That’s a Wrap
"Spotify Wrapped" is likely something many of you have heard of. For those that haven't, all you need to know is that Spotify is an app that allows you to stream music from any artist. This is not like the illegal downloads of the early 2000s, but rather something the artists all agree to. Every year this app comes out with a summary of the top artists and songs you’ve listened to.
Introduced in 2016, Spotify Wrapped has quickly grown to 30 million Spotify users in 2017, to 120 million in 2021 and 156 million in 2022. According to Time, "Since its inception in 2016, many have replicated Spotify Wrapped’s campaign of individualized, annual analysis of users’ behavior: not only streaming platforms like Apple Music, but also for a variety of other industries like the Washington Post, Duolingo, Reddit, and Nintendo."
Now in 2023, the concept of "Wrapped" is being replicated in comical ways across social media. From a topical (and painful) summary of what happened in Congress to playful pokes at Corporate work, everyone is “wrapping” their year in all sorts of ways. It begs the question: what would your data actually show? What would stand out in your 2023? As Jonathan Larson taught us, there are many ways to measure…
“525,600 minutes, how do you measure, measure a year?”
So how do you measure your year? Going into 2024, if you wanted to start tracking your behavior, what would you look at? Keep in mind that with data, whatever you track is a reflection on what you value. So really you shouldn’t start with what should I track but rather what do I value?
I see this play out daily as I help organizations use data to track behavior change. Whatever goal they are trying to reach, the data in January and the data in December should tell a story. My job is to use change management, training, and adoption strategies to make sure it tells the right story. We want the data to show the change we are trying to see.
So what do you want to see? What story do you want to be telling in December 2024. Start tracking the numbers that matter to you and don’t forget why those numbers matter to you. All data tells a story and every New Year we get to write a new one, so dream big and start writing.
My Year Wrapped
In 2023, I had 1.9K visits to my website (up to 30 minute browsing sessions).
Of those 1.9K, 1.5K were unique visitors.
In those sessions, they visited 3.3K pages.
In March, I enabled the Google Search features which led to 39K impressions and 601 clicks from strangers.
Of the 52 Sunday Starters and the 9 Professional Development Articles I wrote, the top three posts were:
Stop Saying “so what I hear you’re saying is…” - 412 views and average time on page 6:55
So You’ve Been Promoted to Manager… now what? - 118 views and average time on page 10:23
5 Lessons I learned from a Mass Layoff - 74 views and average time on page 3:58
In April, I published my first book - The Impossible Box. I have sold 100+ copies and received glowing reviews from Writer’s Digest:
“Fascinating and terrific topic for book club. Author writes to us as a whole and multifaceted person with great leadership and storytelling skills.”
