Support Analytics Blog

A new book on data analysis was released yesterday by Michael Milton called Head First Data Analysis.  The Head First books have gotten rave reviews and I’ve never actually read one until now.  I was able to be involved in the technical review of this book, which gave me a first glimpse into the content.  I will say there were a few of pleasant surprises as I went from chapter to chapter.  Some of them being; exercises that utilized the open source statistical program R, examples using relevant data, theories and ideas, and simply hitting on all the major topics without going so deep it was no longer relevant.  I also liked the fact that almost anyone could pick up this book and start applying the concepts immediately. It is designed for a very easy read with rich content.  Here is a note from Amazon that describes what this book is about:

“Today, interpreting data is a critical decision-making factor for businesses and organizations. If your job requires you to manage and analyze all kinds of data, turn to Head First Data Analysis, where you’ll quickly learn how to collect and organize data, sort the distractions from the truth, find meaningful patterns, draw conclusions, predict the future, and present your findings to others.

Whether you’re a product developer researching the market viability of a new product or service, a marketing manager gauging or predicting the effectiveness of a campaign, a salesperson who needs data to support product presentations, or a lone entrepreneur responsible for all of these data-intensive functions and more, the unique approach in Head First Data Analysis is by far the most efficient way to learn what you need to know to convert raw data into a vital business tool.
You’ll learn how to:

• Determine which data sources to use for collecting information
• Assess data quality and distinguish signal from noise
• Build basic data models to illuminate patterns, and assimilate new information into the models
• Cope with ambiguous information
• Design experiments to test hypotheses and draw conclusions
• Use segmentation to organize your data within discrete market groups
• Visualize data distributions to reveal new relationships and persuade others
• Predict the future with sampling and probability models
• Clean your data to make it useful
• Communicate the results of your analysis to your audience ” [source]

I think the Head First series methodology and design creates an experience where the reader is able to learn and apply the concepts quickly.  It was a pleasure working with the folks at O’Reilly.

In just over a week, on June 1st, Stephen’s new book on data visualization for quantitative analysis will be released.  The date has not been updated at Amazon as of writing this, but was confirmed by Stephen per the last update post.  Recently, I had the chance to catch up with Stephen and we discussed the new book along with some of the great content.  The official title is: Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis.  Below are some questions I asked him and his answers. 

1. What inspired you to write this book?

I was inspired to write this book by the same thing that inspired me to write the other two: a need that wasn’t being addressed. In this particular case, the need is for people to develop data sense-making skills. People throughout organizations are responsible for this to some degree, but few have been trained. Most analyses that are done in the normal course of business can be handled using simple visual analysis techniques that anyone can learn, but few people have. They haven’t, because until now no resource existed that they could turn to. Plenty of available resources teach statistics, but nothing teaches the simple and practical methods that rely on our eyes to explore and make sense of quantitative data.

2. What makes this book different from "Show Me The Numbers"?

Show Me the Numbers focuses on effective ways to present quantitative information using tables and graphs. Now You See It focuses on effective ways to explore and make sense of quantitative data. Before you can present data, you must figure out what it means. This new book will help people discover and understand the stories that live in their data more quickly and thoroughly.

3. A common question about your past books, what software did you use to create the visualizations in this book?

I used Excel to create most of the examples in this book, not because it’s great visual analysis software—it isn’t—but because everyone has Excel and I wanted most of the analytical methods that are taught in the book to be accessible to everyone. Probably about a third of the examples illustrate visualizations and techniques that require better visual analysis tools than Excel, including Tableau, Spotfire, Panopticon, JMP, Advizor Analyst, and R. I included these to show people how much more they could do if they had a better tool. The techniques that require better software aren’t difficult, but they either involve graphs that aren’t available in Excel (for example, box plots) or ways to dynamically interact with data that Excel doesn’t support.

4. The Amazon description says it’s valuable for those trying to understand business data.  Would those outside of the corporate/business sector benefit from this book?

