There’s a DRY principle in programming, and one that is pervasive in RAILS-land: Don’t Repeat Yourself. The same should go for everybody. From commenting, blogging, to writing books. Repeating somebody’s work in its entirety is pretty unnecessary when a citation would do. What you build off others, how you do intellectual parkour and create something new out of many things old, is what’s valuable. You advance everybody that much further and faster by doing so. And a gap in the literature doesn’t always need to be filled. There might be a very good reason for such a gap. It’s finally time for me to make an original contribution because I have something original to say. There’s a gap that needs[…]
Author: Christopher Berry
Hamel’s counterpoint to my previous post on the Facebook LIKE button is up. Check out both posts for detail. If you want the Cole Notes: Chris: “It’s not all spam. But it can be spam. And some marketers will spam. Some marketers will provide utility. There will be a net positive over time – like email.” Dave: “It’s all spam. You clicking the Like button generates NewsFeed spam. Screw your interests, Chris. Because I don’t care if you Like something.” Fair enough Dave. I see your point and I understand it. In general, like people clump alike. I tweet stuff all the time aimed at a very specific focus area. All of it is solid gold and incredibly valuable to[…]
It’s not generally well known that when you click the Facebook ‘Like’ button on a website, you’re giving the author of that Button permission to message you in a newsfeed. So, if you LIKED a bingo card while shopping, then the owner of that site has the opportunity to message you when it goes on sale by way of your newsfeed. It’s a point brought up by Patio11 (Patrick McKenzie) over at Bing Card Creator. He’s a great entrepreneur, and I dare say, analytical thinker. His concern is that this functionality will enable marketers to spam people. It’s a valid concern. The world is filled with absolutely stupid and inconsiderate people. Just look at what they’ve done to email: It’s[…]
I’m not certain that many people really understand what private browsing it – at least based on my interpretation data published by Mozilla Labs. The study is awesome and you should check it out. I’ve been over what private browsing really is. It isn’t what I think what the general population thinks it is. (I don’t know what people are really thinking – but I can attempt to infer it by observing aggregate behavior.) Come with me and dive in. The Mozilla Labs data indicates that private browsing activations spike at noon, with subsequent spikes around 5pm, 9pm, and shortly after midnight. The median duration of staying in private browsing is 10 minutes, with 50% of the cases falling between[…]
Anybody who has seen their torrents throttled over the years knows that net neutrality really doesn’t exist, regardless if it is the law of the land. The argument against net neutrality – the notion of equality in experience – has been long trotted out. The argument goes that you have 1 person in 100 that is responsible for gobbling up 80% of the bandwidth – and they’re degrading the experience for the other 99. So, to preserve the experience for everybody minus 1, the ISP simply must place curbs on that one person. Such framing is designed to exclude the notion that the pie isn’t strictly fixed and metering isn’t essential. ISP’s are incented to maximize revenue by generating scarcity[…]
We ought to tell stories with data. Stories are hugely effective for a number of reasons. They’re easy to tell. They’re easy to remember. They’re easy for other people to remember. They’re easy for other people to tell. They’re a very fluid idea transmission device. They’re rewarding to craft – especially with data. The antagonist doesn’t always have to be human. In fact, it might be nature itself that’s the antagonist. And you can cast whoever you want as the protagonist. In sum – perhaps if we want some of our communication to be more effective from time to time, we ought to tell stories. Tell me, do you think it’s appropriate for an analyst to craft stories?
How should analysts communicate? I’ve written a lot about communication mediums. I’ve been dreaming of a post-excel world for quite some time now – getting us out of that slumber and into a world of active communication with people. And perhaps, in a more normative moment, people who matter. It’s been particularly hard to change long standing patterns of behavior. We’re getting there, gradually. Whenever something is hard, I take 90 steps back and go extreme case hunting. Come with me and let’s have some fun. At the one extreme, what if an analyst could only communicate through video? What if they were particularly effective at it, especially with the editing? What if it was edited in a compelling way[…]
Consider the problem of problem ambiguity and the solution that analytics brings to the Lean Startup – “letting thousands decide what millions do”. Time to unpack that. The problem of problem ambiguity refers to the creation of a business models or products which are intended to solve fuzzy, low-defined, problems. Yes! It really does happen! One of the mentalities within the Y-Combinator hive mind is to simply produce a product and get it out there. Iterate. Dominate. Be capital efficient. Be lean. Ponies. Stickers. Double Rainbows. And so, there are any number of firms out there that are generating solutions to problems that they don’t fully understand and loads of potential customers that are aware of ambiguous problems. The behavior[…]
Much discussion and fun was had at the July 28th installment of web analytics wednesday Toronto (#WAWTO). There was a large variety of folks who turned out – from some of the best developers in the city, some of the best strategists, and some of the best analysts and measurement scientists. Name drop commences: Attendees included June Li, Maciek Adwent, Jenn Fong-Adwent, Mark Dykeman, Dave Hamel, Glinski, Alex Brasil, Mike Fiorillo, Jose Davilla, Romy Klaus (in from London!), Lida and Mike Sukmanowski, Gar, and the whole Syncapse Measurement Science team – among many others. I counted some 45 attendees at the apogee. Thank you all for making it an excellent evening. Name drop ends. There are no stated agendas at[…]
Certain technologies bring about changes in customer behaviour. I’ll state that while not every behaviour-changing technology is profitable (from the beginning or ever), aiming to change a behaviour is more likely to result in a profitable technology. It’s relatively easy for me think of such technologies. Bronze, printing press, and internet are the three that come to mind most easily. The incremental evidence of benefits is what caused them to be adopted. That adoption, for those benefits, resulted in changes in their behaviour. We generally like to believe for the long-term good, though, for every social action there is a reaction. The environment didn’t benefit from bronze wielding humans too much. Certain factions certainly didn’t benefit from the press. And,[…]