Category Archives : Opinion


My Top 5 Reasons to Use WEKA

Reading through the Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques (WEKA) book (also part of the Data Science Reading list), I started wondering who was WEKA really for.  There are a lot of analytics tools and plenty of open-source ones.  So WEKA has to fill a niche somewhere. The WEKA website describes it uses as […]


Universal Analytics Hype: Brand Name for Foreign Keys

Jeez – How is Universal Analytics new? UA = Give everything a foreign key to a user table. Done. http://t.co/wBzWbFq8ux via @justincutroni — Will Johnson (@Web_Will) July 3, 2013 A while back, Google announced their Universal Analytics tool – or an extension of their Google Analytics tool.  To much fanfare, the tool is heralded as […]


Not Everyone Needs to Code – But Everyone Needs Stats

Which of these two blocks of text are more important for any marketer or business person to understand?  Block#1 You’ve rented two lists and sent the exact same mail piece to each list.  List A had a response rate of 0.36% and an average order value of $367.  List B had a response rate of […]

Tools for Kids to Learn to Write Code

Data Science Taxonomy: Who Cares About the Name?

Every person involved with calculating models and summing up figures has a different name for what they do.  Data Science is the new buzz word but some industry heavyweights have argued the term is different from the rest and others think data scientist isn’t for practitioners.  My belief is that it doesn’t matter what you call […]