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Ted Cuzzillo

Magic number

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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 now calls “the magic number.” Sure, they gave him some of their data. But they didn’t tell him they were testing him. When he came back with his analysis, they looked for that magic number. If it turned up — that is, if his data showed what they had learned from experience — they relaxed a little.… Read the rest “Magic number”

Two analysts’ paths

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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 and which wasn’t. When she had organized the job into a routine, she handed it off to someone else and moved to the next question: What parts of the marketing was working? Again, she worked it into a routine and gave the task away. Next: what were visitors doing on the site?… Read the rest “Two analysts’ paths”

Blog for the times: on high-value, low-cost BI

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Dan Murray expects to take another step this week in his thrilling rebellion, spreading the word on high value, low cost BI.

Though it’s a rebellion and may burn with Che Guevara-type zeal, Dan’s methods actually lean way over toward Darwinian evolution. Revolution is expensive and risky, he writes, while evolution is intelligent and incremental. He also likes to point out that Che died brutally at 39 and Darwin died at 73 in bed with family around him.

First, people have to learn the basics, that tough work to create a data warehouse. His rebellion does it with Tableau, spreadsheets and a little guidance.… Read the rest “Blog for the times: on high-value, low-cost BI”