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
6 snips
Nov 29, 2022 • 54min
#207: Data Visualization in a Low-Attention World with Philip Bump
As analysts, we conduct analysis on behalf of the business to (hopefully) provide them with clear and objective information to help with making decisions. We use visualizations of data and, when we're really hitting our stride, we even tell data stories. So, how does that compare to mainstream journalism and the stories they tell, especially when there is data that can be visualized in support of the story or the analysis? There could be no better guest than Philip Bump, long-time columnist for The Washington Post, author of the How to Read This Chart weekly newsletter, and author of a soon-to-be-published book about the baby boom generation! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Nov 15, 2022 • 57min
#206: AI Through a Social Justice Lens with Renée Cummings
Ethics in AI is a broad, deep, and tough subject. It's also, arguably, one of the most important subjects for analysts, data scientists, and organizations overall to deliberately and determinedly tackle as a standard part of how they do work. On this episode, Renée Cummings, Professor of Practice in Data Science and Data Activist in Residence at the University of Virginia (among many other roles), joined us for a discussion of the subject. Her knowledge of the topic is as deep as her passion for it, and both are bordering on the limitless, so it was an incredibly informative chat! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Nov 1, 2022 • 54min
#205: Nailing the Data Science / Analytics Job Interview with Jay Feng
So, you finally took that recruiter's call, and then you made it through the initial phone screen. You weren't really expecting that to happen, but now you're facing an actual interview! It sounds intense and, yet, you're not sure what to expect or how to prepare for it. Flash cards with statistical concepts? A crash course in Python? LinkedIn stalking of current employees of the company? Maybe. We asked Jay Feng from Interview Query to join us to discuss strategies and tactics for data scientists and analyst interviews, and we definitely wanted to hire him by the time we were done! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
9 snips
Oct 18, 2022 • 1h 3min
#204: Data as a Product with Eric Weber
Have you ever built a data-related "thing" — a dashboard, a data catalog, an experimentation platform, even — only to find that, rather than having the masses race to adopt it and use it on a daily basis, it gets an initial surge in usage… and then quietly dies? That's sorta' the topic of this episode. Except that's a pretty clunky and overly narrow summary. Partly, because it's a hard topic to summarize. But, data as a product and data products are the topic, and Eric Weber, the data scientist behind the From Data to Product newsletter, joined us for a discussion that we've been trying to make happen for months. It was worth the wait! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Oct 4, 2022 • 1h
#203: Is Analytics Addicted to Complexity? with Frederik Werner
Do analysts make things more complicated than they need to be, or is the data representing a complex world, so that is just the nature of the beast? Or is it both? Stakeholders yearn for simple answers to simple questions, but the road to delivering meaningful results seems paved with potholes of statistical complexity, data nuances, and messy tooling. What is a business to do? Frederik Werner from DHL joined Michael and Tim for a discussion that definitively determined that, well, the topic is…complicated! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
23 snips
Sep 20, 2022 • 58min
#202: Owning vs. Helping in Analytics
Here at the Analytics Power Hour, we have a very clear delineation of who owns what when it comes to the show production. And ownership is the topic of this episode. It's possible that the owner of the episode description feels like this is an awfully touchy-feely topic, but said owner also knows that teamwork means going along with the majority when it comes to show topics. I guess that's joint ownership? Can that work? Sadly, that, specifically, was not discussed, but the show definitely earned its explicit rating with this episode! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Sep 6, 2022 • 1h 6min
#201: Getting to Clarity About (Statistical) Uncertainty with Dr. Rebecca Goldin
Our podcast junkie co-host heard the following statement on another podcast a while back when he was out for a jog: "I actually think the word 'uncertainty' is used in English in a very different way than the word 'uncertainty' is used in statistics." He almost ran into a tree (causation is unclear: he's not known for his gross motor skills, which may have been a confounder). Not only is that quote, essentially, the theme for this episode, but the person who said it, Dr. Rebecca Goldin from George Mason University, was our guest! And we are absolutely CERTAIN that it was every bit as enlightening a discussion as it was a fun one! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
Aug 23, 2022 • 59min
#200: Hey, Jim, You Don't Look a Day Over 200 Episodes! with Jim Cain
We try not to navel gaze too much on this show, but our 200th episode felt like just enough of a milestone that we could do a mid-year "look back, look forward" show with a 7-year range. And we tracked down our original Commonwealth representative to join us for that discussion. Did we (first) party (cookie) like it was 1999? Maybe not, but that's the sort of reference you get with Jim Cain, the founder of Napkyn Analytics, and a co-founder of this very podcast! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
7 snips
Aug 9, 2022 • 59min
#199: Media Measurement Revisited: Matched Markets, Media Mix, and More with John Wallace
Multi-touch attribution, media mix modeling, matched market testing. Are these the three Ms of marketing measurement (Egad! The alliteration continues!)? Seriously. What's with all the Ms here? Has anyone ever used experimentation to build a diminishing return curve for the impact of a media measurement technique based on how far along in the alphabet the letter of that technique is? Is "M" optimal?! Trust us. You will look back on this description after listening to this episode with John Wallace from LiftLab and find it… at least mildly amusing. For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
4 snips
Jul 26, 2022 • 55min
#198: Live from Marketing Analytics Summit
We've always said that the genesis of this podcast was the lobby bar of analytics conferences across multiple continents, and this year's Marketing Analytics Summit in Las Vegas was a reminder of our roots on that front. All three co-hosts made the trip to Caesars Palace for the event. Moe presented on bringing a product mindset to analytics (by "presented on," we mean "workshopped content for a future podcast episode"), and the closing keynote was a recording of the show in front of a live (and thoughtful and engaged) audience. Give it a listen, and it will almost be like you were there! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.
