Visual Analytics – Page 4

Free Access to Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8–Chapter 4

2016May192013Aug19 by

Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8 The Original Guide for the Accidental Analyst We are pleased to provide free access to our book for all site members. It is also available as a printed book on Amazon. The home page for this release is here. Read Chapter 4 (pages 59-78) Core view types in Tableau-59 Tables—an … Read more

Free Webinar—Analyzing Your Data With Excel:
Simple Steps for Actionable Results

2017Oct282013Jul31 by Freakalytics

Recorded August 22nd, 2013

Do what you can with what you have where you are.
—THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Cowboy, soldier, historian and
26th President of the U.S.

Synopsis
Answer everyday business questions like an analyst with Microsoft Excel. This webinar is based on a selected set of techniques from The 7C’s of Data Analysis, as covered in our book, The Accidental Analyst: Show Your Data Who’s Boss. An abbreviated case study will be used to demonstrate common techniques that can start you on the course to analyzing data with Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010 or 2013.

This presentation is approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes in length.

Thoughts on “Business Analytics Software Still Has Skeptics”

2021Jun202013Jul10 by

Synopsis of the article and summary chart from Pete Barlas at Investor’s Business Daily

Many companies still view the promise of analytics software as a glass half-empty.

One of the strongest sectors in enterprise software, business analytics has many doubters among companies skeptical it truly is helping improve the top and bottom lines.

So found a survey released last month by accounting and professional services firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

“What we are seeing in the analytics front is a real skepticism among business leaders about whether this works and how it can make a difference,” said Tim Phillipps, global leader of Deloitte’s analytics practice.

The findings, he admits, were a surprise.

Here is Stephen’s comment on this article:

I have worked in analytics for many years at over 100 companies (employee, consultant and leading teams.) It has always been easier to lean on costs savings as a clear measure of success with analytics and data warehouse investments.

Free Webinar—Quick & dirty analysis with Tableau
in 13 lucky steps!

2021Jun202013Jul05 by Freakalytics

6_Manual_Rearrange_Items_Freakalytics_1_Tableau
July 31st, 2013, Noon Pacific, 3 PM Eastern, 8 PM London

So much data, so little time!
–Stephen McDaniel
Co-founder of Freakalytics

Synopsis
Let’s face it: in the daily world of work, you often are asked to provide an answer to a new problem in less than a day. Of course, your boss tends to forget about the other three project deadlines you are currently facing, so you really have only 10 or 20 minutes to squeeze in a quick and dirty analysis.

If this sounds familiar to you, this webinar will walk you through the thirteen flexible steps that can take you from being clueless to looking smart with Tableau in just a few minutes. Hopefully you’ll be able to obtain enough information to come up with ideas for an e-mail update or talking points for the unexpected meeting that is looming large over your day, showing your boss and colleagues that you can deliver great results in time to be useful.

So, if you’re already a user of Tableau, this webinar will guide you in the critical path of many analyses in Tableau. If you are totally new to Tableau, you can see the possibilities of what you can accomplish in a short amount of time, once you get started and practice these techniques.

A preview of the first few steps

1 What question will you examine?

Okay, in reality this step might take hours or even days! But let’s assume you have your question, and if it is complex, break it down into several, simpler questions.

2 Grab the closest, readily available dataset

Read more

Free Webinar—Business analytics and more
with SAS Enterprise Guide

2017Oct282013Jun24 by Freakalytics

Recorded on July 10th, 2013

Business_analytics_SAS_Enterprise_Guide_predictive_model_600

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of
uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

–WINSTON CHURCHILL
Prime Minister of England during WWII

Synopsis
In this webinar, Stephen will analyze multiple real-world case studies using SAS Enterprise Guide by following the 7 C’s of Data Analysis. He will collect data from a range of sources, explore the data for common problems, apply quick data fixes, demonstrate best practices of visual analytics and use powerful predictive models that go beyond the limits of standard analysis techniques.
Click here for the full post and to register below

Rapid Graphs with Tableau 8—Chapter 1 & Table of Contents

2016May192013Jun24 by

The 8 version of this book is published in grayscale in order to meet popular demand for a lower list price versus earlier versions (5, 6 and 7) of this book series.

