The Weekly Blog is curated content from the Evolytics staff, bringing you the most interesting news in data and analysis from around the web. The Evolytics staff has proven experience and expertise in analytics strategy, tagging implementation, data engineering, and data visualization.

TWO SURPRISING STRATEGIES FOR EFFECTIVE INNOVATION

TED | BLOG

If someone gave you a LEGO set and told you to build a fire department, what would you do first?  This blog post by TED proposes you may take an impatient, intuitive, or patient approach to the challenge.

An impatient person jumps in and starts building right away for simple, fast results.  An intuitive person chooses pieces by instinct and imagines how to combine them later.  A patient person selects more specialized pieces that may not yield immediate results, but will be necessary for more complex builds later on.  Only the impatient and patient individuals are working from a strategic starting point, however.

When developing analytic strategy, Evolytics takes a hybrid approach between impatient and patient strategies.  For example, when conducting data audits, we document both fixes and potential enhancements.  We identify which items are quick wins based on criticality and level of effort – our impatient strategy.  We also map out which items are not needed immediately, but would evolve and enhance data capture and analysis over time – our patient strategy.  Success with both approaches depends on fully understanding business objectives and aligning measurement strategy.

MICROSOFT POWER BI PREMIUM DELIVERS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE WITH MUSCLE

CMS WIRE | ARTICLE

Microsoft continues to secure its commitment to data visualization, promoting general availability of Power BI Premium at its recent Microsoft Data Insights Summit.  Power BI Premium is built for enterprise clients, allowing flexibility and scalability with cloud computing power and providing an on-premises solution as well.  The premium version will also lets users collaborate on analysis by allowing them to share dashboards both inside and outside of an organization.

Microsoft plans to maintain momentum on Power BI over the summer by releasing new analysis features.  In the near future, users will be able to run dynamic What If analysis on datasets, take advantage of automated Quick Insights when exploring data, and access new custom data connectors including Amazon RedShift.

Microsoft is taking a page out of Google’s playbook, giving a basic version of Power BI free to all Office 365 users, hoping to eventually convert into premium licenses. Since Office 365 is already so prevalent in many enterprises, Power BI is positioned well to become an important part of the data analysis toolset for many organizations.  Our expert data analysis and data visualization teams are using Power BI in new and innovative ways to dig into our clients’ data and streamline reporting.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION SCORES COVER ALL MANNER OF SINS

MARKETING WEEK | ARTICLE

In data analysis, we are tempted to search for that silver bullet KPI that renders all other metrics unnecessary.  However, this article reminds us we must choose wisely when selecting and focusing on KPIs, such as net promoter score (NPS).  We must stay vigilant that a primary KPI doesn’t mask potential issues evident in underlying metrics and secondary KPIs.

What’s the balance between focusing on and continually questioning KPIs though?  If we never question them, KPIs may fall out of alignment with evolving and shifting company objectives.  If we always question them however, we may never fully trust our KPIs or focus our efforts long enough to truly move the needle.

There’s a delicate balance between laser focus and regular review of KPIs.  At a minimum, organizations should reassess KPIs annually, or at any time interval when planning goals and objectives.  Major changes in marketing or advertising strategy are also good inflection points for reassessing KPIs.  Organization should develop a clear understanding of what metrics or secondary KPIs directly influence or provide additional context to primary KPIs.  For example, the article suggests that advanced analysis of free-form text comments would yield insights that can’t be fully represented in a single net promoter score.