The Analytics Power Hour
Michael Helbling, Moe Kiss, Tim Wilson, Val Kroll, and Julie Hoyer
Attend any conference for any topic and you will hear people saying after that the best and most informative discussions happened in the bar after the show. Read any business magazine and you will find an article saying something along the lines of "Business Analytics is the hottest job category out there, and there is a significant lack of people, process and best practice." In this case the conference was eMetrics, the bar was….multiple, and the attendees were Michael Helbling, Tim Wilson and Jim Cain (Co-Host Emeritus). After a few pints and a few hours of discussion about the cutting edge of digital analytics, they realized they might have something to contribute back to the community. This podcast is one of those contributions. Each episode is a closed topic and an open forum - the goal is for listeners to enjoy listening to Michael, Tim, and Moe share their thoughts and experiences and hopefully take away something to try at work the next day. We hope you enjoy listening to the Digital Analytics Power Hour.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 24, 2021 • 1h 5min
#174: Who Sits Where and Why and How...with the Data?
Have you ever worked in a large organization where the data team(s) are perfectly structured to deliver efficient, harmonious, and meaningful results to the business with 'nary a gap nor a redundancy? If you answered "yes," then we'll go ahead and report you to HR for being a LIAR! From high growth startups to staid enterprises, figuring out how to organize the data and data-adjacent teams is always chock full of tradeoffs. And that's the topic of this episode. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Aug 10, 2021 • 1h 16min
#173: Finding (Baseball) Diamonds in the Analytical Rough with Ben Lindbergh
Have you ever thought, "you know, it would be interesting to take my analytical knowledge and just totally run an organization based on what the data says?" Yeah. Us, either. That's terrifying! But, that's exactly what our guest on this episode did. Ben Lindbergh, along with his stathead-in-crime (aka, co-author) Sam Miller, took over the management of a minor league baseball team in 2015, and the result was The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team. How does that apply to analytics in the business world? In a surprising number of ways, it turns out! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Jul 27, 2021 • 1h 5min
#172: Data Translator? How About a Data Detective? with Tim Harford
Data is everywhere and it's simply not going away. Plenty of people do seem to ignore it to their peril, but if we are trying to make sense of the world, making good sense of data is absolutely critical. In business we call it data literacy, and, truthfully, it is a mandatory skill set for almost anyone. Data and understanding data might have a set of rules, and it seems like not everyone is committed to playing by those rules. Sometimes even our own brains get in on the act of hiding what the data actually means from us. And that's the subject of this episode with Financial Times columnist, BBC presenter, and Data Detective / How to Make the World Add Up author Tim Harford. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Jul 13, 2021 • 1h 5min
#171: We're Back! Plus: "Cassie's Ideas"
We're baaaaaaack…! Shorter show name, a rebrand, some minor formatting and structural updates, but still "Moe Kiss with a couple of guys who listeners can't keep straight." On this episode, we talk for a little bit about what we've been doing while we were on hiatus and then dive into a topic that only Cassie Kozyrkov has dared to deeply explore before: the distinction between analysts, statisticians, data engineers, ML engineers...and data charlatans. Well, really just the first two. But, Cassie('s content) has made numerous appearances on the show, so it seemed like high time that we dug into some of her ideas. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Jun 29, 2021 • 59min
#130 (Rebroadcast): Data Stories with Nancy Duarte
Once upon a time, there was an analyst. And that analyst had some data. She used that data to do some analysis, and from that analysis she realized she had some recommendations she could make to her organization. This was the point where our intrepid analyst reached a metaphorical fork in Communication Road: would she hastily put all of her thoughts together quickly in a slide deck with charts and graphs and bullets, or would she pause, step back, and craft a true data story? Well, if she listened to this episode of the podcast with presentation legend Nancy Duarte, author of five award-winning books (the most recent one — DataStory: Explain Data and Inspire Action Through Story — being the main focus of this episode) she would do the latter, and her story would have a happy ending indeed! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page. This episode originally aired on December 17, 2019.
Jun 15, 2021 • 57min
#065 (Rebroadcast): Digital Analytics from a Psychological Perspective with Dr. Liraz Margalit
We can watch (sort of) what users do on our sites. That's web analytics. We can ask them how they felt about the experience. That's voice of the customer. But, can we (and should we?) actually analyze their emotional reactions? On this episode, Michael and Tim sat down with Dr. Liraz Margalit, Head of Digital Behavioral Research at Clicktale, to bend their brains a bit around that very topic. And, they left the discussion thinking differently about conversion rates, and even realizing that scroll tracking might just have a valuable application! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page. This episode originally aired on June 20, 2017.
Jun 1, 2021 • 1h 6min
# 84 (Rebroadcast): Bayesian Statistics and the Digital Analyst with Dr. Elea Feit
Do you model professionally? Would you like to? Or, are you uncertain. These are the topics of this episode: Bayesian statistician (among other official roles that are way less fun to say) Dr. Elea Feit joined the gang to discuss how we, as analysts, think about data put it to use. Things got pretty deep, included the exploration of questions such as, "If you run a test that includes a holdout group, is that an A/B test?" This episode ran a little long, but our confidence level is quite high that you will be totally fine with that. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page. This episode originally aired on March 13, 2018.
May 18, 2021 • 1h 4min
#117 (Rebroadcast): What's in a Job Title? Maybe the Data Shows! with Maryam Jahanshahi
What's in a job title? that which we call a senior data scientist by any other job title would model as predictively… This, dear listener, is why the hosts of this podcast crunch data rather than dabble in iambic pentameter. With sincere apologies to William Shakespeare, we sat down with Maryam Jahanshahi to discuss job titles, job descriptions, and the research, experiments, and analysis that she has conducted as a research scientist at Datapeople (formerly TapRecruit), specifically relating to data science and analytics roles. The discussion was intriguing and enlightening! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
May 4, 2021 • 1h 3min
#126 (Rebroadcast): When the Data Contradicts Conventional Wisdom with Emily Oster
Did you hear the one about the Harvard-educated economist who embraced her inner wiring as a lateral thinker to explore topics ranging from HIV/AIDS in Africa to the impact of Hepatitis B on male-biased sex ratios in China to the range of advice and dicta doled out by doctors and parents and in-laws and friends about what to do (and not do!) during pregnancy? It's a data-driven tale if ever there was one! Emily Oster, economics professor at Brown University and bestselling author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet, joined the show to chat about what happens when the evidence (the data!) doesn't match conventional wisdom, and strategies for presenting and discussing topics where that's the case. Plus causal inference! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page. This episode originally aired on October 22, 2019.
5 snips
Apr 20, 2021 • 1h 5min
#070 (Rebroadcast): The Case for Customer Lifetime Value with Dr. Peter Fader
Is your organization customer-centric? Does your product team dive into the demographics of your customers to figure out what features will make them as happy as possible? If so, then you're doing it all wrong! Perhaps. On this episode, the gang chats with Dr. Peter Fader (@faderp) from The Wharton School and Zodiac Metrics, about putting customer lifetime value (CLV) front and center when it comes to developing and executing marketing strategies. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page. This episode originally aired on August 29, 2017.
