Auburn University's advancement marketing department requires teams to collect metrics—but until recently, the numbers weren’t very useful to the marketing and communications team. Then Director of Content Todd Deery had an idea.

“I remember thinking, ‘Wow, we would have killed for this kind of data,’” he says, recalling his past roles in freelance writing, teaching, advertising, and higher education. “The notion that we should still be using our best educated guess [in marketing strategy is] what I did in the ’90s. We need to do much better.”

Those thoughts inspired Deery to create Data in Action meetings. The meetings have become normalized as a decision-making tool within his department, happening as often as once a month, and can be called by any team member.