In the month of November 2016, Data Studio was made available for all users in India. The product was launched quite some time back, however, it was only accessible in the US and for premium Google Analytics 360 users.

However, as of today, anyone can use Google Data Studio to create dazzling reports that can be shared with teams and clients.

So how does one go about creating awesome reports?

That’s where Data Studio shines, it allows users to create one template which can be utilized across multiple data sources. I tried to create a quick report using one of the default templates provided, here’s a step by step guide on using Data Studio to create reports.

An update: As of 2nd Feb 2017, Data Studio has been declared a free product for everyone to use.

Adding a Data Source

First, we need to add our data source (in this case my site’s Google Analytics account) to the Data Studio.

Once you click on the menu, you would be directed to a screen listing all the data sources that you have added to your account.

Note, by default Google keeps some data sources in your account, so that one can practice on the product before moving on to your own data sources.

As all Google products, you can see the clear use of Material Design in this interface. Use the blue floating action button at the bottom right of your screen to add your own custom data source.

As the screenshot above shows, that most of the Google products can easily be integrated to this product. What’s more you can even use a MySQL database or a Google Spreadsheet (Excel ahoy!).

So, I could do most of my number crunching in existing styles, and use this tool only as a slick presentation layer.

After I press connect, this GA property of my site is now added to Data Studio as a source of data.

The minute you choose the right property, you would see all the dimensions and metrics that Google Analytics has. This is a pretty exhaustive list and you can import most of these into Data Studio.

Now that the important fields are linked (do check the respective fields you want to pull), we can go on to using a report template.

The screenshot shows the recently added data source. Great! We are all set to creating awesome reports!

Using Report Templates

We would be using the Acme Marketing template that’s there in the account. It broadly shows basic user level data in one simple report.

Keep in mind that Data Studio reports can span across multiple pages, but for this guide we are sticking to a one-pager.

Go back to your dashboard and choose the Acme Report template.

Click on the Use Template button, and now this is the most important point when it comes to using Data Studio report templates, choose your own data source.

Something for beginners to keep in mind again, is that if you choose the wrong data source (for e.g. of the default ones provided), then the report would be generated, however the data won’t be yours!

If in case, you have done this, it’s easy to change the data source after you have created the report.

Let’s move on to customizing the report

What I did was choose the Acme logo, and change it to the Big Fat Geek logo! A small change in the header color, and I have a branded look for the template.

This is what the finished report now looks like –

Using Data Studio

The cool part of Data Studio now shines through. What I have is a report which talks to data in real time. So I can change my data range, and my report updates!

This report can now be shared with my team or my reporting manager or clients without worrying about giving access to all the dimensions and metrics.

That’s all for today folks! It’s your turn to go and try out this tool and churn out spectacular looking reports.

This is a narrative to highlight how we somehow miss the element of human engagement in our day to day interactions. In an economy such as India, where 56% of GDP comes from services – missing human engagement seems like a big concern for me.

The incident

In the month of December 2016, my parents and I decided to go to Gwalior. The reason was to attend a friend’s wedding. I figured that we would get some time to look around the city – as well as some time off from work. I did not wish to travel via train (since its a 20 hour journey). Thankfully we had enough time to plan ahead, so we bought tickets off Cleartrip.com (this being one of my favored sites purchase travel tickets – both air and rail).

Flash forward to December 9th, the date of the flight. We huddled up to the T2 terminal in early morning – hoping to reach Gwalior just before lunch. It’s not as if we had planned this in detail – it’s just that there is just one flight that goes from Mumbai to Gwalior. That flight being an Air India one, and that too once a day. So much for choice!

1 hour before the flight, we are checked-in and sitting at the boarding gate. Most of the other passengers have started showing up. My initial suspicion of this flight being empty are quickly put to rest as I count around 50 odd passengers at our boarding gate. Just then, Air India announces that the flight might get delayed by an hour or so – since there is fog at the Gwalior airport. Some folks have started grumbling, and the elderly lady sitting next to me is concerned that she may not reach the hospital in time.

An hour later, the flight is promptly announced cancelled and the hapless attendant at the boarding gate points the irritated passengers towards the Air India desk. Fortunately, I am quickly able to figure out the next steps in flight cancellation and I was able to get the entire PNR of both the flights cancelled (since it was a round trip – this was done de-facto by Air India when they cancelled my onwards journey!).

At this juncture, I realize that reaching by flight is impossible for my parents. I could have gone via Delhi or via Bhopal, unfortunately Air India was not willing to transfer my ticket to another firm’s flight and wanted me to wait for their next empty flight. Somewhere, the Air India helpdesk just stopped being customer friendly (who wouldn’t when faced with 50 angry customers all shouting for alternative flights), and started quoting the policies.

