Having been worked in analytics related jobs for almost five years now, I often find myself in a little awkward situation. Out of Michigan, I wanted to become a brand manager, eventually a marketing executive, just like the rest of Wolverines did. However I quickly discovered that’s not how people are thinking of me.

There are times my colleagues calling me as “Dr. Wu”. Last time I met with a colleague never met before and he said, “oh, I know you, you are THE NUMBER GUY…” He went on saying that he want to learn from me how he can use web analytics data for his work.

Dr. Wu? Well, I wasn’t a Phd at all.

THE NUMBER GUY? I never think myself that way.

The cruel reality is, the way I think myself is different than the way others think of me.

For a long time I was uneasy with that. I wanted to change people’s perception. My manager wanted me to go out of my “comfort zone”, to become more “outspoken”, or to be more “visible” in front of the senior executives. On my yearly performance plan, there is always something like “improving my organization agility or strategy agility”–if you actually understand what it means exactly.

… …

Until the day when I became a web analyst.

Because web analytics is one of the very few marketing domains requires super, super high level of skills and experience to understand the data, interpret the data and be able to provide actionable recommendations based on data and analysis.

Unlike a brand manager position, this doesn’t require you of making up something out of nothing. (no offense to my fellow brand managers. ) I have a friend who is very good at that and he called that as BS. (ET, that’s you if you ever read this post.

This world has plenty of people who can do the BS part. Most of them are scared of data. They can create a whole marketing campaign from the white board but when you tell them standard deviation, their face will look blank or they may vomit. Granted I have seen extremely polished people who can do both quantitative and qualitative jobs well.

On the other hand, this world doesn’t have enough people who really enjoy working with data. And there are even fewer people who have a great instinct about data. I meant instinct. You look at a spreadsheet or a dashboard full of data with one eye covered and you get the picture how the business performs. You can almost smell the data and know where is the problem. That’s a God-Given-Gift. (I’m going to name it GGG and trademark it )

So don’t give it up if you have “GGG” in your gene and trying to be somebody else. Let people call you Dr. , the number guy, or even the nerd or whatever they want to call you.

Play strength, not weakness.

That’s where I am at when I think of myself.  A data driven marketer who have a great instinct about data. An analyst who can help other marketers to understand their business and identify problems and opportunities.

So question for you:

Where are you at? How do you think of your role as a web analyst in your organization? Are you happy about it or upset about it?

Please share at least one tip to become a happy web analyst!