business diary_ day in the life of a new breed of marketing expert

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Business diary: Day in the life of a new breed of marketing expert

Michael Horn, head of data science at a digital design agency Huge, describes atypical 24 hours

Michael Horn: 'taking part in an agency hackathon is particularly useful for creatives and strategists'

14 HOURS AGO by: Sarah Shearman

A new generation of data experts is making deeper incursions into the world ofadvertising, thanks to the opportunities they offer for transforming reams ofdata into useful insights about human behaviour and creative ideas.

Michael Horn is managing director of data science at Huge. The digital designand marketing agency is headquartered in New York, owned by advertisingnetwork IPG, and has 14 offices globally. Clients include Nike, Google and the USgovernment.

Business diary: Day in the life of a new breed of marketing expert https://www.ft.com/content/9b572b50-8ed4-11e6-a72e-b428cb...

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6.30amWhen I wake up I immediately catch up on the news. I live in Hoboken in NewJersey, so take two ferries to Huge’s office in Dumbo (http://next.ft.com/content/4d5460c6-f10e-11e5-9f20-c3a047354386), a neighbourhood in Brooklyn. It takesabout 40 minutes and is a beautiful commute; you can really get a sense of thescale of New York. I usually have 12 to 15 meetings a day so I use this time toresolve any double or triple bookings.

8.45amWhen I get to the office I respond to an overnight request from our Singaporeoffice for case studies showing the impact of digital displays and mobile apps forsales assistants in stores. Then I have a meeting with my client [video streamingservice] Hulu’s research team. Often our clients need to know how they can obtainnew data on their customers and their competitors’ customers.

9.30amNext, I have a one-on-one with our vice-president of search optimisation todiscuss a machine-learning product for a telecom client.

Then I chat with our head of business strategy about partnering with a majoruniversity’s artificial intelligence programme.

AI is a hot topic at the moment. All our clients are figuring out how their contentor marketing their products will be affected by various AI agents — such as Siri,Alexa and Facebook Messenger — or whether to build their own AI agents.

11amA big part of my role is recruitment, so I review résumés and interview prospectivecandidates online. There is a huge demand for skills. Data analysts in marketingdo not necessarily need a background in computer science — it could be ineconomics, sociology or psychology.

I look for people who enjoy complexity and have the hacker spirit, people who likesolving problems in a fairly improvisational kind of way.

NoonBefore lunch I take a junior analyst out for coffee to discuss careers and growth. AtHuge, we prefer having an office in Dumbo rather than Madison Avenue, where


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people think of agency offices as being. Dumbo is more convenient for mostpeople we hire and Brooklyn is where you build stuff, which is very much ourculture here.

1.30pmThere is usually some free food in the kitchen so I grab some and work throughlunch on a presentation for a conference. I spend more of my time onpresentations than doing data analysis these days. Our head of research asks if Ican swing by to greet a client.

2.30pmIn the afternoon my team and I plan our agency hackathon. We will give people inall our offices data sets and business challenges to solve and they get into teamsand see what they can build.

A big part of my job is educating mycolleagues about new technologies.Instead of having people sit throughseminars and talks, a hackathon givesthem the chance to have that hands-onexperience — particularly for creativesand strategists, who might not have had

that opportunity before.

You can better appreciate these technologies by hacking around with them.

5pmI take a break to read updates on my children’s school day and piano lessons,before heading off to catch a flight to San Francisco, working in the Uber [car ride]on the way.

Huge has an office in Oakland and we have technology clients in the Bay Area. Werecently built a website to help designers implement (http://www.hugeinc.com/case-study/material-design) Google’s universal design language Material Design.I have a team of about 35 in Brooklyn and 70 globally, so I regularly travelbetween offices, often for new business meetings or to make hires.

7pm

Data analysts in marketing do notnecessarily need a background incomputer sciences


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On the flight I work, and catch up on the news and emails when I land. A lot of myjob is making sure I’ve got the right people assigned to different projects, so Imake a few staffing changes.

11pm Pacific TimeHaving gone straight to my hotel, I collapse for the day — ready to start with my8am client meeting the next day.

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business diary_ day in the life of a new breed of marketing expert

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