+ Written by Tableau insider
& product manager, teaching
Tableau to thousands since 2009

+ Real-world examples that you
can follow include tips
and tricks to save you time

+ High-def videos & solutions

+ The fourth edition—proven & trusted

+ Buy it on Amazon

Freakalytics Newsletter for June 2013

2021Jun212013Jun12 by

Thank you for your interest in our newsletter. Please share it with your colleagues that can benefit from it. Also, Stephen is once again full-time at Freakalytics and we are excited to be back on the road, so please let us know if we can be of service!

Freakalytics Timeline

Since 2007, we have traveled 365,000 miles to help tens of thousands of people via

8 books,
24 conference talks,
47 public trainings,
26 on-site trainings,
5 conference seminars,
15 analytic advisory engagements
and 36 consulting projects.

Click here to download a summary of our accomplishments since 2007.

Free Webinar—Visual Analytics Best Practices
Why Can’t You See My Point?!?

2017Oct282013Jun12 by Freakalytics

You can have brilliant ideas,
but if you can’t get them across,
your ideas won’t get you anywhere.

-Lee Iacocca

The webinar is past but you can watch the recording and view the slides below.
This post is currently being updated with the slides and videos.

Why do visual analytics best practices matter?

Why can’t people see your point when you present data-oriented presentations?

Whether you are using big data, small data or summarized data that has been prepared for you, this webinar will explore these vital questions. If you are concerned with getting the most from your data, this complimentary webinar is a great step in learning how to clearly communicate with people as they make better informed decisions in the hectic world of modern business.

Free Webinar—Better Dashboards in Tableau 8
Video and Slides Now Available

2016May192013Jun11 by Freakalytics

Attend this complimentary webinar for ideas and inspiration to design informative, dynamic and captivating dashboard experiences with Tableau 8.

The webinar is past but you can watch the recording, download the workbook and view the slides below.

In this complimentary webinar, Stephen will walk you through the steps to build one of the advanced dashboards that ships in Tableau 8. Stephen will be using the World Nuclear Power Plants example that he designed while Director of Analytics at Tableau. Stephen was inspired to create this example based on the work of Peter Aldhous at The New Scientist.

Click here for the rest of this post including webinar slides, video and example workbooks

Joyful or informative charts? Best practices in visual analytics

2016May192013May10 by

Stephen Few, noted visual analytics expert and the original inspiration for our work in the field, recently wrote about criticisms of best data visualizations practices. In particular, Amanda Cox of the New York Times said, “There’s a strand of the data viz world that argues that everything could be a bar chart. That’s possibly true but also possibly a world without joy.” And Nathan Yau of Flowing Data wrote, “in visualization you eventually learn that there’s more to the process than efficient graphical perception and avoidance of all things round. Design matters, no doubt, but your understanding of the data matters much more.” These are both people who have a body of work that I admire but I am also surprised at these comments.

This discussion reminds me of a similar problem in marketing and web analytics. Generating traffic that leads to sales is good. Eventually, someone finds a way to generate traffic that leads to not many new sales, but management is misled to think this must be good since traffic leads to sales. This is similar to “look, this chart is beautiful“, but hard to interpret or understand. So, while we delivered fun graphs, minimal information is shared. This may be good for traffic, but not so much for higher sales.

I suspect that part of this recent criticism can be traced back to Stephen’s recent criticism of Tableau, “Tableau Veers from the Path“. In it, he mentions a new graph type in Tableau, packed bubble charts and contrasts them with bar charts. This is an example of the “avoidance of all things circular”. Is Stephen truly anti-joy@f16 Will an example show him to be wrong@f17 Let’s give it a try and you can judge for yourself.

Here’s a packed bubble chart example