analysts

Survey of people who analyze data

March 8, 2011

Data analysts, data champions, and others who analyze data are some of the most interesting and valuable people in business today. If you think you might be part of this group, please take part in my new survey. Go to www.datadoodle.com/analysts/. Later, you get a preview report.

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New data analysts and teenage love

January 4, 2011

Search all the business literature you can and you’ll never find data analysis compared to romantic love. But, hey, why not? Love’s trajectories might hint at what the business world’s newly enabled generation of data analysts can expect. These data analysts tend to be independent, are often creative and at least partly self-trained. They’re strapped [...]

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A “Bart” just wants protection from the “Marges” and “Homers”

April 12, 2010

One of the pleas in Mark Madsen’s fascinating keynote at the TDWI conference in Las Vegas was to let the “Barts” work. The Barts are, of course, the Bart Simpsons among us, the sometimes nerdy rebels who actually come up with interesting analyses and other useful things. When the lights went up, a “Bart” was [...]

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Failure to communicate with the Boomers

April 2, 2010

Why do creative data analysts meet resistance? I’ve written about them before: many are young, they’re smart, and their credentials might still be slim. But they’re still a value to their employers, no matter who knows it yet. At least some of it’s about Boomers vs. the up-and-comers. One corporate communications consultant I talked to, [...]

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How Lyza stole the show at TDWI Las Vegas

March 11, 2010

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 [...]

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No wizard, just you and the data

November 3, 2009

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 [...]

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Visual analysis is pragmatic, not just “pretty”

September 17, 2009

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 [...]

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Data analysts and journalists

September 10, 2009

“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 [...]

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Denial of access

August 14, 2009

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 [...]

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Analyst: creative or canned?

July 31, 2009

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 [...]

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