DSA Insights

From phdcomics.com, Graduate Student Motivation Level - Visualization.

I love the steep decline immediately after, "realizing just gave 10-minute talk on 6 years of work."

Here’s the list of participants to date for the DSA Insights Post Project.  As more enter the project, this list will be updated.  Thank you to everyone who participated!

• Changes to Charting in Excel 2007 by Jon Peltier at Peltier Technical Services
• Weekend Minis… by Nathan Yau at FlowingData
• SPAM by Tony Rose at Support Analytics (not eligible for prize)
• 5 Ways to Promote Your Business Online by Andrea Coutu at Consultant Journal
• Analytics: No one can agree on what it means by James Taylor at Smart [enough] Systems

Get your submissions in before the deadline on Friday at midnight. 

If you are already blogging, feel free to submit a post to me for consideration in this project and to win a prize!  Click here to submit a post.  Based on the feedback I have received and the gracious offerings from some excellent Authors, there will be more DSA Projects in the future.  Plus, who doesn’t like to get free things?

Facebook is listed as the 8th most popular web site in the WORLD according to Alexa!  I think Facebook serves some great purposes among a lot of silly applications and things to waste time.  The purpose of this group is to further promote the discussion and ideas surrounding Business Analytics and Data Visualization with a little consulting thrown in.  Many blogs, groups and web sites focus on the technical aspect of analytics and data visualization.  In this group, I will try to keep it less technical and more practical to just about anyone.

Click on the link below to see the new DSA Insights Facebook group.

Support Analytics - Insights Facebook Group

Related:

I’m on Facebook–Now What???: How to Get Personal, Business, and Professional Value from Facebook at Amazon.com

Authors James Taylor and Neil Raden are sponsoring a signed copy of their book, Smart (Enough) Systems: How to Deliver Competitive Advantage by Automating Hidden Decisions ($39 value) that will be added to the DSA Insights Post Project prize list.  This is an excellent book, which is featured in the DSA Amazon Store because of its tremendous value.  Find out more about the book here. 

Don’t wait, send in your blog post now to be eligible for one of the prizes below.  If you don’t know about the DSA Insights Post Project yet, click here to find out more.

The list of available prizes are now:

1st Price (Choice of one)

Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge has graciously offered to provide a signed copy of Show Me the Numbers if the winner of the DSA Insights Post Project chooses Stephen’s book. Thank you Stephen!

The good news is that there are only a few entries so far to win one of the two prizes available. I’m no rocket scientist, but that seems to make one’s odds favorable to win a prize if you enter!

Let’s review how to enter the Post Project:

1. Write a blog post or submit one to me for a guest post on the available topics below. Remember, it can be a few lines, essay, video, funny, podcast, etc. This could include posts you are already working on or are delivering in the next few days. You don’t need to recreate the wheel as many of your posts will probably fall into one of the categories below. The topics are:
   1. Consulting
   2. Blogging
   3. Analytics
   4. Data/Info Visualization
   5. Excel
   6. Business Intelligence
2. Submit the URL, your name, e-mail, title you want shown and if you were referred by anyone using this form.
3. Spread the word! (optional, but appreciated)
4. Check back! (optional)
5. Have Fun! (optional)

Get your entries in now for a chance to win one of the prizes below!

• $25 or $20 Amazon Gift Card
• Show Me the Numbers, Stephen Few (signed copy)
• Million Dollar Consulting (TM) Toolkit, Alan Weiss
• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte

I’ve added a category to the Blog Post Project- Blogging.

One important aspect and responsibility of blogging and e-mail is to respect your audience and others. Here are a few informational points about SPAM that can also be found on the FTC’s website. “The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email…”

The law requires:

1. It bans false or misleading header information. Your email’s “From,” “To,” and routing information - including the originating domain name and email address - must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.
2. It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
3. It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests.
4. It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address.
   

Source: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm

A few newsletter or e-mail sites that help businesses manage their communications while adhering to CAN-SPAM regulations are:

• iContact
• Campaign Monitor
• Zookoda
• Aweber
• Feedblitz

They have some customization for your business as well as registration or opt-in and opt-out features.

First, let me apologize to those of you who received an e-mail from me about the DSA Insights post project . It has been a huge learning experience and I sincerely apologize for the format of the e-mail (CC) and unsolicited nature. Some of the feedback has been quite positive and encouraging, with a few being negative.

What intrigues me is that there are businesses or individuals with websites and blogs that apparently don’t want to be found on the Internet. When you participate in a blog, leaving a link to your website that contains your blog, tips, and articles, I would think you would appreciate and promote learning and networking with others having similar interests. People like this are probably the same ones that would complain about having to pay the taxes after winning a $300 million dollar lottery…

It’s interesting because I personally feel a connection between the blogs, newsletters and websites that I visit and participate in regularly. What I sometimes fail to realize is that the person on the other side of the computer may not feel the same connection or appreciate an e-mail informing them of something they didn’t ask about. Again, definitely a learning experience.

