Comments on: The Best Little Book on Data

By: Gilligan on Data by Tim Wilson » Blog Archive » If the Data Looks too Amazing to Be True…

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 19:05:41 +0000

[...] anecdote is an example of The Myth of the Step Function (planned to be covered in more detail in Chapter 10 of the book I’ll likely never get around to writing) — the unrealistic expectation that analytics can regularly deliver deep and powerful [...]

By: Indra Perdana

Indra Perdana — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 03:25:43 +0000

Hi Tim,
Really like your blog. Can’t wait to read the book! Just keep the languange simple, so even a newbie can get a hook into it. And don’t forget to include a “dashboard” sub-topic somewhere in chapter 6 or 7.
Hmm.. just can’t wait.. Go for it Tim!

By: Scott Zakrajsek

Scott Zakrajsek — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:20:15 +0000

Finally getting around to catching up on your blog…I think the book sounds like a great read. I look forward to seeing the final product!

By: Tim Wilson

Tim Wilson — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:25:48 +0000

@CWC I’m building up my base of experts in the data visualization area, so I’m really hoping to hit a solid triple on that chapter and include links to some of the best resources to go deeper.

@Andrew
I spent some additional time last weekend fleshing out an outline, and I am struggling with how to frame Excel/spreadmarts vs. BI tools. I’ll get there. It’s interesting, because, up until Excel 2007, there was the “64,000 rows” as a pretty hittable limitation in Excel. With 2007, that’s up to a million rows, and I actually threw 700,000 rows of web log data at Excel 2007 on a standard, business laptop and did some pivot tables…and it handled it well.

I do have a standard riff I do on BI vendors’ sales pitches — I’ve been in pitches by Cognos (which I’ve actually used — not Cognos 8/ReportNet…but that’s what they were pitching), MicroStrategy, Business Objects, and Information Builders. Most of them multiple times over several years in different environments. They all tell substantially the same story (and all use the same “map drilldown for sales” as their shiny example), and they all set unrealistic expectations as to what will get delivered and when, IMHO. They’ve got a place, for sure, but I don’t think they do a good job of really laying out a realistic path to get to real value.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:06:36 +0000

Nice blog Tim. The book almost seems to have an “anti-Oracle”, “Death to Cognos” type of theme…especially with Chapters 7,8 and 10. I could think of a handful of executives that overpaid for BI apps who would love to read this book =)

I think you should mention the concept of data volume in Chapter 7 or perhaps the chapter on DW.

By: CWC

CWC — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:17:44 +0000

I would definitely read it. I am particularly interested in how to get the most data-viz mileage out of good old Excel. Go for it!

By: craig

craig — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:02:57 +0000

I would read it!

By: The Best Little Book on Data | eBook Business

The Best Little Book on Data | eBook Business — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:53:07 +0000

[...] Excerpt from: The Best Little Book on Data [...]