"The Next Big Thing" is a very nice thing to figure out. To be ahead of the market, to invent something that nobody thought about, and make a revolution. That's all cool stuff, nothing against it. As everything else, because the potential gains are enormous the risks are enormous too.

You can't 'know' what the next big thing is. You can speculate, do your homework, take the risk, and hope for the best. Again, nothing against that. I'm just analyzing what needs to be done.

The preious big thing, however, is the trend, brand, or idea that is no longer in fashion and buzzing, but started to gain credibility as a viable business option, and it is on its way to maturity.

In this case you have the most profitable option because you are benefiting from the momentum, maturity, and experience that has been gained in the industry.

Email marketing is a great example. It even sounds outdated! But it is still one of the most cost-effective and profitable marketing methods out there. There are many providers giving you tons of options, the analytics and testing are evolved, and there's a ton of data about people's behavior and responses. Furthermore, you can learn a great deal about it, and become really good and sophisticated in your offering.

All these factors make it much easier for you to sell the previous big thing, and since it is still not completely flat in terms of growth you can charge a big premium for it.

Unless you can afford the risk and budgets of going into the "next" big thing, sticking to the "previous" one can be much more profitable.

Having actionable insights is one of the most important things in any analysis you do. Ok, understood. But now what? How do we "make" our analytics actionable?

Page views increased by 15%, or page / visit went down 17%. So what?

These are the results of things that happened on your site, and caused page views, pages/visit, or whatever you are measuring to go up or down. After discovering the disaster (or the great news) you will have to dig deep and know why it happened in order to remedy the situation.

But there is another approach, which starts the other way around, preempts problems, and gives a clear action path in situations like the above.

This is inspired by a sentence that Bryan Eisenberg said in a webinar,"It doesn't make any sense to measure anything if you don't know what you are going to do with it."

Bingo!

This approach starts with the available actions you can influence in your site, and then builds the measurement strategy based on that:

1. Start by asking,"what actions are available to me on the site?"

Possible answers: I can change the content, I can change the layout of the page elements, I can change PPC bids, etc...

2. For each action, list all the possible things it can affect so that you have a ready action list during analysis.

Possible examples: Adding/removing keywords from my PPC campaign affects my conversion rate, getting high quality links affects my position on search results for keywords X,Y, & Z.

3. Build you KPIs based on the things that are affected by what you have control over.

Possible examples: Conversion rate of campaigns if you have control over, pages/visit for traffic sources you can control (like PPC), user experience of a process that you can influence the business rules.

With this approach you almost automatically know what you need to do when KPIs tell you something, because you know how they are affected, and because you already chosen the ones that you can influence.

The answer to "how to make analytics actionable?"...

You don't. You see what you are already empowered to do and analyze accordingly. Important things that you can't control should definitely be reported and you should seek to influence them, but in the current situation you should start with what you have.
 

Anyone working in the new era of factories (people who have their heads inside a computer all day long), lives full days of silent storms. From the outside, you just see a person sitting in a chair, typically slouching, eyes fixed on the screen, and hours passing by, where we go through emails, funny videos, interesting stuff, stressful ideas, deadlines, etc.
On the inside, the person is living in a storm; every video, email, or spreadsheet, is fueled with emotion, stress, conflicting thoughts, and inherent ambiguity, not to mention the unpredictable stuff that keeps coming with no limit. 
It's a storm of ideas that is impacting us on a real level, but it looks silent on the outside.
The funny thing about this storm, is that we somehow control it, and that's precisely why we are controlled by it! 
Because we can open 100 windows at the same time, we do. Because we can have seventeen different applications running at the same time, we do. Juggling, is the new name of the game. Speaking of games, I think gamers are the ones most suited to be the future business leaders. What they can accomplish in a game is precisely what "professional" people do in their computer; they multi task, make split-second decisions, and are comfortable with an ever moving and firing environment.
Dealing with this situation is about being able to channel every idea that comes in a fluid way. An inherent problem with the office atmosphere (which is different from gaming) is the fact that you can easily shut down any of the applications you are running and take a break whenever you want. Of course, the stuff keeps coming, and your clients and bosses are waiting.
The next time you are caught playing a game at work, tell them you are training for the new economy! 
 

An interesting thing I read recently mentioned that Google transformed advertising into a software program. Well, they are not the only ones. Many other companies have transformed many other crafts and professions into software programs.
That is what appears to the superficial observer. People, who have learned how to use a specific software start thinking that (or forget) they are (should be) marketers.
Real people, selling real things, to other real people, who are responding to messages meant to convince someone to do something.

So you want to loose some weight? The best thing to do, is to look at yourself in the mirror ten times a day. Every morning check out the latest developments on the sides of your belly, your thighs, and anywhere else that loves to accumulate fat. These are the visual results of yesterday's activities. You should also keep checking your weight three times a day, and make sure you are familiar with the results as much as possible. To be more in touch with results, please check all the clothes that you have and make sure you know which ones still fit and which don’t fit anymore.