Book Review: The Alchemist

The Alchemist is not only Philosophy, it is good Philosophy. It tells us that life is not about the consequences, but about the Journey. It is an unforgettable story about the essential wisdom of listening to our heart and, above all, following our dreams. It is the story of a shepherd boy from the Spanish province of Andalusia who dreams of travelling the world in search of a treasure as desirable as any ever found.

From his home of a treasure as desirable as any ever found. From his home he journeys to the exotic markets of North Africa and then into the Egyptian desert, where a fateful encounter with the Alchemist awaits him. The crux of the novel is mouthed by the Alchemist himself – “When you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”. The whole purpose of the novel is to dive inside and find yourself.

The book does not get away from the fact that dreams have a price, but as Coelho has noted, not living your dreams also has a price. For the same money, he said, you can either buy a horrible jacket that doesn't fit, or one that suits you and looks right. There will be difficulties in whatever you do in life, but it is better to have problems that make sense because they are part of what you are trying to achieve. Otherwise, difficulties just seem insidious, one terrible setback after another. The dream-follower has a greater responsibility, that of handling their own freedom. That may not seem like such a price, but it does require a level of awareness we are maybe not used to.

The old man that Santiago meets in the town square tells him not to believe 'the biggest lie', that you can't control your destiny. You can, he says, but you must 'read the omens', which becomes possible when you start to see the world as one. The world can be read like a book, but we will never be able to understand it if we have a closed type of existence, complacent with our lot and unwilling to risk anything. Destiny requires the oxygen of higher awareness.

The Alchemist is remarkable for being a love story that renounces the idea that romantic love must be the central thing in your life. Each person has a destiny to pursue that exists independently of other people. It is the thing you would do, or be, even if you have all the love and money you want. The treasure Santiago seeks is of course the symbol of the personal dream or destiny, but he is happy to give up on it when he finds the woman of his dreams in a desert oasis. Yet the alchemist tells him that the love of his oasis girlfriend will only be proved real if she is willing to support his treasure search.

The alchemist Santiago meets in the desert is the real thing. He actually can turn base metals into gold, the goal of the medieval alchemists. Santiago asks why the other alchemists never succeeded, and gets the strange answer, 'They were only looking for gold.' That is, they were seeking only the treasure of their destiny rather actually trying to live the destiny. Their focus on a prize lessened the quality of the present.

Much of self-help literature is about pursuing our destiny, but dreams do not always pull us along; they speak persistently but quietly, and it does not take much effort to smother the inner voices. Who is willing to risk comfort, routine, security and existing relationships to follow something that to others looks like a mirage? It takes courage, and dog-eared, stained copies of Coelho’s classic have become the constant companion of people who need to make fearless decisions daily to keep true to a larger vision.

What is Attribution Modeling?

Understanding the steps a customer takes before converting can be just as valuable to marketers as the sale itself. Attribution models are used to assign credit to touch points in the customer journey.

For example, if a consumer bought an item after clicking on display ad, it’s easy enough to credit that entire sale to that one display ad. But what if a consumer took a more complicated route to purchase? Customer might have initially clicked on the company’s display, then clicked on a social ad a week later, downloaded the company app, then visited the website from an organic search listing and & converted in-store using a coupon in the mobile app. These days, that’s a relatively simple path to conversion.

Attribution aims to help marketers get a better picture of when and how various marketing channels play contributes to conversion events. That information can then be used to inform future budget allocations.

Attribution models - Following are several of the most common attribution models.

·         Last-click attribution. With this model, all the credit goes to the customer’s last touch point before converting. This one-touch model doesn’t take into consideration any other engagements the user may with the company’s marketing efforts leading up to that last engagement.

·      First-click attribution. The other one-touch model, first-click attribution, gives 100 percent of the credit to the first action the customer took on their conversion journey. It ignores any subsequent engagements the customer may have had with other marketing efforts before converting.

·      Linear attribution. This multi-touch attribution model gives equal credit to each touch point along the user’s path.

·     Time decay attribution. This model gives the touchpoints that occurred closer to the time of the conversion more credit than touchpoints further back in time. The closer in time to the event, the more credit a touch point receives.

·      U-shaped attribution. The first and last engagement gets the most credit and the rest is assigned equally to the touchpoints that occurred in between. In Google Analytics, the first and last engagements are each given 40 percent of the credit and the other 20 percent is distributed equally across the middle interactions.

Algorithmic or data-driven attribution - When attribution is handled algorithmically, there is no pre-determined set of rules for assigning credits as there is with each of the models listed above. It uses machine learning to analyze each touchpoint and create an attribution model based on that data. Vendors don’t typically share what their algorithms take into consideration when modeling and weighting touchpoints, which means the results, can vary by provider. Google’s data-driven attribution is just one example of algorithmic attribution modeling.