Cancellations and refund

Having my flight cancelled, I got on a call with Cleartrip.com and confirmed the refund amount we would be getting. So for spending roughly 35k for the tickets and wasting so much time, we would be getting most of that amount back. The attendant was super friendly and seemed to grasp the situation – he promptly had an Air India customer care operator on conference call and asked for the full refund. This process amongst the chaos took 5 hours or so. The customer care operator from Air India – Manoj, seemed diffident at first, however he agreed that I would be refunded in full when he learnt that it was a single PNR. The Cleartripper must have been trained for such situations – so he verified this twice on the call. Then he assured me of the refund and asked me to return back home and proceeded to cancel the tickets. We reached home in the evening, having deemed that some time and money had lost and we would be missing my friend’s wedding (sorry Jay!).

After the customary vows of not using Air India ever, and praising Cleartrip for their super awesome service, I went on with life. I was informed by Cleartrip that this refund would be processed in 25 odd days – since I did not have an endorsement copy ready.

Since, I did not have this aforementioned endorsement copy, I replied back stating that I’d rather wait for Cleartrip to do the same for me.

The Engagement Gap

Now, starts the real story. On the 5th Jan (almost a month after the flight was scheduled), I receive this email from Cleartrip.com.

I remember a cold dread going through this email. Fortunately, I remember that there was a recorded conversation between the three parties (Cleartrip, Air India and I) – where the Air India operator had confirmed and mentioned on record that the refund would be processed in full. So how can they go back on their word?

I picked up the phone and spoke to a Cleartripper about the same. The Cleartripper took some time understanding the issue, went and verified that such a conversation existed, and then asked me about the endorsement copy. I do not know how this looks like so I asked them to arrange it at their side (they claimed they could take care of this, however, it would take their 20-25 more days).

At this juncture, I trusted Cleartrip and said that the wait would be fine (since I have already waited month, another 20 days may not matter).

The Engagement Gap widens

On the 14th of Jan, I receive this email –

This is where I lost all hope of getting any money back. A cool 30k down the drain. Thankfully, it was a Saturday – and I had some free time on my hands to get into the heart of the matter.

I got onto a call with Cleartrip and 15 minutes later had explained the matter to one more Cleartripper (so now at least 3 of them know about my issue). In classic textbook style script, she proceeds to assure me that they will look into it and will get back to me in some time.

This is where I lost all trust that Cleartrip would indeed solve the problem. Please note, I am not bitching about Cleartrip or Air India – at least not yet! So, I decided to push for a turn around time. I was informed that the concerned person would contact me in an hour’s time.

An hour and a half later, I call Cleartrip to follow-up. A separate person this time, another round of explanations go and this chap also placates, re-assures and promises to get back. I refuse to hang-up, and call him on this point that everyone promises to get back – but no one does. At this juncture, the fine chap that he is informs me that it would be simpler if I had the endorsement copy in place.

Wait, what? So I waited 35 days for Cleartrip to get something which I am not supposed to get. Why did they not say the same in the first place? Why offer to do this if they do not really engage with the problem.

Look who’s talking!

At this point, I realized that screaming or ranting this won’t solve my problem. If I do not chose to do something about this state of issues, then my money is most certainly lost. Grumbling obscenities with Air India, I head on to T2.

I reach Air India’s office and explain that I need an endorsement copy for the flight number. The officer asks me the PNR number which I provide. She looks at the date for a minute and goes to the senior officer. He proceeds to process this (while handling 2-3 other emergencies), he asks me why did I not get this on the day of the flight itself. I narrate the entire incident to him and he gives me the copy in 10 minutes flat. My impression of Air India stands changed.

While this was happening, the Cleartripper (the last one) calls me and suggests me to get the endorsement copy to process the refunds. I email him the required photographs of the copy and there ends the matter.

As I was typing this post, I thought it might make sense to double check with Cleartrip. True enough, they haven’t yet received the endorsement copy from me. It seems that their CRM (which is Salesforce) is not configured to receive attachment to replies, and expects me to send a separate mail (not as part of the mail chain) to them. I send this, and receive acknowledgement of this. I have been told to wait for 2 days on this for any further update. There is a trust deficit in my mind when I talk about Cleartrip … a site which I have been using for around a decade now.

So who is not engaging here?

I don’t know! Is it Cleartrip or was it Air India that f**ked up?

Or was it me who simply did not chase these matters?

Does it have to be this hard? In this mess of exchanges, there were so many opportunities for one human to go the additional distance and close the gaps.

• Air India could have given the endorsement copies the minute the cancellation was announced.
• Cleartrip could have fetched this themselves and not kept buying time
• I could have chased after both Air India and Cleartrip and addressed this matter. I certainly plan to do so now.

The Engagement Glue

If I have not lost you by now, most certainly you are piqued by what I mean by The Engagement Glue.

