"A 360 degree view of our members should NOT be our goal." - Joe Colangelo, CEO of Bear Analytics

For years, nay decades, I have talked about the desire to have a 360 degree view of our members and customers. It is the holy grail of data management, to be able to know everything a member or customer is doing with my organization. So when Joe made this statement during a conversation we were having, my immediate reaction was surprise.

But as I thought more about it, I realized he's correct, in one important sense. Because getting a 360 degree view is so difficult, if not impossible, for most organizations, our goal shouldn't be a 360 degree view, but something less than 360 degrees that includes only the most useful information.

As Joe pointed out, it takes a lot of work to get all the data points that give us a complete view of the customer. But the question is: is it worth it? Does getting a 360 degree view really justify all the effort and expense and heartache?

Applying the 80/20 rule, I'm thinking what we should be shooting for is a 288 degree view of our members and customers (80% of 360, get it?). A 288 degree view means we have 80% of what our members and customers are doing with us, and that's probably enough to use for analysis, communication, and marketing.

So the challenge for us becomes, what data is in that 80%? Which data points will provide the most value to us and to our members and customers? That's where we should be spending our time.