Do you know how old you are, your gender, and how much you tend to know lyrics for popular songs? Even if you don’t, this Sunday read from Walt Hickey is a fun one: open.substack.com/pub/numlock/...

What is a dashboard? According to @acotgreave.bsky.social and his co-authors, “A dashboard is a visual display of data used to monitor conditions and/or facilitate understanding." Whether or not you're already triggered, this podcast episode is worth a listen! analyticshour.io/2025/09/16/2...

Some people see Life as just a series of interconnected processes. I'm married to one of those people. That may be how she got name-checked on this episode. Like it or not, processes underpin many aspects of the analyst's job, and that made for a useful discussion! analyticshour.io/2025/09/02/2...

Something of a #showerthought: in 30 years, a bunch of middle-aged folks will be listening to and experiencing Taylor Swift nostalgically in the same way that I'm listening to Fleetwood Mac, CCR, Heart, and James Taylor now.

AI is changing the world! AI is going to replace analysts! Wait a minute. A LANGUAGE model is going to crunch numbers in a reliable AND useful way? Hmmm... The latest episode of the Analytics Power Hour podcast with guest Juliana Jackson thought this through. analyticshour.io/2025/08/19/2...

Fun and useful exploration of specific challenges of drawing district maps as the theme for today's Numlock News—@oliviawalch.bsky.social takes a day while @walthickey.bsky.social is on vacation. www.numlock.com/p/numlock-ne...

The latest episode of the Analytics Power Hour podcast was a discussion about ANOVA with @chelseaparlett.bsky.social . Don't worry. She hasn't changed her position that it's linear models all the way down! It was a fun and useful chat! analyticshour.io/2025/08/05/2...

Very useful explanation of the role of priors (and the challenges therein) when using a Bayesian approach with MMMs. The trick is to think really hard up front, ensure that thinking is consistent and reasonable, and then...keep thinking. 😀 getrecast.com/what-are-pri...

Kinda' fun. The Strava #measure group has hit 20 members. All activities, global membership. @lukascech.bsky.social is a beast... www.strava.com/clubs/measure

BI tools are much-maligned. Is that because THEY SHOULD BE or because THEY'RE TRYING TO MEET IMPOSSIBLE EXPECTATIONS‽ The latest episode of the Analytics Power Hour podcast tackled that question. analyticshour.io/2025/07/22/2...

Judging by the those green banners on LinkedIn, the latest episode of the Analytics Power Hour is worth a listen! Even if you're not actively on the market right now, chances are you will be some time in the next few years! analyticshour.io/2025/07/08/2...

"AI will free workers up to do higher-value work" is an abstract idea based on a vague notion that vast swaths of the workforce are spending significant portions of their time doing pseudo-mindless repetitive drudgery & all they need is "time" to do more and deeper thought work. I'm not buying it.

The latest episode of the Analytics Power Hour podcast was a deep dive into synthetic data with special guest Winston Li. The discussion was all about this sci-fi sounding data, how it's made, where it shines, and where it falls short! analyticshour.io/2025/06/24/2...

cc: @nduley.bsky.social

You get a data product! And YOU get a data product! Wait. What actually makes a data product a data product? It's trickier than we thought (and it seems useful to actually nail that down)! Thus...the latest episode of the Analytics Power Hour podcast. analyticshour.io/2025/06/10/2...

I pretty much knew what this piece was going to say, but I've always known I was above average when it comes to intuition on this sort of thing. 😜 today.yougov.com/society/arti...

Every time my watch notifies me that I've just achieved a move or stand goal when I've been sitting at my desk typing for over an hour.

Every analyst finds themselves grappling with the curse of knowledge on a regular basis: the name of the metric makes it sound simple, but the actual definition has nuance. What to do‽ analyticshour.io/2025/05/27/2...

Dr. Lindsay Juarez from Irrational Labs joined the Analytics Power Hour podcast for our latest episode—behavioral science meets analytics! analyticshour.io/2025/05/13/2...

It’s hard to imagine NOT looking back on 2025 and seeing it as a period of dramatic uncertainty. In the hear and now, that can be panic-inducing. Is it possible to harness that panicked energy for good? We think so: thefocus.factsandfeelings.io/being-eviden... youtu.be/U1sJdKb6IIM

The Analytics Power Hour podcast: 5 very human co-hosts who felt it was high time that they devote a sesh to their experiences of and thoughts about AI from an analytics perspective. analyticshour.io/2025/04/29/2...

Wild (for baseball fans). Same play (gets scored as just 6-3, I think? Not 5-6-3?) in the top and then bottom of the same inning of a minor league game: www.mlb.com/amp/news/min...

In his latest post, @tgwilson.bsky.social makes a case for navigating uncertainty by remaining evidence-driven by being simultaneously agile and focused. thefocus.factsandfeelings.io/being-eviden...

Ultimate Guitar data mined -> 680,000 songs -> a "Can't Get Much Higher" meandering and intriguing analysis: www.cantgetmuchhigher.com/p/i-analyzed...