There are 4 basic interchanges happening here –

1. Purchasing the ticket on Cleartrip. I think they have nailed this experience.
2. The actual flight. Air India could not help here, the Gwalior airport is controlled by the army base and it shuts down operations after 3pm. The fog was a natural act, and could not be helped.
3. The cancellation process. This is where a clear engagement failure happened. Air India officials should feel more concerned about the emotions that a passenger goes through, and not cite policy.
4. The refund process. Another engagement failure, Cleartrippers should look further than providing text book responses. The user should also actively track this (I am the user), it’s his money after all!

In the last two points, there was a need to bridge the engagement gap with some understanding. With some Engagement glue. Human empathy could have been that glue.

Conclusion

At the end of this fiasco (when it ends!), all I want to say is that the trust with which I used to operate is lost and that could have been saved simply by being a bit more human-centric.

I see this in a lot of services, the great service providers go that bit extra and ensure that everyone around them feel customer delight.

The damn thing doesn’t end here!

26th January 2017: This addendum after 10 days.

After waiting for Cleartrip to respond, I called their Customer Care team up. It seems that their representative had forwarded the matter to the wrong team! I am being told to wait for 2-3 days more, guess I will keep this updated and see what comes of it.

This Christmas eve, we took the kids to watch Moana the movie. As the story unfolded, I realized how relevant it is to the current times.

Set in older times, the story of Moana is of a about a spirited teenager who sails out on a daring mission to prove herself a master wayfinder and fulfill her ancestors’ unfinished quest. During her journey, Moana meets the once-mighty demi-god Maui, and together, they traverse the open ocean on an action-packed voyage, encountering enormous fiery creatures and impossible odds.

It’s a fun movie, except Malhar kind of lost interest towards the later half of the movie (when nothing was working in their favor). Anasuya, on the other hand was completely interested in the movie. It’s a good movie to watch with kids.

At the end of the movie, I told her about the analogy of Te Fiti and the Earth, and how removing the heart from mother Earth is similar to mining and removing the materials from Earth. Anasuya suddenly got it and came to conclusion that she needs to save the Earth.

This is what she came up with –

Broadly what Anasuya is saying is simple,

• Stop consuming resources at such a rapid rate, e.g turning off water is a simple and actionable step (she came up with this herself)
• Wasting of resources is another step towards taking care of the world
• Giving back the heart is another idea she came up with, however, I do not see that on paper!

If a seven year old child can come up with simple suggestions, surely, we can do better?

As the year whittles down to a close, I’d like to look back towards both the highs and the lows of this year. Hopefully, I can then celebrate more such highs and try not to repeat the mistakes of the past year. Of course, it’d be great to bury all the proverbial hatchets and move on – perhaps this post is just that!

Service as a means to a Purpose

I have already bid adieu to doing development for other businesses as a service. The level of clarity it gave me was a god-send. I took this decision in the month of May, and it took a fair bit of time to finish existing engagements and come to a stable stand point. I believe this was by the month of October when I was not actively engaged in any service contracts that involved development.

Let me delve into this further.

When you are offering development (or coding or programming) as a service, your core service is doing the development that’s being given to you by the client. A lot of times these assignments are a case of the XY problem.

The XY problem

The real problem is X, the person commissioning the project thinks the answer is Y. So you end up spending a lot of time and effort on Y, when in fact you should have been doing so on X. By the time, you, the developer figure out that X should be solved and not Y, it’s already too late.

I do not blame IT Service providers with this. I cannot blame clients with this either! However, I definitely blame the engagement pattern that’s come to be borne out of providing the service of development. There is a gap, and we know it!

To solve this, development should be done with a clear purpose in mind. This purpose needs to be owned by both the client as well as the developer. If this purpose is not owned by the developer, then some sham of a product is made. Thus, development should always be a means to an end, and not the only service.

After deciding this shift, I have gone on to make multiple sites and apps in this same year. The last four months had me working on six sites and two apps. However, in all the cases, I was more focused on the larger outcome and not getting paid for making an app or a site. That shift is what I would be looking at when choosing new projects.

Similarly, for our promotions and analytics service, we have stopped taking on random one-off campaigns if we do not see a big enough purpose.

Blogging

There have been years where I have blogged a fair lot – more than 50 posts in a year. I have heard of thought leaders who have managed one a day, and I am no leader :)

This year, it was down to 26 posts and I hope to improve on this! A lot of the problems that I faced this year simply could not be shared on the internet, a public forum – and we will leave it at that. I toyed with the idea of using this blog as a reflection space, or as a practitioner space – and this with mild success. However, without a sense of purpose – the blog itself fails to give a gestalt of what I am thinking/working. This remains unresolved, and hence the lack of a discipline on this front.

On the Personal front

2016 was bad for my health, and one of this new year’s resolution would be to focus on living a healthier life. Something which I hope to sustain for years to come. People do not realize the stress of entrepreneurship in the early days, and health gets ignored in the process.

