analysts

Lyza and Tableau according to Mako

June 30, 2009 by Ted Cuzzillo

Back in February when I heard about Lyza, I thought right away of Tableau. Despite each one’s different strengths in data discovery and analysis, each appeals to the same broad group.

It’s an old group that’s getting new attention: creative analysts, or “cowboy analysts” to some. The like their data raw, not aggregated. They ask questions, forage, synthesize, analyze, and publish.

Joe Mako is one of them. Tomorrow, he’s launching a website for people like himself who use both Tableau and Lyza. Makometrics will publish every Monday morning and sometimes more often.

Joe is a network engineer at a Midwest ISP.… Read the rest “Lyza and Tableau according to Mako”

Why data analysis is so hard to do

June 2, 2009 by Ted Cuzzillo

One part of data analysis is deciding which data to look at and which to ignore. Now “America’s finest news source” illustrates the task in “Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics to Find Cause of Dorm Fire” in its usual, thoughtful manner. Yes, I mean The Onion.

Data intimacy

February 25, 2009 by Ted Cuzzillo

Long before Scott Davis made the self-service ETL tool he calls Lyza, he tried to find out how analysts really work. He remembers in particular the woman in a focus group who said, “I want to stay close to the data.”

He didn’t understand at first. The data was right in front of her, neatly summarized. But she meant all of the data, every little bit of it. She wanted to snap open a zillion-row-long window that she could scroll down to see the figures flip by. (Yes, you can; I saw it yesterday.) She wouldn’t try to read them, she’d only see their shapes.… Read the rest “Data intimacy”