The Analytics Power Hour

Data storytelling is a perpetually hot topic in analytics and data science. It's easy to say, and it feels pretty easy to understand, but it's quite difficult to consistently do well. As our guest, Duncan Clark, co-founder and CEO of Flourish and Head of Europe for Canva, described it, there's a difference between "communicating" and "understanding" (or, as Moe put it, there's a difference between...

There's data, data everywhere, including in the media! Data often gets collected, analyzed, published in a study, covered by a journalist, and then distilled down to a headline. The opportunities for lost-in-translation (or lost-in-simplification? Lost-in-summarization?) misfires are many. We tried an experiment—each of the available co-hosts brought some headlines that made them raise an eyebrow,...

KPIs? Really? It's 2024. Can't we just ask Claude to generate those for us? We say… no. There are lots and lots of things that AI can take on or streamline, but getting meaningful, outcome-oriented alignment within a set of business partners as they plan a campaign, project, or initiative isn't one of them! Or, at least, we're pretty sure that's what our special guest for this episode would say. H...

udging by the number of inbound pitches we get from PR firms, AI is absolutely going to replace most of the work of the analyst some time in the next few weeks. It's just a matter of time until some startup gets enough market traction to make that happen (business tip: niche podcasts are likely not a productive path to market dominance, no matter what Claude from Marketing says). We're skeptical....

For the first time since they've been a party of five, all of the Analytics Power Hour co-hosts assembled in the same location. That location? The Windy City. The occasion? Chicago's first ever MeasureCamp! The crew was busy throughout the day inviting attendees to "hop on the mic" with them to answer various questions. We covered everything from favorite interview questions to tips and tricks, wi...

To data analyst, or to data science? To individually contribute, or to manage the individual contributions of others? To mid-career pivot into analytics, or to… oh, hell yes! That last one isn't really a choice, is it? At least, not for listeners who are drawn to this podcast. And this episode is a show that can be directly attributed to listeners. As we gathered feedback in our recent listener su...

It's human nature to want to compare yourself or your organization against your competition, but how valuable are benchmarks to your business strategy? Benchmarks can be dangerous. You can rarely put your hands on all the background and context since, by definition, benchmark data is external to your organization. And you can also argue that benchmarks are a lazy way to evaluate performance, or at...

While we don't often call it out explicitly, the driving force behind much of what and how much data we collect is driven by a "just in case" mentality: we don't know exactly HOW that next piece of data will be put to use, but we better collect it to minimize the potential for future regret about NOT collecting it. Data collection is an optionality play—we strive to capture "all the data" so that...

Broadly writ, we're all in the business of data work in some form, right? It's almost like we're all swimming around in a big data lake, and our peers are swimming around it, too, and so are our business partners. There might be some HiPPOs and some SLOTHs splashing around in the shallow end, and the contours of the lake keep changing . Is lifeguarding…or writing SQL…or prompt engineering to get A...

We're seeing the title "Analytics Engineer" continue to rise, and it's in large part due to individuals realizing that there's a name for the type of work they've found themselves doing more and more. In today's landscape, there's truly a need for someone with some Data Engineering chops with an eye towards business use cases. We were fortunate to have the one of the co-authors of The Fundamentals...

A claim: in the world of business analytics, the default/primary source of data is real world data collected through some form of observation or tracking. Occasionally, when the stakes are sufficiently high and we need stronger evidence, we'll run some form of controlled experiment, like an A/B test. Contrast that with the world of healthcare, where the default source of data for determining a tre...

How good are humans at distinguishing between human-generated thoughts and AI-generated…thoughts? Could doing an extremely unscientific exploration of the question also generate some useful discussion? We decided to dig in and find out with a show recorded in front of a live audience at Marketing Analytics Summit in Phoenix! With Michael in the role of Peter Sagal , Julie, Tim, and Val went head-t...

