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.

TABLEAU GARTNER BI BAKE-OFF: NATURAL DATA INTERACTIONS

TABLEAU | YOUTUBE VIDEO

In this video, Tableau shows how you ask questions about your data and add filters by typing natural language searches in dashboards.  The demo then peeks at the future of natural language data interaction and shows off an Alexa integration where you can ask questions about your data by voice.

Like technology in general, data systems are becoming more “human” in how we interact with them.  Algorithms are also being created to write reports and generate insights in natural language as well.  As analysts, we must continually evolve and redefine the value we add to analysis and data visualization as automation increasingly takes over “mundane” tasks such as anomaly and trend detection as well as  report generation.

HOW I LET DISNEY TRACK MY EVERY MOVE

GIZMODO | ARTICLE

Nobody does data-fueled personalization and customer experience optimization like Disney does.  This author recounts his personal experience exchanging personal privacy for a more magical (convenient and customized) experience using Disney’s MagicBand.

We’ve grown either comfortable or blissfully oblivious with digital tracking for the most part, and online experiences are becoming more and more customized to our personal interests.  That same philosophy is being increasingly applied to physical spaces also, especially as many people carry smartphones, which can be used as mini-tracking devices, in their pockets and purses daily.

We encourage our Adobe Analytics clients to use Adobe’s Marketing Cloud Visitor ID to “stitch” together customer data across different systems.  Using a single common ID across systems enables rich opportunities to customize and personalize the customer experience across devices, channels and platforms.

TO UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMER DATA, TRY THINKING LIKE A PSYCHOLOGIST

CMSWIRE | ARTICLE

Data does a great job telling us “what” happened, but often struggles at telling us “why” something happened.  This article reminds us that our data-driven conversion paths are travelled by human beings who are “complicated, intelligent and emotion-driven,” which makes it difficult to truly understand that behavior with just 0’s and 1’s.  For major decisions in website optimization and personalization, we need to keep peeling back data layers and keep asking “why” as often as we ask “what.”

At Evolytics, we recognize our clients’ needs for a wide range of reporting and analysis services, including “deep dive” analytics that moves beyond tactical performance reporting and instead drives strategic, business-critical decisions based on understanding “why” and not just “what.”