DIY

I spent the past weekend with a friend who owns a farm in southeastern Washington State.  I helped him replace the main electric line into his old barn.  After toiling over a keyboard, it felt great to get out and be phyiscally productive; the satisfaction of physical work is different for me than just moving electronic bits around.

I have done my fair share of wiring, but I've never played with the main lines before.  I'm certainly not going to become a lineman, but I can say I did it.

As I drove home, I reflected on my accomplishment and thought of it relative to my client's desires to want to create their own BI reports.  I have always understood the desire to be self-sufficient and the need to manage costs, but I think I have underappreciated the desire to create a useful report.  Of course, I can't personally direct all my clients as my friend directed me, but I can certainly provide an environment in which they can be successful on their own:

• Data - have all the metrics pre-aggregated and ready for any potential use
• Definitions - ensure everything can be explained easily with either a click or a document
• Training - take time to create meaningful scenarios when I show them how the system works
• Examples - have ample existing reports for them to reverse-engineer
• Support - celebrate their successes!

Carl

555 Dashboards

I've been working on a quick hit dashboard product for sometime now and we finally have the marketing material ready for it - here's the 2 page handout that'll be handed out at the DMA show soon.

I've completed one version of this 555 dashboards (its name is inspired by Herman Cain's 999 plan) in which we:

• Work with 5 stakeholders to create a project plan
• Incorporate 5 datafeeds that will provide the basis for the:
• 5 interactive dashboards to help you make better business decisions

Check it out and let me know if you'd like to talk further about it.

Carl

Tool Harmony

I've been working with several clients lately to help them decide which tool they should select for their BI project.  Historically, it has typically been a single choice, but lately, the discussions have focused on a suite of tools.

I've always been a "right tool for the job" guy - I use SQL, SAS, MapInfo, Tableau, Excel, PowerPoint, or whatever it takes to get the job done.  Often, I will rely on multiple tools for a single task, but I have never sat down and thoughtfully considered how I can get tools to live in harmony.

Here's my first go at it - my top 10 tool harmony ideas:

1. Cost
• If I have to buy an additional license, then that's not harmonious.
2. New, New Thing
• Unless you want to support it yourself for the long haul, avoid any new tool
3. Naming
• As you jump from tool to tool, can you follow the data path?  Is the same variable called the same thing in all tools?
4. Value Add Trail
• The whole point of using multiple tools is to do something in one tool that is superior to another.
• If a tool feeds another tool, then clarify the value add trail - ensure that you remember where one tool starts and ends.
• Use the other tool name in a variable name:
• MapInfo_DMA_Response_Rate
• SAS_Response_Model_Score
5. Calculate as Much as Possible at the Source
• There's no sense in making a custom calculation that does the same thing in all tools - that's not efficient and runs the risk of having them not coordinated.
6. If using a database, use a view
• Sourcing from a view is an easy way to keep multiple tools coordinated.  You can insert custom calculations, rename variables, and coordinate multi-tool filters (where clause).
• It also provides a strong baseline that anyone can follow.
7. Standardize Colors
• Make sure blue and red have the same visual metaphor across all tools.
8. Create a creative template
• Ensure fonts, design colors, logos, etc. are uniformly applied.
9. QA
• Check the data inputs - are the row numbers and a total sum of a handful of columns foot between each tool?
• Check the calculations - is response rate consistently calculated?
10. Don't over do it
• Really, you can do it all in one tool.  Check Google - someone has done it before.

Alright - what else am I missing?

Carl

The World Is Flat

We didn't win the contest – Adam McCann did with his fantastic visualization in which he incorporates great design with a simple political model piloted by the user who can run interesting scenarios.

I appreciate the difficulty in creating that visualization – he needed to combine smart design, clever technical execution, statistical models, and a simple user interface to make it work.  He did not do it all in Tableau – like our submission, he needed multiple tools to make it happen.

This integration reminds me of Thomas Friedman’s book The World is Flat.  In it, he describes that a single tool expert in the 1950’s – think of a slide rule engineer – had a fantastic career; whereas today, there’s global competition for single tool operations.  Today’s fantastic careers feature integration of multiple tools, disciplines, and approaches.

As a father of young kids, I encourage integration by exposing them to an eclectic collection of life activities – rich in arts, music, sports, and academic endeavors.  As a BI professional, I search for the right balancing point between reporting, analytics, visualization, and presentation.  And this optimal balance point constantly evolves based upon each user’s unique thinking, their goals, and the decision they want to make right now.

It is a tough balance to make and Adam did a great job getting it right.

Carl

Mother of Invention

We have been planning on making a BI blog for some time.  Really – we have.  And there’s nothing like a push to get it started (and a snappy title to increase our hits from searching Zappa fans).

I’ve had great success using Tableau for my clients – mostly in the pharmaceutical industry.  I have been using it for over a year now and I’ve found it to be a quick development tool that provides a strong suite of analytic and visual options.  As I’ve been integrating into the Tableau community – using their forums, registering for their conference in November, I saw their challenge:

Create a visualization about politics.

That was too much to pass up – and the deadline for entry is today, which means I have to get this blog started in order to enter.  Necessity is truly the mother of invention.

I partnered with two of my colleagues, Rajul and Mehul, and we decided to investigate the relationship between demographics and donations.  We hear so much about the niches each candidate is holding – and they are so uniformly stated – the statistician in me knows it’s not true.  So, I wanted to look at the demographic trends in relation to donations – our only voting mechanism right now.

The geographer in me wanted to play with Tableau’s maps too – so I imported the Congressional District boundaries from the Census website.  After wrestling with MapInfo and Richard Leeke’s astounding import process, we have the following submission for their contest.

Now, I just need remember to post this link on Facebook so that  my wonderful mother will be my first comment (and follower)...

Carl

Here's the difference viz - click for the Obama page and here for the Romney page.

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