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are as pervasive as they are critical to the functioning of the modern world. That personalized and content-rich product page with a sub-second load time on Amazon? That's just a couple-hundred API calls working their magic. Every experience on your mobile device? Loaded with APIs. But, just because they're everywhere doesn't mean that they spring forth na...

Professional development is a big topic—way more than just thinking about what job you want in five years and setting milestones along the way. Thankfully we had Helen Crossley , Senior Director of Marketing Science at Meta, join Michael, Moe, and Val to dive deep into this topic! We explored how to set really good, meaningful goals, the challenges across each stage from junior analyst to leader,...

From running a controlled experiment to running a linear regression. From eyeballing a line chart to calculating the correlation of first differences. From performing a cluster analysis because that's what the business partner asked for to gently probing for details on the underlying business question before agreeing to an approach. There are countless analytical methodologies available to the ana...

You know you've arrived as a broadcast presence when you open up the phone lines and get your first, "Long time listener, first time caller" person dialing in. Apparently, we have not yet arrived, because no one opened with that when they sent in their questions for this show. Our question is: why not?! Alas! That is a question not answered on this episode. Instead, we got the whole crew together...

In order to produce a stellar analysis, have you ever requested a team to teardown a Tesla and count every last washer and battery cell? No? Well our guest this week, Jason DeRise , joined Tim, Julie, and Val to share that story and others on how alternative data can be used to enrich analyses. Luckily you don't have to have a Wall Street-sized budget in order to tap into the power of alternative...

It happens occasionally. Someone in the business decides they need to just take the analysis into their own hands. That leaves the analyst conflicted — love the interest and enthusiasm, but cringe at the risk of misuse or misinterpretation. Occasionally (rarely!), though, such a person goes so deep that they come out the other side having internalized everything from Deming's obsession with variab...

Data communities have played a major role in the careers of many analysts, but times they are a-changin'. We're not sure if we're different, if the communities' purposes and missions have shifted, or both. One thing we are confident in, though, is that Pedram Navid was absolutely the right guest to invite on to the show to explore the topic alongside Michael, Moe, and Val. His blog post last year...

Long-time listeners to this show know that its origin and inspiration was the lobby bar of analytics conferences—the place where analysts casually gather to unwind after a day of slides interspersed with between-session conversations initiated awkwardly and then ended abruptly when the next session begins. Of the many conferences where this occurs, Marketing Analytics Summit (née, eMetrics) is the...

As a general rule, analysts are drawn to precision: let's understand the business problem and then go figure out how the data can be acquired and crunched to provide something specific and useful. Fair enough. Where, then, do pencil and paper and 10-second sketches fit in? Or hastily and collaboratively drawn flippy chart or whiteboard sketches? We could draw you a picture to explain, but podcasts...

They say an analysis is only as good as the question that was asked, so for our 2024 International Women's Day Episode, Julie, Moe, and Val were joined by Taylor Buonocore Guthrie to discuss how to ask better questions. Every analyst is naturally curious, but the thoughtfulness that Taylor puts into what type of questions to ask, how to ask them, and when to ask them to get the optimal response is...

Is it just us, or does it seem like we're going to need to start plotting the pace of change in the world of analytics on a logarithmic scale? The evolution of the space is exciting, but it can also be a bit dizzying. And intimidating! There's so much to learn, and there are only so many hours in a day! Why did we choose that [insert totally unrelated field of study] degree program?! These questio...

The data has problems. It ALWAYS has problems. Sometimes they're longstanding and well-documented issues that the analyst deeply understands but that regularly trip up business partners. Sometimes they're unexpected interruptions in the data flowing through a complex tech stack. Sometimes they're a dashboard that needs to have its logic tweaked when the calendar rolls into a new year. The analyst...

The backlog of data requests keeps growing. The dashboards are looking like they might collapse under their own weight as they keep getting loaded with more and more data requested by the business. You're taking in requests from the business as efficiently as you can, but it just never ends, and it doesn't feel like you're delivering meaningful business impact. And then you see a Gartner report fr...