This may shock you, but here goes: I LOVE Project Runway. In fact, I find the show buried with lessons for anyone interested in marketing and creative branding (or maybe as a business owner I’m just always looking for those lessons?).
Anyway, one running theme of the show is the difference between a fashion designer and a seamstress. This distinction has become a near-running gag among contestants and fans alike:
Now, if you’re a regular reader of the blog, it’s probably pretty likely you’re not familiar with the fashion profession. These are quite distinct audiences. (Unless you’re Accounting Couture or Datatelier…) So here’s a quick distinction between seamstress and designer, as provided by the blog Hello Sewing.
First, the seamstress:
Seamstress too, does [sic] alteration or reparation work but she, or he, is able to creates clothing pieces from scratch. You can come to them and request a shirt, jacket, skirt or any other thing you saw in a magazine or on television. Show them the desired product and they’ll be able to provide you with an almost identical version of it.
Nothing to sneeze at with being able to make high-quality clothing reproductions based on nothing more than a magazine clipping.
Now to the designer:
Their main job is inventing new, unique and original fashions, from single pieces like skirts, jackets, shirts and so on, to complete outfit combinations, suits or glamorous gowns. Fashion designers also need to possess a certain amount of knowledge about various theoretical aspects related to their work, practical skills aren’t enough for such a profession.
Project Runway is meant to be a design competition. Which means that when a contestant is referred to as a “contestant,” it means they are copying work that’s already been done before… let me say that again, that they are copying, which is against the rules of the competition.
This distinction between “inventing new work” versus “re-applying things that already exist” is an important one to make with professions. You see it across fields, including analytics. But before diving into that, let’s look at another common example.
Cook vs chef
A friend of mine fondly remembered a culinary class he once took. The teacher insisted: “I will train you to be chef [sic], not cook! ” The difference here is quite similar to seamstress vs designer; according to Culinary Lab:
… a chef is an individual who is trained to understand flavors, cooking techniques, create recipes from scratch with fresh ingredients, and have a high level of responsibility within a kitchen. A cook is an individual who follows established recipes to prepare food.
So again, it’s a difference between following steps versus creating something new.
And I’m not a huge fan of cooking shows, but it looks like this distinction is similarly made there:
Not creating isn’t evil
Before we go any further, I want to make clear: this is not an attack on seamstresses, or cooks, or any equivalent profession for “not being creative enough.” That would be weird.
Unless you’re Kim Jong Il, it’s unlikely that you’ll be astonishingly inventive in everything you do. That’s OK. Because creation is work! And re-creation is literally, recreation. It has its own multitude of benefits.
But I believe that as professionals, most of us want some area where we can have autonomy to apply our unique experiences, tastes and theories to something new. In fact, I’d venture to say that professional seamstresses and cooks do have this creative spirit when it comes to the means of their re-creations. Maybe that means changing the process or making other tweaks to production.
That said, creation as we now know is work… and work isn’t easy. Not everyone who likes to work. But those who work are rewarded… financially, personally, and so forth. This comes not from following directly in someone else’s footsteps but from acquiring the wisdom to take one’s own novel directions.
And now we get into data analytics.
Reporter vs analyst
The distinction to make here is that of reporter vs analyst.
Now I don’t know how common that distinction is made in the public, but I have heard it a time or two. And it does seem to be a recognized difference in broadcast media:
The “have an opinion” line in the previous tweet is interesting, and a good one: one of the first things you need to have to be creative is an opinion. You need to have a perspective. You need to be able to situate and contextualize multiple ways of doing things.
Analysts combine their experiences, their audience’s wants and needs, and so forth to create unique solutions. Reporters follow pre-established conventions for fulfilling data requirements.
There’s nothing wrong with reporting per se
Now again, the same caveat applies: being a reporter isn’t a “bad thing,” nor is being a seamstress or cook. Even if you are a reporter, following someone else’s exact steps to get the job done, there may be some places to experiment.
But just as that friend’s teacher said “I will train you to be chef, not cook!” my goal for this blog is for you to become an analyst, not a reporter.
Becoming an analyst is more than following how-to’s
Early on in the blog, I wanted it to be more than how-to’s, tips and tricks. Selfishly, they’re not my favorite types of posts to work on. But of course, a good blog isn’t just going to be about me. It should help you the reader.
How-to posts are fine, but they literally tell you how to do something. That is, you’re copying. And chances are good that the steps from the how-to post don’t match exactly what you need to do, anyway.
So here’s really why I tend away from how-to posts: because what I show you will never be the same as what you need. I’d rather help you develop the mindset and point you to the resources so that you can develop your own solution, rather than following the not-quite-right steps I laid out for you.
Becoming an analyst is more than mastering one tool
Just as a designer should be able to approach a new problem from multiple angles, a good analyst will have a multitude of skillsets at their disposal to craft a solution. It’s only to be expected that a data blogger can’t cover everything… in fact, for how-to posts specializing is a better idea. So you can learn how-to posts from someone who only does how-to posts about Excel. But are you only going to be following steps in Excel as an analyst? Didn’t think so.
A good analyst knows as much about knowing where to go when they’re stuck as knowing exactly what to do. They have a complete stack of tools at their disposal which increases the likelihood they can meet any problem head-on.
Becoming an analyst means having an opinion
I suppose my main point of this is that becoming an analyst is about way more than following how-to articles. It’s about developing your own point of view and having an opinion. Simply put, analysts care about their work. They want to drive change. They want to get better. They give a damn. And this is one thing that computers can never do.
Do reporters give a damn? I would hope so. But they may not necessarily need an opinion: about the best way to do something, or about the future of the field, or what practices the industry could borrow from another industry. Opinions are best worked out by sharing them with a community. This means that analysts are keenly aware of and involved with others who share their interests.
If you want to become an analyst…
I applaud you. It takes work and commitment.
I want to become an analyst too. I want to become my best and share my opinions with the community. I don’t just want to follow instructions but develop my own methods and solutions.
My push to become an analyst drove me to starting this blog. If you subscribe, I hope to provide you regular posts to help you become an analyst too. You can expect some how-to posts, but I hope to pepper them with the big-picture thoughts that really matter. I attempt to provide a wide focus of tools and concepts, because you have do to the same as an analyst too. Who knows? Maybe you’ll see a Project Runway-themed post or two.
And if you ever have an idea for a post, a question, would like to collaborate or whatever else, please drop me a line. From one analyst to another, I look forward to hearing from you.
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