It's popular in today's big data hype cycle to focus on newer forms of data like user behavior data from websites and sentiment data from social media.But Shep Parke, the managing principal of markets and strategy at GrowthOps, said the best place for business-changing insights still lies inside a company's transaction data. And the best place to start a data project is by understanding what your customers are buying and when.Parke said managers who begin their data projects with complex issues like data governance and master data management often get bogged down by overly technical aspects. Parke says a more likely path to success is for these managers to change the way they think about data access so they can get the transaction data they have into the hands of their talented workers.In this podcast interview with Celia Hamilton, Parke discusses examples of how transaction data is more useful than interaction data and what changes people in leadership must make to enable data-driven insights. Parke also gives several points on his road map to a successful data project.Leadership and Marketing Analytics 
Download Data Informed's collection of articles on leading data-driven organizations, marketing analytics and sentiment analysis. Click here to learn more.Click on the audio link below to hear the podcast (12:35). Also check out these related podcasts and articles on Data Informed:Podcast: Data Sourcing in the Era of Big Data with Charles StrykerPodcast: How Data Management Leads to Advanced Web AnalyticsPodcast: Customer Centricity with Peter Fader//