Devon Zdatny

a lady in the streets, a freak in the Excel spreadsheets | i got some big data so they call me big data scrr scrr | ceo @1st1stconsult

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

Thinking a lot this morning about why Christmas keeps coming earlier and earlier and I think I got to the bottom of it…

[signüll @signulll]

ai has dramatically reduced the cost of expression but def hasn’t yet eliminated the scarcity of original insight. or at least access to it.

everything that grows requires a good seed, that’s no different with technology.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

Claude in Chrome not closing a browser tab when it's done is the agentic equivalent of men not putting down the toilet seat.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

https://t.co/uenBFr2rJh

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

This season of Survivor has really made me reflect on what makes the 'New Era' so subpar: people like me.

So yes, I do acknowledge the irony of an analysis complaining about there being too many Data Analysts on Survivor.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

@maiab Curious what toys you have seen success with?

[Andrea @iiiitsandrea]

2025: the year of the stimmy ‼️🚨

Last year I predicted we’d see a return to “80s cocaine induced opulence” Americans waking up from years of post pandemic slumber (particularly GenZ)

In 2025 people are drinking coffee buckets, white Monster lattes, nicotine energy drink is a reality and the internet is going crazy over adrafinil drinks.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

Excuse me... TWENTY THREE percent of Wikipedia's referral traffic is from LLMs?

[Olivia Moore @omooretweets]

How much referral traffic are LLMs actually driving now?

I looked at % of traffic coming from AI platforms to top 100 U.S. websites (thanks, @Similarweb!)

TL;DR - it's still <5% of referral traffic for most sites, putting it at <1% of total traffic.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

@AlmostMedia As someone who's worked in social listening for 15 years, I cannot emphasize enough how accurate and hilarious this is.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

My challenge is that every day it’s different schools and I can’t block edu emails because occasionally I’ll work with academics or hear from former interns.

I’m also just like… WHY? And why me? The range of schools is wild, from 1% to 100% acceptance rating programs.

Maybe I’ll export and run a text analysis to filter out emails with common phrases used in the subject or body?

Agree this is not an episode. I can’t help but say to myself “just get over it”.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

Someone. Please. Help. Over the past month I've been getting ~5 emails a day to my work email from universities encouraging me to apply.

I most definitely did not sign up for anything remotely related to this. And I'm fairly confident Harvard wants nothing to do with me.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

I feel like @AGoldmund has better things to do than declutter my inbox but I'm fairly certain that he is the only person on earth that could make this stop...

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

I actually don't think I've ever typed the letters MBA before...? I barely went to class when I did my undergrad. I think if you offered me $1M I wouldn't even do one more year of college. Is that dramatic?

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

@iiiitsandrea Any chance you know where these characters are from? A few months ago I made this emoji with DALL-E as part of an inside joke with one of my employees and it looks VERY eerily similar to the orange drink.

Makes me wonder if the art is AI generated?

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

@Emily_Sundberg Or own plants

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

@maiab The WSJ actually had an article on this last week. Not a single mention of using AI to sell more––just do it all better.

https://t.co/OWVILfaJlk

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

Precisely why The RealReal is crushing it rn. All their investment in AI went towards operations. The app experience? Wildly mediocre. Personalized recommendations? Unimaginably bad.

As a customer I'm totally okay with that. I don't need good UX. I need thorough descriptions on well authenticated products that are appropriately priced.

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

Some additions that you can ignore if you did not play Pokemon on Game Boy Color:

10. As I was reading back through that and looking at #8 I was thinking about how I sometimes use this website like someone would use the escape rope to get out of the caves under Mt. Moon in Pokemon Red.
11. Thinking, "are political posts the Zubat of Twitter?"
12. Remembering I downloaded Pokemon TCG as result of a similar internet rabbit hole and that I should go play that to let my brain cool off 😅

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

Hi, that's me. Follow up on the rabbit hole you sent me down this morning...

1. Googling "wordChad"
2. Reading @readmaxread's article on wordcels and shape rotators
3. Pondering where I was 3 years ago that I missed this iconic cultural moment?
4. Ending up on @tszzl's feed
5. Noticing I keep seeing people (including roon) RT @McDonaldsJapan
6. Trying to understand the cultural nuances of why everyone is so pumped about the McDonald's Japan x Evangelion collaboration
7. Spamming my company's brand case studies Slack channel trying to explain the meta brilliance of it
8. Coming on X to try to find an escape route from this rabbit hole
9. Seeing this post, which is now making me relive this whole wonderful experience.

And the irony of this hour long rabbit hole? It was fully fueled by a triple espresso and Vyvanse.

Dare I say, your stimmy article was very stimmy-ulating?

[Devon Zdatny @devonzdatny]

@DLVermeer @vacation_inc @iiiitsandrea @thesnaxshot Yes! It's interesting that newer brands are approaching it better than a lot of the brands that actually have the heritage to work with.

And FOR SURE dELIA*s nailed it.