Inside the making—and evolution—of ‘Domo on Data’ blogs

As data and analytics gurus Ben Schein (pictured, left) and Jace McLean (right) get set to publish their 30th “Domo on Data” blog post next week, I contacted the Minnesota-based pair to ask them some questions about the Domo blog category they were so instrumental in launching late last year. 
 
In case you haven’t read one yet, “Domo on Data” posts usually focus on a topic of global—or, at least, national—interest, with charts that demonstrate the power of Domo’s data analytics and insights capabilities. 
 
As Domo’s VP of data curiosity, Ben opted to address my questions on the duo’s behalf. Here’s how he answered. 
 
Q: Thanks for taking a few minutes to do this, Ben. I guess the first thing readers might be interested in knowing is what precipitated “Domo on Data”? Why did you think it was necessary to create such a blog category? 
 
A: A lot of this goes back to the COVID Tracker we created at the very start of the pandemic. Before that, I did a lot of speaking and advising at Domo, as well as some work internally analyzing our data. But it was always more conceptual. Then COVID-19 came, and the tracker became a real, productionalized resource. Not only was it a great public service, but a great way to talk about the power of Domo.

When we launched the tracker, it was just a single Domo page using Domo Everywhere. It could be updated as needed. But when we started wrapping it in professional HTML, it became a little harder to make changes.  
 
So, part of “Domo on Data” was getting back to Domo’s low-code and data-agility roots. We worked with our web team to do a few customizations in (content management system) WordPress so we could have an option to embed Domo pages as much as we needed yet still have them adapt correctly to mobile. Now, we can act much more quickly. 
 
Q: Did you have a goal in mind when you launched “Domo on Data”? 
 
A: Our goals were to get content out quickly and create a sustainable way to attract more eyeballs to Domo content. We did one post per week until we realized that every other week was a more sustainable cadence. 
 
Q: Which post are you most proud of—and/or had the most fun creating—so far? 
 
A: It’s hard to pick just one. It’s like picking your favorite child, you know. But I have really enjoyed getting to understand the BLS (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) data on both inflation and resignation. And while the data is publicly available, it’s pretty cool to see how Domo can help us better organize it for analysis, which is what interests so many of our customers. The data may be there, but they need flexible tools to take it that last mile to insight. 
 
I am also proud that we have found ways to highlight more innovate new features in Domo like DDX Bricks, Jupyter Notebook for automating tricky data or scraping websites, and the new FIXED functions.

Q: What has been the reader response so far, both internally and from customers?

A: Well, according to the data, it’s been great. We’ve generated more than 8,000 unique visitors, and have accounted for about 22% of total blog visits over the last six months. Some of the response comes via LinkedIn comments or texts, and some comes from customers curious as to how they can use the data themselves. (We have set up feeds for a few customers who asked). It is high on my list to make sure that we have an easier way to share some of the data. 

Q: You’re obviously using timely topics to try and educate people on the power of Domo, but what have you learned from this project/exercise?

I have re-learned—or been reminded time and again—of the power of data, both in creating the posts and in monitoring the stats to understand what is resonating with people. While we have worked to make this very agile without a ton of dependencies, it still requires a lot of help to make it happen.  

In other words, a lot of the credit goes to the web devs who got us set up in WordPress; our creative team, which does a great job finding supporting images for each post; our social media team, which gets the posts circulating; and, of course, my partner in crime, Jace, who drives a lot of the posts and is a constant thought partner on this journey. We move quick, but it does take a village.