Understanding data. I've always had a fairly easy time learning core business processes and tying the data I'm looking at back to the activity that generated i

Understanding data. I've always had a fairly easy time learning core business processes and tying the data I'm looking at back to the activity that generated it. It's been really useful in managing analytics and data services because nothing I work with is a bunch of rows and columns without meaning to me, and as a result, I can deliver information based on what a given group is trying to accomplish (versus what they asked for, which is almost always different than what they actually need). It's also why I enjoy managing people. I usually bring on technically gifted people and help them learn the business, as that combination of skills has been the rarest thing of all for me to try and find when hiring. I work in a corner of the insurance industry that most consumers probably never see, but I like to think I make my own little impact when some of the people I develop move on to bigger and better things at companies we've all heard of. I know I'm off on a tangent, but if you're working in an analytic space, make time to learn the business and it will pay off in the long run. I've been writing code since I was a kid, got an economics degree, then went to law school and practiced law for a while. Identifying objectives and finding the data that suits it has always been fun for me. Not surprising (to me, anyway), my career moved back from law to managing data and analytics as products.