Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Data Analysis 101: The Z-Score is Your Friend

This likely speaks volumes to my social network but I consider the z-score a friend. The z-score is a way to compare apples to oranges. First, a baseball example then a fundraising copy one. Babe Ruth is an apple from 1919 with 29 home runs. Barry Bonds is our orange from 2001 with 73. Did […]

Learn More August 10, 2022

Data Visualization 101: Bar Charts Suck

We do a lot of data visualization in the fundraising world. Bar charts are stock in trade, built into every off the shelf product out there. We use them and I hate them. Why? This comparison courtesy of a company called 3iap and a study they ran with academics nails the issues with the good […]

Learn More August 8, 2022

Give Before Midnight. Save Democracy

Spoiler Alert: Chances are your $3 contribution rushed to Nancy Pelosi won’t save democracy. Not even if your donation is matched 10X and arrives by midnight as requested. These days –about every 11 minutes –my email inbox dings with news that another message from a Democratic candidate, the party itself, or some strange sounding political […]

Learn More August 5, 2022

Generational Labels Are Lazy

It’s a summertime (and Fall, Winter and Spring) Agitator tradition to tilt at windmills and lament the profoundly stupid use of generational labels. It’s Quixote”esque” because of the bullshit asymmetry principle: The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it. But, we’re wearing our muck boots […]

Learn More August 3, 2022

What the Hell is Cadence?

Cadence had its heyday in the 1800s according to the fount of all wisdom, the Google machine. But it’s making a heck of a comeback as it turned the corner from a musical, rhythmic usage to business speak, 101. What might we have lost in this talk of cadence for our direct marketing and […]

Learn More August 1, 2022

Behavioral Science > Nudging

Behavioral economics (aka “nudges”) is the observation that sometimes people behave irrationally. You can google it and find long lists, infographics and diagrams listing reams and reams of biases. It seems all the cool kids have a bias they invented. You can also find lots of non-scientists and non-researchers espousing expertise because they read a […]

Learn More July 29, 2022