Da Facto: Free data!

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Free data!

I have a longer post about selecting data for modeling, but for now, just know that the UN has put it's data statistical data online. Perhaps the nicest feature is that the site will search across all of their published datasets. I like adding macro level data into modeling and customer insight projects and the UN is a good source.

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Recomended Books

Thinking, Fast and Slow My Phd was in Behavioral Economics and Kahneman co-invented the field. This books sums up Kahneman's observations over an almost 50 year career. Amazing, though not for the uninitiated, overveiw of how people actually make decisions. Competing on Analytics This is a great read if your organization is just starting to realize the importance of analytics as a competitive advantage.

Visual Display of Quantitative Information This is a classic book on displaying, well, quantitative data. If you want people to pay attention to your results, you need to present your analyses well.

The Pyrimid Principle Another classic book on how to communicate complex ideas in a business environment. Not cheap but very worthwhile. The author is a former McKinsey consultant who had a major impact on how the Firm conducts its written communication with clients.

Say it with Charts This is another McKinsey book. Mr. Zelazny has been the major force in defining the look and feel of McKinsey PowerPoint decks. He also has a second book on presentations, called, strangely enough, Say it with Presenations.

The Fifth Discipline The Fifth Discipline is all about systems thinking. I use the phrase "Business Dynamics" from this book a couple of times a week. The notion is that your business is made up of some core systems and that the behaviors of those systems can be represented with some basic building blocks. By understanding how these building blocks interact, you can radically improve your understanding of the systems that drive your business performance.

Made to Stick I want my ideas to have longevity in my organization. This is a good primer on how to make ideas last.

Information Dashboard Design My company is heavily invested in Business Objects, but our dashboards always looked clunky. As with most technology implementations, the difficulty is not in getting the technology to work, it is in getting people to use technology effectively. This is a very pragmatic book that discounts use of cool looking gadgets in favor of functional design.

Business Process Management: Practical Guidelines to Successful Implementations A basic understanding of business process is critical in most corporate settings and serves as the cornerstone for process improvement. Here is a link to an Amazon search for other bookson business processes.

Loyalty Myths Loyalty is a good thing, right? How about the loyalty of an unprofitable customer? The book lays out a number of fallacies about loyalty and can help you develop an educated perspective if loyalty is a good thing for your company.

The Leadership Challenge This book identifies the critical elements of leadership through survey research. It was the first good and actionable book I have read on leadership.

The book links go through my Amazon Associates account. All proceeds to go for my kids education, buy them soldering irons, lathes, drill presses, that kind of thing.