From History Books to Data Dashboards: My Unexpected Path

There's a question I get asked a lot these days: "What does International Relations have to do with Marketing Analytics?"

More than you'd think.

Where It All Started

My fascination with the world didn't start in a classroom. It started with video games. Strategy and war games pulled me into a rabbit hole of questions: Who are the actors involved? Where are they located? Why are they fighting? What ideologies drive their decisions?

Those questions led me to history. And history, I discovered, is really just the study of patterns. How past actions shape the present, how every event is connected to another, and how understanding context is the key to understanding behavior.

That curiosity eventually led me to pursue International Relations, where I spent years studying diplomacy, geopolitics, cultural dynamics, and the ideologies that drive human decision-making on a global scale.

The Unexpected Connection

Here's what I realized somewhere along the way: marketing is not so different from international relations.

Both are about understanding actors, their motivations, their behaviors, and what drives them to take action. Both require you to craft narratives that resonate. Both demand that you understand context before making a move.

I've always loved writing and storytelling. The idea that the same information can be delivered in completely different ways depending on tone, framing, and intent. An angry narrative. A hopeful one. A sense of urgency. That, to me, is an art form.

Marketing is where that art meets strategy. And analytics is where strategy meets evidence.

Why Analytics?

Because opinions without data are just guesses.

I want to understand not just what message to deliver, but to whom, through which channel, at what moment, and whether it actually worked. That's where marketing analytics comes in.

I'm currently learning the foundations: marketing funnels, lifecycle segmentation, attribution models, and Google Analytics 4. Every concept I learn feels familiar, because at its core, it's still about understanding human behavior and making informed decisions.

What This Blog Is About

Akmal Insight is my learning journal. I'll be documenting my journey from International Relations graduate to marketing analyst, sharing what I learn, the frameworks I find useful, and how a global perspective shapes the way I think about data and consumer behavior.

If you're on a similar path, or simply curious about the intersection of global thinking and digital marketing, welcome. Let's figure this out together.

Akmal Yusra Adamma, Jakarta, Indonesia