So do relationships.

I’d say 2016 first half of the year, I was at an all time low. It’s taken a long time for me to get over this and get back to normal. There were so many relationships that got questioned – with friends, with partners and with life partners, that it had to be addressed individually and separately before this mess got further complicated.

It meant that for days on end I stop all communications and think through the problem at hand before even talking to people. It meant severing a lot of open channels, channels of communication which I have to re-visit and initiate once again, but with a different context.

All in all, I realized that it’s easier to live a simpler life than to be over zealous / over ambitious and try to do all things at a time.

Goodbye 2016

So thanks to 2016, a year which has taught me a lot in terms of what not to do. 2016 has been good for me since it gave me time to avert a fair amount of major disasters as well!

Better solve the problem than try and avoid it. 2016, has been the mother of such years.

Something tells me that this won’t be the worst yet, but that only time will tell.

PS – I know I am publishing a bit early, and know that there are a full 12 days left, but pretty please (with sugar on top) do not throw any more surprises

Dr. Strange is a Marvel Superhero set in the Avengers Universe. The Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) has rolled out a fair number of movies in these past years. Dr. Strange is one of it’s top grossing hits for a single Marvel super hero (beating Iron Man, Ant Man, Thor and Hulk).

Some success of this movie is partly due to the brilliant acting by Benedict Cumberbatch, who excels in playing roles which have a strong character. Dr. Strange as a character is just that … before as a neuro-surgeon and after as a mystic wizard, both the characters have very specific nuances, and Benedict Cumberbatch effortlessly brings them to life.

Not just a movie review

However, this post is not just a movie review. It’s a take on how Dr. Strange uses mental models to defeat his heroes. These mental models aren’t the magic (like how during the titles, Thor’s beer glass is filled again), but these are very very real.

Let’s take the most powerful mental model that was used by the good Doctor. It was that of a victim.

“The Victim” as a mental model

** SPOILER ALERT **

In the first half of movie, the hugely successful neuro-surgeon undergoes an accident that renders his hands useless. He see’s himself as a victim of his circumstances, and he starts shunning his friends and romantic interests away in his frustration. This is the time when he chances upon the Ancient One and subsequently embraces the learnings.

This illustration might be missed by a lot, however the next one of the Victim cannot be missed by anyone since it involves the grand finale and face-off of Dr. Strange v/s the supereme being Dormammu.

Dormammu

Incidentally, the voice over and the face of Dormammu is also played by Benedit Cumberbatch. The rationale behind this being that a supreme being such as Dormammu mimics Dr. Strange to put him off balance.

In the MCU, Dormammu is a god-level entity with huge powers. Powers using which he can destroy the current universe as it is and consume it entirely. Let us pause and digest this … this is a bad-ass, powerful villain. A god who can consume galaxies and destroy the known universe.

The Victimization of Dormammu

Dr. Strange has learnt to control the flow of time using the Eye of Agamotto. He can create time loops, go forward in time and pause time – among other things.

In the grand finale, Dr. Strange traps Dormammu in a simple time loop. Thus trapped, Dormammu tries to take his frustration out on Dr. Strange in a million different ways, however, the time loop keeps snapping back in place and ensuring that Dormammu cannot destroy the Earth.

Suddenly, the all powerful being who can destroy universes, is now stuck in a time loop. He is unable to get out of this loop. Thus, he is powerless to do anything. He is a victim and he has been effectively victimized by Dr. Strange.

Do as he may, he is stuck in that time loop for ever. He gets to kill Dr. Strange every once in a while, but that’s about it. 5 minutes later, the loop resets and he is back where he was, trying to understand what just happened.

This feeling of desperation … of being completely helpless, is the Victim mental model. It’s a disabling construct, since once an individual (even as powerful as Dormammu) accepts that he is a victim, then that individual gives in and stops postively engaging with his environment.

What could’ve Dormammu done?

Well, he has an eternity to figure out the Eye of Agamotto. He could have taken that and spent some time trying to reverse the effects. This is what Dr. Strange finally does to release Dormammu in exchange for sparing Earth and the universe.

What Dormammu (and other victims) do not realize is that the solution of their state is in their own hands. It’s just that the victim needs to shift from the disabling mindset of being a Victim to the one of being a Creator of their own Destiny.

Here’s an interesting read on Reclaiming your intentionality – From a Victim to a Creator of your own Destiny.

Disabling Constructs

The reason I refer to this as a disabling construct is because there is nothing new that’s created in victimhood. What is done is that a new state is introduced in the mind of the user. A state which disables the user from any action.

There are several such constructs which disables people. Victimhood being one of them. Another prime such example is the concept of Destiny. It deserves it’s own post.

The true wizardry of Dr. Strange was to recognize these constructs and apply them in the right moments.