Custom attribution - As the name suggests, with a custom option, you can create your own attribution model that uses your own set of rules for assigning credit to touchpoints on the conversion path.

Benefits, limitations of attribution - Marketers face the ongoing challenge of being able to stitch all the various touchpoints available to their customers together for a grand view of attribution. There have been improvements, with greater ability to incorporate mobile usage, in-store visits and telephone calls into models, but perfection is elusive.

As marketers invest in more channels and digital mediums, getting a unified view of a customer’s journey is only getting harder. “This will become ever more complicated by increased investments in influencer marketing and Amazon where there are significant challenges in creating unified IDs.

In addition to the customer journey tracking that (Google’s and Facebook’s attribution platforms) provide, we’ll likely see the development of variance analysis solutions within the platforms that will enable marketers to better understand the existing impact of their strategies. At an overarching level, the key takeaway here is the convergence of data across platforms and the ability to understand interactions that occur across channels in both an impression and click capacity.

Book Review: Factfulness

In Factfulness, Hans Rosling together with his two long-time collaborators Anna and Ola offers a radical new explanation of why this happens and reveals the ten instincts that distort our perspective from our tendency to divide the world into camps to the way we consume media to how we perceive progress. Our problem is that we don’t know that we don’t know and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable basis.

It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections is in a much better state than we might think. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a world view based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.

Fuelled with data, Rosling shows us how child mortality is drastically decreasing. He demonstrates how fewer people live in critical poverty. He reminds us how women have better rights today. The book highlights how monkeys are more factful than educated humans. Rosling points out us are less factful because of “Instincts.”

The Gap Instinct describes how we quickly classify something into one of two camps. Examples include being poor/rich, sick/healthy, or us/them. Reality is more of a spectrum, with a majority in the middle and that there’s not that much of a gap. Rosling warns us to be careful of extreme comparisons.

The media fuels the Negativity Instinct. Rosling points out, “Negative news sells.” He contrasts this with an observation that incremental improvements are not considered newsworthy. In this chapter, he starts using the phrase he later repeats, “It can be both better and bad.”

The Straight Line Instinct describes how we think linearly. In the context of an ever growing population, this instinct fuels the fear of overpopulation. Rosling highlights how childbirth rates reduce as a country becomes more prosperous. He challenges us to use data to better understand the shape of data. He gives examples where curves are more like doubling curves, or act like an S-curve. Straight line functions are the exception rather than the rule.

Rosling shares a personal example where the Fear Instinct causes unclear thinking. This reminds me of the Type I thinking. Type I thinking means we react in critical situations with poor results. Fears from physical harm, captivity or contamination drive us to act irrationally. Rosling challenges us to differentiate between frightening and dangerous. Danger is risk multiplied by exposure. When we recognize this instinct, seek calmness before making an important decision.

The Size Instinct focuses our attention on individual numbers out of context. A compelling story or a concrete example leads to us overestimating an impact. Rosling recommends we look at numbers in proportion. We should do relative comparisons, or look at trends rather than numbers alone. Rosling reminds us of the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) or use rates (e.g. number per person).

The Generalization Instinct describes our habit to automatically category and generalizes. Stereotyping through generalizing leads us to incorrect conclusions or unjustified judgments. It also leads us to poorer decisions. GapMinder invented Dollar Street to highlight different categories. Rosling challenges us to look for differences and similarities across categories. Avoid using categories to justify an assumption.

The Destiny Instinct drives us to believe destiny is pre-determined. This reminds me of the Fixed versus Growth Mindsets, made popular by Carol Dweck. To fight the Destiny Instinct, we must recognize small improvements and changes. We should seek knowledge about how cultures and societies do change over time.

The Single Perspective Instinct drives us to seek a simple solution or answer. I recognize this instinct from my studies in Systems Thinking. A counter against this instinct is to collect different Mental Models. Each Mental Model provides a different perspective on a situation. I loved this quote from this chapter. “The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it cannot be understood with numbers alone.”

The Blame Instinct describes our desire to find a scapegoat, or to point the blame at an individual. It blocks our ability to focus on contributing factors. It also means we are unlikely to prevent similar problems in the future. Rosling provides great advice here. It reminds me of advice for healthy, blameless post-mortems. “Look for causes, not villains and look for systems, not heroes.” 

The final instinct Rosling describes is the Urgency Instinct. This instinct draws upon Type I thinking and biases for action now rather than later. Rosling reminds us that urgent decisions are rare. He encourages us to take a breath, insist on data and be wary of taking drastic actions.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Rosling’s personal stories bring vibrancy to the book. He highlights how even “experts” or “highly educated” people fail to act factfully. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change that way we see the world.