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Practical Analytics for Better Decisions

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Everyday analytics, “The Accidental Analyst”

Many people at the Tableau Customer Conference received an exclusive preview copy of "The Accidental Analyst", compliments of Tableau.  If you have a copy of the book and would like to provide feedback prior to the final version, please complete our survey here (open through late November.)  If you are looking for the Further Reading section of the book or the PowerPoint slide deck from the Seventh C, these will be available soon on the upcoming Accidental Analyst web site.


"The Accidental Analyst" will be published by Analytics Press, placing it in great company with authors like Stephen Few and Jon Koomey. Jon, founder of Analytics Press, is also the co-author for this book. Pre-order your copy at Amazon.com with this link.


Want to hear more about the book?

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iPad & tablet competitors profit estimates through 2015 – building on Gartner unit estimates

GigaOM’s recent article on the growth of the iPad and overall tablet-related OS market inspired me to take their forecasts one step further- actual profit estimates through 2015 per major player in the article.
 
My forecasts are indeed rough, but attribute higher and lower profits to the various vendors based on the nature of their product, likely price point and direct or indirect control they will have over the actual distribution of their platform. For example, Android is expected to be heavily partnered for their distribution (the upcoming Kindle is just one example), this implies lower profit per unit. Meanwhile, Apple with their early market lead and total control over the tablet sales implies higher profit per unit sold. Regardless, these are rough estimates, but fascinating to consider. Most incredible

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Helping a social media expert- just 30 minutes with Tableau

While working hard on a busy weekend, I decided to take a “break” from our upcoming book and client work to spend 30 minutes to help and surprise a newer user of Tableau- social media expert Justin Flitter of New Zealand. He is new to Tableau Public and had started off with a look at some social media metrics by country. Here is a snapshot of his initial work:
 

 
 
 
After reviewing his initial workbook

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US Federal Government Debt- Which Presidents have managed it best since 1970?

We just launched a new website to share analysis of this critical topic at http://www.usdeficitstats.com/.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Dashboards podcast for journalists- ideas & examples with Journalytics

Episode Overview: Hosted by Journalytics, we discuss the utilities and pleasantries of Data Visualization and Dashboards. During our conversation we discuss several specific examples of dashboards in the news. Click here to listen on the Journalytics web site.

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Microstrategy stock price relative to IPO and historic low-point

 

 
 

 

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Stephen Few versus David McCandless- we should leave playing doctor to the children

McCandless, mountains out of mole hills

Here is my response to Nathan's article, "Business intelligence vs. infotainment", on Flowing Data.  Nathan's article was in response to Stephen's earlier article on Perceptual Edge, "Teradata, David McCandless, and yet another detour for analytics".

 
 
 
 
 

We should leave “playing doctor” to the children

In considering this great debate, perhaps we should step back and consider another field, medicine.  For centuries, medicine was guided by wishes, fantasy and misguided ideas of what would heal people.  One of my favorite examples is "trephining" (drilling holes in your head) to release the evil spirits that have made the patient ill.  Of course, for a very small percent of patients, this proved helpful.  However, most ended up no better and typically much worse for their procedure.

I feel that McCandless work is "fun" and vibrant, but

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MIT Sloan Review, don’t allow pies to obscure the “New Intelligence” you hope to share

MIT Sloan Review, don't allow pies to obscure the New Intelligence you hope to share

I was very interested to read the survey results from MIT about data access challenges facing business analysts. The article states that "The New Intelligent Enterprise... will allow you to do some immediate benchmarking — and see how your organization is doing in relation to your peers." While I am certain the data from this survey can indeed be useful in meeting their objective, I am also certain that their initial chart selection makes this difficult to easily see and understand.

 

In an effort to demonstrate how they can make their upcoming report much more informative

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