The data analysis techniques that I teach in this book apply to data of all types, not just business data. Just as in Show Me the Numbers, most of the examples that you’ll find in Now You See It involve business data because most of my readers are businesspeople, but everyone who works with quantitative data in the non-profit sector, government, academia, or anywhere else will find this book easy to understand and applicable to their work.

5. What specific question or problem does this book help solve for a reader?

The primary questions that Now You See It addresses are:

• What aptitudes, attitudes, and skills are needed to analyze data effectively?
• What are the basic types of quantitative data analysis?
• For each type of analysis, what are the most effective graphs for visualizing the data?
• For each type of analysis, what patterns in the data are most meaningful?
• For each type of analysis, what are the most effective ways to interact with the data to bring the meaningful patterns to light?
• What are the most effective ways to navigate through the process of analysis?
• What should software tools do to help us to explore and analyze data effectively?
• How should software be designed and function to support us in these useful ways?
• What are the most promising trends that will take visual analytics to the next level of productivity?

6. If someone doesn’t use Microsoft Excel, should they pass on this book?

Assuming that you have some software tool available to you that can be used to view, explore, and analyze data visually that is as good as Excel or better, this book was written for you. If you don’t currently have such a tool, this book will reveal what you need in a tool, so you can get a good one and get started.

7. The title of the book, “Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis” suggests that this book may be an introduction to data visualization.  If someone is at a more advanced level, will they benefit from this book?

People who are already experts in visual analytics will already know much of what I teach in this book. No one who exclusively uses Excel for data analysis is already an expert in visual analytics, however, because Excel doesn’t support many of the most useful and powerful visualizations and functions of visual analysis. Even most people who are well trained in statistics will benefit from this book, because most courses in statistics don’t teach many of the analysis techniques that are necessary when you need to explore and examine trends, patterns, and exceptions with your eyes, not just as a number produced by a statistical formula.

8. Who designed the cover, it’s really exquisite?

I’m glad you like the cover. As you can imagine, as someone who’s involved in visual design, I want book covers that emulate the design principles I teach but are also compelling in a way that says “Pick me up and take a look” when they catch people’s eyes. I think Keith Stevenson accomplished this beautifully with his cover design. Keith and I became acquainted originally as we exchanged opinions about wine in a local wine bar. He works as a graphic designer at the University of California, Berkeley.

9. What’s one thing that the average person doesn’t know about Stephen Few that you can share?

Perhaps the fact that people are most surprised to learn about me is that I started my professional life as a minister. My personal and professional journey since then has taken a long and winding road. What remains of those days, I suppose, is the fiery passion that I bring to my work.

10. Is there going to be a book signing tour?

I’m still waiting for my invitation from Oprah. Until she puts me on her book list, I’ll continue to assume that a live tour would mostly give me a chance to catch up on my reading. Come to think of it, that’s not such a bad idea.

Related Books:

1. Show Me The Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten, Stephen Few
2. Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data, Stephen Few

There are referral links within this post to Amazon. However, there is no endorsement from Stephen Few for this post or any reference to his books.

Back in January I posted that Stephen Few’s new book was scheduled to be released on April 1st per the date in Amazon.  A few weeks ago that date changed to July.  Now Amazon has the date back to April 1st.  Instead of guessing, I asked Stephen directly.   He said that the distributor jumped the gun and prematurely sent the date as April.  Stephen said he just got confirmation that the availability date will be June 1st.  From my discussion with Stephen, I think this book is going to be everything I expect it to be and then some.

Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis by Stephen Few

Below you will find a few images from the recent copy of Information Management in regards to Analytics [source].  A little bit over a year ago, I posted about the most desirable traits of recent graduates with analytics being third.  It’s no surprise to me that if you want to be successful, get a good job, and keep a job that having powerful analytic skills will be the key.

At least a third of companies surveyed stated they have a shortage of analytic talent!

