I offered to analyze my friend’s marketing data. Here is what I’ve learned.

My friend works in a marketing role and struggles to understand the performance of his content.

Moreover, he needs to use data as evidence to communicate with the production team. So, I offered to analyze his data.

But now, as a newcomer, I’m not sure about my skill level.

So, I offered my services for ‘zero dollars,’ and he accepted.

Finally, I’ve nailed the task, but I can’t share the results with you all because he told me they are ‘confidential.’

However, I will share with you what I’ve learned.

1.Real World Data Is a Mess

I now understand why veteran data analysts always say, ‘80% of work is cleaning data.’

Forget the ‘Cutie-Data’ you get from course material;

real-world data is a wild beast and a total mess.

I think cleaning my kitchen sink is far easier.

The problems I’ve encountered include:

• Mismatched data: It comes from different departments, so I can’t finish the task alone. I need to communicate with the marketing and production teams many times.
• Zero metadata: Okay, time to talk to…