This visualization was actually an inadvertent part of my 30/60/90 day plan as I was getting up to speed. I walked into a situation where we had a 24-month backlog, and I knew we needed a way to rationalize our decisions going forward. Having a robust understanding of the business model — and being able to clearly communicate it to stakeholders — was a critical part of getting up to speed.

In hindsight, I actually created 2 visualizations, and only one achieved the goals that helped us: the business model viz. The other visualization was a framework that broke down Content Operations into discrete and theoretical factors.

The Content Ops “sunshine” picture I used was helpful to paint a picture of our options, but was not a strategy. In a sense, it was akin to showing the team a dinner menu and asking what we should all agree to eat. It invited a lot of debate and put high, uncomfortable guardrails around us. In contrast, the Business Model Viz was a much better tool to help pick the strategy we would choose. It was as if we were asking everyone “Where should we eat?” instead of asking “What should we all eat?” It would eventually empower the different stakeholders to make action plans for their respective teams. It didn’t mean everyone was happy with the direction, but it did mean that everyone understood the direction.

You have to know your audience when creating this sort of visualization. Some people love math, and others hate it. You’ll have to tune your visualization to strike the right chord with people.

For instance, there was a stakeholder Sales executive who was pushing for a certain feature to go out the door. They were very insistent, and not open to other ideas. The funny thing was, when I showed them the business model visualization, I could see their eyes light up and something click in their mind about why we were advocating for a certain strategy. Here I was, far less experienced in the ads ecosystem than they were, explaining to them how display advertising worked as a business!

Creating and maintaining this artifact took some legwork, but it was incredibly useful in framing the debate of tactical and detailed issues in the bigger picture. Tactics can roll up into each individual factor, and you can have a productive discussion on why one would work on a certain tactic or not. The measures helped us empathize with how different teams/departments thought about success and how it would contribute to the overall outcome (revenue).

I brought this slide along or recreated it enthusiastically across whiteboards throughout the office. It got to the point where folks could identify my scribbles and say “Oh, Andrew’s talking about the model again.”

This visualization is meant to make numbers and formulas approachable for the overall team. Let's take organic traffic for example. If our SEO team is doing a good job, sessions will go up. And in theory, if we're monetizing that content with ads, then in theory, revenue should. But let's say we're stuffing content with tons of ad units. Users are going to get pissed off pretty quickly and leave, which means pages per session will go down. It doesn't take an advanced math degree to see that when 2 factors are going down and 1 is going up, that's not a good thing.

Andrew Tsui

As part of my 30/60/90 day plan, I created this visualization to develop a robust understanding of the business model and communicate my decision-making process to stakeholders.

Business Model Visualization for a Life-stages Media Company

Business model viz (recreation)

Product line: National Advertising Vertical, Display Ads

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