vacation is that I do work for an hour or two each day. In part because I truly execute inbox zero, in part because I don't want decisions to wait, and in part because my newsletter subscribers pay for their subscriptions (which is all donated to charity) and I want them to get their money's worth.
Preparing for the second half of 2022? Anything exciting you can share?
In our company things really ramp up in Q3 and then Q4 is a blow out quarter in so many ways. We are planning revamped global rollouts of our True Incrementality measurement, creative pre-testing, and completely redesigned media plans based on predictive analytics.
One of the (many!) challenges of this role is that we are not just trying to sell. We are trying to sell some product, but also a big investment in brand marketing, in long term cultural shifts, privacy not just as a tool thing but a multifaceted execution of education, policy and so much more. This keeps the job really interesting because Conversion Rate is a small part of our focus.
Reading books? Learning a specific skill?
I'm interested in how people think, because I believe I'm in the business of persuading people to think differently.
I just finished reading The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham. It is simple, direct, and a really interesting entrepreneurial perspective.
I'd read The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova a couple years ago, it is an excellent book (I love her!). Since now I'm riding my bicycle to work these days (25 kilometers each way), I just started the audiobook version.
Trying out something new (personal experiment)?
I'm trying to puzzle out this answer, perhaps your readers can send me advice.
It is my assessment that by the time most people stop working to enjoy their "retirement" that they saved for, they are already too old, too late, to enjoy that retirement. They might have physical ailments. They might end up not living as long as they expected. Etc. My wife and I are not retirement type people, we work very hard, and will keep working. But. I was thinking… I want to see where ancient empires existed, I want to see the salt flats in Bolivia, I want to snorkel every great stop in the world. I don't want to keep working.
So. When should I stop working so that I have, say 15 years, to do all these things before I'm too old to do the physical labor required. But. Since each Human's end - or health - is unpredictable, when to start the 15 year clock? And. Assuming a normal human lifespan, is 15-years too much or too little?
I welcome any advice! :)
Thank you Avinash for sharing these how you are spending your summer. For readers: follow Avinash on LinkedIn and send him your advice.
🚀 Job opportunities
All of the featured roles this week:
Senior Data Scientist at Farfetch (Lisbon, Portugal)
CRO Specialist at Albert Heijn (Zaandam, NL)
Backend Engineer Experimentation at Spotify (remote, EMEA)
Digital Analyst at RTL (Hilversum, NL)
Marketing Analyst at Kaartje2go (Zwolle, NL)
Check out the job board to find other open roles.
📅 Upcoming events
I'm really looking forward to Ronny Kohavi's class Accelerating Innovation with A/B Testing, which starts August 22. Let me know if you are joining too. Ronny has so much insights to share. Not convinced yet? Read one of latest posts that explains why for large companies it's not necessarily easier to detect small changes.
All upcoming events in the next months:
26 July: CRAP Talks #18 (London)
22 Aug: Accelerating Innovation with A/B Testing (virtual)
20-23 Sep: Nonprofit Innovation & Optimization Summit (Kansas)
20-21 Sep: Marketing Insights Event (Utrecht, NL
26-30 Sep: Experiment Nation Conference (virtual)
See the full overview of events to find other events and conferences for you and your team.
🙏 Thanks for reading
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Have a great week — and keep experimenting.
Kevin