Fantastic turnout for tonight’s Columbus Data and Analytics Wednesday!

We developed a forecast for how the latest episode of the Analytics Power Hour podcast would turn out and it exceeded our expectations so much that, well, it was an outlier! analyticshour.io/2025/04/15/2...

Thanks, Lukas! Great write-up!

Who's going to explain to the Executive Leadership Team that we're going to modern data stack our way from being ETL-oriented to being ELT-oriented? The thought is triggering light trauma from when CRM team introduced Sales Qualified Leads and wanted queries written to support SQL reporting.

"Tell me you're a solid analyst without saying you're a solid analyst." "I cringe every time I hear someone use the word 'insights'." Check! The latest episode of the Analytics Power Hour podcast explores...! analyticshour.io/2025/04/01/2...

A story about how to deliver more effective data stories!

Big day: Charles-Joseph Minard's birthday (flowingdata.com/2025/03/27/m...). Also the bday of my eldest. This year is when he's had to switch to his employer's health insurance rather than his mom's ('merica!). I'm still lobbying to get our 2nd Costco card moved from him to his younger sister.

It's been [checks calendar] 0 days since I showed up at a meeting wondering why the other attendee was a no-show only to realize that I'd neglected to add him to the invite.

When it comes to the data stories you share with your business partners, are you telling the story you want to tell or the story they need to hear? Read more from @valkroll.bsky.social in this recent article on The Focus! thefocus.factsandfeelings.io/audience-cen...

IF🥚+🥛+🍚≠🎂 THEN 🧑‍💻+ 📊+ 🤖 ≠ 💡 BECAUSE it might be time for an Analytics Reset 🫸🚨 Is it time to smash that reset button? Read (and watch!) more to find out: thefocus.factsandfeelings.io/just-because...

I don't know why I keep asking Perplexity, Claude, and ChatGPT for feedback on Oxford comma usage. I always get some version of a "whatever you'd like" response. So diplomatic. I won't be concerned about AI taking over humanity until it takes a stand one way or the other.

@chelseaparlett.bsky.social joined the Analytics Power Hour for our latest episode to dive into linear regression, and it was an informative blast! analyticshour.io/2025/03/18/r...

Usually, a table-based joke like this is one that you read a couple of entries, get the idea of the bit, and move on. This one... I read all the way through. Outstanding.

Planet Definitions xkcd.com/3063

What do Sean Hayes and Debra Messing reenacting the one of the greatest scenes in sitcom history have to do with the inbound requests analytics teams deal with? If you've guessed it's the chocolate factory scene, you're right. See @tgwilson.bsky.social: thefocus.factsandfeelings.io/scaling-the-...

A DOGE perspective from a marketing analyst: "Estimated savings" of $105B from doge.gov/savings. Marketing analog: media agencies w/ 90-day viewthrough attribution windows (+ more shenanigans) "Verifiable canceled funding" of $8.6B from doge.muskwatch.com. Marketing analog: Finance saying, "GTFO"

Fitness apps make some of the most bizarre #dataviz choices. This gem from Strava: dual axes, neither of which is zero-based, one of which is reversed, and no direct visual cue as to which data goes with which axis.

Fun 5K run to the beach in time for the sunrise this morning at #Ei2025.

Nice read on the benefits of having a hobby from @davidepstein.bsky.social: davidepstein.substack.com/p/why-hobbie.... Reminds me of @timharford.ft.com's Cautionary Tales episode @ Claude Shannon: www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/cau.... Nature photography is my jam (confirmation bias?).

Wound up co-working w/ my son at a library today. So far, he's shown me how to make my iPad a true, performant 2nd screen for my MacBook and introduced me to <Cmd>-<Shift>-<F>. As a parent, I have nothing left to offer to him.

Delta either has no idea how long it is to my destination (this clip ranges from 56 min to 19 hrs) or is making a philosophical statement about there not actually being a destination, as life truly is a journey, and I will be passing through some interim destination at each of these future times.

Out: the quantified self. In: Connected wellness. Either way, it's hyperspecific personal data collected as a continuous stream. The implications? Many! And that was the subject of the latest Analytics Power Hour podcast! analyticshour.io/2025/02/18/2...

Video from a BI platform about their new AI-powered tool: * Considers trends and anomalies as "insights" * Suggests "questions you could ask [of a report]...which are 100% "questions for which the data has an answer" and not at all grounded in "questions that matter to the business."

Might be worth checking AirBnB? City hotels can definitely be crazy (8 times out of 10 when I go to Chicago...I stay with friends there; partly because it's good to see friends, but the financial impact is nice, too).

Remember Jeff Foxworthy’s OG “…you might be a redneck” bits from the 90s? If so, my take on that as a “…you might need an analytics reset” should be entertaining. If not, this video is more likely to be confusing, but maybe still entertaining? youtu.be/SWMm6eTyKQE

Two near-universal truths when tech vendor collateral leads with, "Imagine a scenario where...": * The scenario will be something that never or extremely rarely occurs. * The tech vendor's platform is uniquely suited to address the scenario.