eScience

I’ve just learned of eScience as a result of a book entitled “The Fourth Paradigm”. While I don’t have that much to say about the essence of the Fourth Paradigm yet, I have to admit that I feel immediately at home with this group within eScience. One of the best quotes in the book is: [...]

Dec

21

WAA Research

Preliminary results from a membership survey suggest a strong level of satisfaction with the work coming out of the Web Analytics Associations’ Research Committee. And that’s heartening, since the volunteers do a lot of work. I’ve participated in some of that research over the years, and it’s always pretty enlightening. It’s good news.

Dec

10

Complexity

I’ve spent a lot of time this week managing complexity. And it’s gone well. I think looking for simple and remembering the end goal are two key ingredients. Backcasting happens a lot. Expecting exogenous shocks instead of being all outraged when they happen is another. That’s all that’s really on the mind. That and how [...]

Dec

04

The Seven Axioms and Predictive Validity

I published seven axioms over the past week – in a not so humble fashion. I’m taking the James Burke line to heart and just putting it out there. The Seven Axioms are: 1. The purpose of analytics is to derive competitive advantage for the organization / firm / entity. 2. Data alone does not [...]

Dec

03

Champagne Dreams on a Beer Bottle Budget

I’m reading Sam Ladner’s thesis. It’s strong work, and quite possibly one of the best reading experiences I’ve had since “Reading Virtual Minds”. On Page 149, there’s a quote in explaining the common occurrence for ‘fires’ to occur as a result of low-ball estimation: Curt: Why do they have the fires? Sam: Yes Curt: There [...]

Dec

02

Four Books, Simultaneously

I’ve been reading four books simultaneously these days. Of course, I shouldn’t really say simultaneously. I can only read one at a time. More accurate language would be ‘jumping between four books’. The first is Sam Ladner’s excellent thesis on the commodification of time in the new economy. It’s a pretty awesome read. The second [...]

Dec

01

Analytics and Inside Pool

You may or may not have been hearing about a debate going on in web analytics. To most, it might seem like a lot of inside pool. And I suppose most of these things are. I want to talk a little bit about some of that inside pool. Over the course of my WAA Research [...]

Nov

21

What Canadians could learn at Summer Heights High

I watched all 8 episodes of Summer Heights High over the past week. Trailer below The series is from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which made for a difficult user journey in finding it. I first saw Summer Heights High on Air Canada flights during the month of September. They showed the first 2 episodes. [...]

Nov

02

Talent Supply in Web Analytics

Eric Peterson wrote yesterday about the coming revolution in web analytics. It’s worth a read and it sparked off a lengthy twitter exchange. I think we have a huge talent supply problem in the web analytics industry. Web analysts are very specialized in terms of their understanding of the Internet, websites, tracking technologies and reporting [...]

Oct

19

The Strength of Weak Ties

A tight group of friends will tend to overlap in terms of product adoption and preferences. Like people clump alike. I hypothesize that the social graph is partially-fractal. I use the word ‘hypothesize’ because I don’t have the technology to prove it. Moreover, at this point, I don’t think I could write the proof to [...]

Oct

02

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