Dear Analyst

134 Episodes

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Dear Analyst #134: How Stephen Follows used AI to decode the Oscars and film data to debunk the film industry

2025-03-2645:50

Ever wondered if Hollywood’s magic is just smoke and mirrors, or if there’s actually some cold, hard data behind those blockbuster hits? I sat down with Stephen Follows, the film data analyst who’s basically Indiana Jones, but instead of chasing ancient artifacts, he’s digging up the buried truths of the movie industry. We’re talking about […] The post Dear Analyst #134: How Stephen Follows used AI to decode the Oscars and film data to debunk the film industry appeared first on .

Dear Analyst #133: Find or check if a cell contains text from a list of values or partial matching text in a list (3 methods)

2024-12-0232:01

There are times when a problem nags at you like a pebble in your shoe. Even when you’re not working on the problem itself, you’re thinking about the problem which make it even worse. Rarely do I come across a Google Sheets/Excel task I cannot solve with formulas, but this one evaded my extensive knowledge […] The post Dear Analyst #133: Find or check if a cell contains text from a list of values or partial matching text in a list (3 methods) appeared first on .

Dear Analyst #132: How the semantic layer translates your physical data into user-centric business data with Frances O’Rafferty

2024-09-1035:22

When you think of your data warehouse, the “semantic layer” may not be the first thing that pops in your mind. Prior to reading Frances O’Rafferty‘s blog post on this topic, I didn’t even know this was a concept that mattered in the data stack. To be honest, the concept is still a bit confusing […] The post Dear Analyst #132: How the semantic layer translates your physical data into user-centric business data with Frances O’Rafferty appeared first on .

Dear Analyst #131: Key insights and best practices from writing SQL for 15+ years with Ergest Xheblati

2024-08-0547:42

If you could only learn one programming language for the rest of your career, what would be it be? You could Google the most popular programming languages and just pick the one of the top 3 and off you go (FYI they are Python, C++, and C). Or, you could pick measly #10 and build […] The post Dear Analyst #131: Key insights and best practices from writing SQL for 15+ years with Ergest Xheblati appeared first on .

Dear Analyst #130: What happens when we rely too much on Excel spreadsheets and shadow IT takes over?

2024-06-2445:18

This is a replay of an episode from the Make Sense podcast with Lindsay Tabas. In the 1990s, large enterprises typically bought software in a tops-down approach. IT teams would get get Oracle software or Microsoft Office and get their entire organization to use the software. Since these tools are the default IT “blessed” tools, people start […] The post Dear Analyst #130: What happens when we rely too much on Excel spreadsheets and shadow IT takes over? appeared first on .

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