The Analytics Power Hour

To outsource or not to outsource -- that is the question: Whether 'tis more efficient to tap The skills and talents of those who bill by the hour, Or to bring resources inside as full-time staff, And, by doing so, manage them. To contract, to outsource -- No more -- and by outsource to say we get Our insights and our implementation work Managed by others -- 'tis a scenario Devoutly to be wished. To contract, to outsource -- To outsource, perchance to analyze. Aye, there's the rub.

Besides ignoring iambic pentameter in the process of butchering a Shakespearean reference, this episode, perchance, also makes reference to the following:

• House of Lies
• Analytics Made Skeezy
• Data Smart by John Forman
• Sim Daltonism

If you're like most analysts, you've probably changed jobs since the last episode of this podcast hit your earbuds two weeks ago. Or, if you haven't actually changed jobs, then you've at least been hounded by recruiters who wish you would. No matter how you look at it, digital analysts have lots of opportunities to bounce between companies at a frequent pace, and many analysts do just that. On this episode, we talk with Dylan Lewis, who has been doing digital analytics at Intuit since before there were federal taxes (give or take a few years). Give it a listen. You just might decide you need a personal board of directors!

If nothing else, this episode might inspire you to check out http://careers.intuit.com, which would be ironic given the topic, but definitely understandable!

Back by popular demand: attribution! This time, we brought in an adult on the subject: Jim Novo of The Drilling Down Project. A lot of questions get tackled in this episode: Should "gut feel" ever trump "the data?" Which is a better analogy for attribution: PV=nRT or the distillation of bourbon? Will this podcast *ever* have flawless audio quality? These questions and more definitively answered. All in under 52 minutes.

Are you a data scientist? Have you pondered whether you're really a growth hacker? Well...get over yourself! Picking up on a debate that started onstage at eMetrics, Michael, Jim, and Tim discuss whether a fundamental shift in the role (and requisite skills) of the web analyst are changing. You know, getting more "science-y" (if "science" is "more technical and more maths"). all in 2,852 seconds (each second of which can be pulled into R and used to build a predictive model showing the expected ROI of listening to future episodes; at least, we assume that's what a data scientist could do).

I know what you're thinking: they're world-class podcasters when they hide behind editing tools and autotune, but can they do it LIVE? This special recording from the final keynote spot at eMetrics has the three amigos of insight taking questions from Twitter and a live audience. There was bourbon, Jim Sterne, and a disagreement over the future of the industry - all in under 45 minutes. So, turn up the volume (seriously...because the sound levels were low and we did the best we could with a short-turnaround edit) and give it a listen!

"Guests" on the show (aka, people who asked questions who we were able to identify) included: Justin Goodman, Mike Harmanos, Rachelle Maisner, Boaz Vilozny, and KeAndre Boggess.

You know what it's time we do? It's time we make analytics great again. How can we do that? With three guys who know about winning. Maybe not winning with real estate. Or with steaks. But winning with analytics. Are these three guys winners? Well, for the sake of 40 minutes of audio, let's say they are. And then we'll let you, the people, decide.

Gratuitous pop culture references in this episode include: DJ Khaled, Larry David (on SNL), and Louis CK.

What is life but a series of questions? Does that question even make any sense? We'll never know, as this wasn't a question that got asked on this episode. Instead, Tom Miller, co-host of the Measured Direction podcast, joined us to give us a taste of the format of his show: user-submitted analytics questions asked and answered on the fly. What do you do when you lose a room of executives 15 minutes into your presentation? What does the future hold for digital analytics? Will we ever be able to measure the impact of TV? Who would win in a bar fight between Robocop and the podcast hosts? Find out the answers in a mere 45 minutes of audio (30 minutes if, like our guest, you listen at 1.5X speed).

People, places, and things mentioned in this episode include:

• Measured Direction podcast
• Kevin Hillstrom
• Mine That Data Radio podcast
• Hadley Wickham
• Hadley Wickham on the Data Stories podcast
• R
• Adobe's Analysis Workspace
• Domo
• Jim Sterne
• Moe Kiss
• Clarivoy
• Comscore acquisition of Rentrak
• Google Adometry
• The Gary Angel episode of The Digital Analytics Power Hour

We've got the technology. We've got the behavioral data. We've got the content (or at least tell ourselves we do). We're all set to develop personalized experiences that knock consumers socks off and leave them begging us to take their money. Is it really that simple? If it is, why aren't more companies realizing the dream of 1-to-1 marketing? Matt Gershoff joins us to discuss how the pieces of the personalization puzzle often don't quite fall into place like we wish they would. Matt's also written a post that overlaps with our discussion: http://conductrics.com/complexity.

As an analyst, it's never a good idea to make predictions without data. With that said, for our first predictions episode, we've chosen to make some big and small predictions for the digital analytics space for the remainder of 2016 -- using only experience and intuition! Join us in Episode 30 as we rely solely on intuition to predict the next 9 months of a multi-billion dollar industry - all in under 45 minutes. Note: Due to the lag between recording and release, our prediction during the episode about a certain Heisman Trophy winner actually came true...before this episode launched.

People, places, and things mentioned in this episode:

• Tealium
• Ensighten
• Signal
• Mixpanel
• Amazon Redshift
• Looker
• Adobe Analytics
• Google Analytics
• Optimizely
• Adobe Target
• Johnny Manziel
• Cleveland Browns
• Paul DePodesta
• Moneyball
• Ben Gaines
• Median Absolute Deviation (MAD)
• Brian Clifton
• Domo
• Sweetspot Intelligence
• Tableau Software
• eMetrics
• "I Predict a Riot" (Kaiser Chiefs)

Philosopher, poet, and essayist George Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." We thought we'd have him on to reflect about the history of digital analytics...but he died in 1952. Ambrose Bierce wrote The Devil's Dictionary, which we think is brilliant, so we thought we would have him on...but he died in 1842! Lucky for us, we landed the best of both worlds with very-much-alive philosopher, poet, essayist, DAA founder and chairman, and eMetrics founder Jim Sterne.

People, places, and things mentioned in this episode officially ran a full, certifiable gamut:

• The Devil's Data Dictionary
• The Digital Analytics Association (DAA)
• eMetrics
• The Web Analyst's Code of Ethics
• Some "web analytics" platforms: Sawmill (still going strong!), Analog (less so), NetGenesis (verymuchlessso)
• The IAB
• The DMA
• A bunch of people (or, in one case, an archetype, and, in another a conscious, gestalt, artificial intelligence system): Krista Seiden, Seth Romanow, Eric Peterson, June Li, Stéphane Hamel, Josh Aberant, HiPPOs, Skynet