Synopsis – This is an agency blog, but I find that Chris Goward is probably the most honest of the people in the optimization field. What I find interesting is not what he does, but his explanation of problems he saw and what he is now facing. It is a refreshing but honest look at the realities of the industry:

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Synopsis – This is my worst article of the week, but I want to put this with the previous one because I find it fascinating the contrast in message as well as the motives of the post. This one is about top 10 things a “modern” marketer should be doing, which is ironic because A) most of these have been done for years, especially in BI, but also how they are just empty statements:

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Synopsis – I loved this article. It talks about so many of the problems that people get into if they tackle analytics without discipline, and does a great job of showing historically similar problems. I sincerely wish I could have been the one to write this one:

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Synopsis – This is an interesting look at some recent studies in the world of sports analytics and how it is growing in the field. There are obviously differences (open vs. closed data systems) but I do find the things they measure to be extremely interesting. I especially found the field vision and hockey issues fascinating:

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Synopsis: This article breaks down the blame culture or more correctly, why and how people try to avoid blame. I think the real lessons here are the cases where you accept failure and then move on. I think it serves as a great reminder to everyone that we need to be more worried about letting our ego get in the way then about messing up. You can fix a problem as soon as you identify it as a problem, you can’t fix something that you refuse to see as a problem:

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