How Lyza stole the show at TDWI Las Vegas
Lyzasoft wasn’t among the 38 exhibitors in TDWI’s Las Vegas exhibit hall. Lyzasoft sponsored no part of the lunch, and they hired no stage magician. But their buzz was the loudest I heard over the event’s five days.
Others may have heard different buzz because buzz varies. Business intelligence elites gather every year at TDWI’s big [...]
No wizard, just you and the data
What’s the hardest part of training a new data analyst? Resetting the trainee’s mindset.
“They start out with the idea that there’s a right answer,” says Joe Mako.
Joe’s leaving his job — where about one year ago he began analyzing data — to go work for the producer of Lyza. Lyzasoft CEO Scott Davis sees him [...]
Visual analysis is pragmatic, not just “pretty”
So many of us who feel drawn to visual analysis can’t understand why everyone can’t see the value. “Pretty pictures,” the skeptics mutter. On Eager Eyes, Robert Kosara makes important points that I haven’t seen before.
Toward the end of his post he writes, “We need a new term.” He rejects the aged and indefinite “visualization” [...]
Data analysts and journalists
“Heroic analysts” and journalists keep running into each other, at least in my mind. I realized that two scribbles from last Sunday about journalism can also be about data analysis:
• “… the most precious gems gathered in any journalistic journey are frequently those found around the edges of a story.”
• ” … the secret to [...]
Denial of access
I hear a story like the one I heard this week and I want to ask the apparent villain why. There must be a reasonable explanation.
At first glance, he’s like other managers I’ve known of who throttle promising work for what seems like a personal need for control. “So tell me,” I’d like to say [...]
Analyst: creative or canned?
I picked up the term “creative analyst” in late June on the phone with Lyzasoft CEO Scott Davis. But what does he mean?
He described one analyst he’s known of. This guy arrived at a new job with strong recommendations for his ability to tear apart a dataset. He could slice, dice, build related charts and [...]
Analysts run on “maker’s schedule”
Most of those versatile researchers of the data-driven world — the business analysts, creative analysts, or even cowboy analysts — probably run on a different schedule from their managers. Paul Graham’s latest essay compares “manager’s schedule” and “maker’s schedule.”
I’m no analyst, just a writer. But the more analysts I meet, the more I find that [...]
Magic number
Establishing trust is the key for one analyst I talked today at the Tableau conference. Two years ago his career took him to a small, private university where he had to win over a few well-established administrators. They were to provide him data and be his clients.
The key to trust for them was what he [...]
Two analysts’ paths
Yesterday I asked business analysts at the Tableau conference in Seattle about their work. Here are two quick sketches.
• One of the two arrived at her present employer six years ago to do the company’s first analysis of its website sales. She used several years of accumulated data to show which content was making money [...]
A long look at Stephen Few’s “Now You See It”
Stephen Few gave a snappy name to his new book, Now You See It, and a cover that signals a gem — all black with a slice of sunset that highlights the “see.” The question, though, is who the “you” is.
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