Bob Poole, of Poole Consulting Group said it best regarding unsolicited e-mail, “All you had to do was ask.” Bob also provided some excellent feedback, which is always appreciated! Check out Bob’s Marketing & Sales blog that can be found here.

I didn’t want to reply to the original e-mail because that would have compounded the problem. I also ask that you please do not reply to all if you have any feedback to respect the others in the list.

~ With sincere apologies ~

Announcement:
It’s time for DSA Insights to announce an opportunity to win a prize in a way that should be fun, exciting and valuable to our readers. There are two prizes to be claimed, which are:

1st Prize (choice of one):

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Edward Tufte
• Show Me the Numbers, Stephen Few
• Million Dollar Consulting (TM) Toolkit, Alan Weiss, Ph D.
• Amazon $25 gift card

2nd Prize:

• Amazon $20 gift card

Theme:
Your task is to write a new post in your blog that is themed, “The most important thing I know about__(Enter a topic below)__, is ___.”
Available topics that follow the theme of DSA Insights are:

• Analytics
• Business Intelligence
• Consulting
• Data Visualization
• Info Visualization
• Excel
• Blogging (new 5/2)

Instructions:
Note: old posts written before today will not be accepted.

1. Write - Write a post using the theme and filling in the blanks:
   1. If you don’t have a blog, I will consider submissions for guest posts to this blog and, if chosen, it will qualify for one of the prizes listed. DSA Insights reserves the right to include/exclude posts submitted via this method at our discretion.
   2. Maximum of 3 entries allowed per person - this is per person and not per blog. If submitting more than one blog post, it has to be on a different topic.
   3. Maximum of 5 referrals will count towards the prizes.
   4. Please keep it clean and family friendly.
   5. It can be funny, serious, an essay, video, podcast, list, tip, trick, picture, etc.
   6. Give your post a good title as it will be the only text listed in this blog as a submission.
   7. Please consider a link-back to this post in your post so that your readers can participate or know that you are participating.
2. Submit - Once you have written and posted the new entry to your blog follow these instructions to participate. Submit your post to me by sending me an email using my contact form found here. Include:
   1. Name (as you want it to appear in my blog)
   2. Email address (must be valid)
   3. Message subject: DSA Post Project
   4. Title of your blog post
   5. URL of your post
   6. Referral - optional (who told you about this post)
3. Spread the word - Tell others about this post and if they participate you will receive 1 entry for each referral up to a maximum of 5.
4. Check back - All valid submissions will be included in a cumulative list in a separate post.
5. Have fun! Surf the submissions, inter-link between participating bloggers, post your favorite or top 5 submissions, and tell everyone you know about this opportunity! If you take full advantage of this opportunity, you will have up to 8 chances to win a prize.

Timeline:
Begins:
Thursday, May 1 (today)

Ends:
Friday, May 16 - end of day your time zone.

Winners Announced:
Monday 19 May - I will announce the two winners in a featured blog post. All entries (up to eight) will be listed and two different people will be selected at random.

Winners will be contacted and will need to provide a valid U.S. mailing address if a book is selected as the prize. International winners will default to an Amazon gift card delivered via e-mail.

Every time I saw my blog page, I got annoyed at the Amazon widget in my sidebar. I think the Amazon affiliate program is great, but the widget was clumsy and less than effective. If you are not familiar with the program, check out Amazon’s information page that can be found here .

This post is to announce that DSA Insights has teamed up with Amazon to bring you the Support Analytics aStore. I have decided that I will give back to my readers when revenue is generated from the Amazon store. There will be more to come later this week regarding us giving back, which you won’t want to miss!

As you can see below, there is now a subtle link to the Amazon store between the email signup box and the archive section of this blog in the right sidebar. When you click on the link you are brought to the Support Analytics Amazon Store. Check out some of the book and software that I’ve added to the store. My hope is that the store will be a good resource for my readers to find those must-have books or software.

The categories in the store are currently:

• Must-Have Books
• Data/Info Visualization Books
• Analytics Books
• Dashboards Books
• Presentations Books
• Excel Books
• Consulting Books
• Sales Books
• Literary Classics
• Writing/Publishing Books
• Best Sellers (business) Books
• Software

I welcome any suggestions/feedback on books or software to add to the store that you have found beneficial. If you have found some in my list that you thought were garbage, I welcome that feedback as well.

Now that I have your attention, I would like to let you know that Nathan at FlowingData is running a contest. He is going to randomly choose one person on March 31st from comments left on his blog over the next 10 days. The more comments you leave, the better your chances are to win!

I’ve said this before; The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tufte is what I would consider the most influential data visualization book that anyone could own. Act now and enter to win a copy on Nathan. Plus, check out his website for great information and ideas.

You can also view this book using the link below.