Fifty percent of them said the shortage will be more significant in 12 months!

Sixty-three percent of the companies surveyed stated they need to increase their analytic capabilities!

A little less than half of all business decisions are still made based on judgement…

As early as 2007, I stated that I really enjoy reading my DM Review periodical.  Just recently, I received a copy of Information Management, which I learned is now formerly DM Review.  I really didn’t know until receiving the magazine that the title had changed.  You can find more about this at Information Management’s web site.  What didn’t change is the great content they provide on a bi-monthly schedule.  Some of the authors and topics covered are:

• Analytics
• Business Intelligence (BI)
• Performance Management (CPM)
• Data Governance
• Data Integration
• Data Warehouse
• ETL
• Data Quality
• Enterprise Information Management (EIM)
• Master Data Management (MDM)

Besides the print edition of the magazine, Information Management also offers free: Ebooks, web seminars, white papers and newsletters around the topics above.  Check them out and let me know what you think.  If you are already a subscriber, let me know what you think.

Some of the past editions have featured:

• Stephen Few of Perceptual Edge on Information Visualization
• James Taylor on Enterprise Decision Management

Later this week I will reveal what Information Management discussed around analytics in the current issue.  Stay tuned!

Related – Excel Blackbelt Review – Part 1

This isn’t much of an analysis after the part one review.  To be quite honest, the second half of this book is not really up my alley and would not be the best use of my limited time.

I think the first 6 chapters were beneficial and helped me in a few different areas.  I got through chapter 6, which I thought was really good and got me thinking about trying to use Excel’s Solver more.  Here are the chapters that I didn’t get to so you can judge for yourself if this text is for you.

Chapter 7 – Complex Optimization

Chapter 8 – Controlled Simulation Analysis

Chapter 9 – Scenario Generation and Optimization

Chapter 10 – Visualizing Complex Analytical Dynamics

Chapter 11 – VB Editing and Code Development

Chapter 12 – Automating Application Calls

Chapter 13 – Guided and User-Friendly Interfaces

When skimming the last chapters, I found them to cover very scientific topics, functionality and practices.  The chapters were not geared towards the everyday business analyst in the corporate sector.  Even chapter 10 on analytical visualizations was too scientific for me to really get much use from.  If you are in engineering, heavy statistics or science, it may be helpful.

As I stated in the previous review, I didn’t like the fact that this book is about Excel, but many of the sections discuss other software products like, MapPoint, XLStat and RISKOptimizer, which are not part of Excel.  A more accurate title would not have included the word "Excel" and just left it as "A Guide to Decision Support Designs".

Click here to see a few other reviews of this book at Amazon.com.

If you didn’t know already, I am a big fan of the DM Review publication that comes out monthly.  It covers mostly business intelligence, data management, analytics and data warehousing to name a few more popular topics.

In the September issue, there was a pretty good article by Greg Todd of Accenture called: Analytics has Become the Darling of High Performers and can be found by clicking here.  I didn’t think it was too earth shattering because I’ve already read Tom Davenport’s: Competing on Analytics, which was cited a few times in the article.

Here is an excerpt about the DM Review publication that describes its goals.

DM Review, www.dmreview.com, delivers market-leading insight through interviews, articles and columns written by the best consultants, hands-on practitioners and technology solution leaders the industry has to offer. Editorial focus is on business intelligence, performance management, analytics, integration and enterprise data warehousing as well as emerging areas that include business process management and technology architectures. Our audience is almost evenly divided between business and IT executives. DM Review has been providing thought leadership for more than 18 years. Source

Recently, Stephen Few of Perceptual edge wrote a great article on Information Visualization, which can be found here.  Other industry leading experts, like James Taylor, co-author of Smart [Enough] Systems, is a frequent contributor to DM Review.

What industry or popular publications do you read relating to your field?

Support Analytics reads DM Review, Business Monthly (local), WSJ, and BusinessWeek to name a few.