6 (OK, 7) Big Data and Analytics Learning Resources That Business People Can Understand

Intrigued by analytics? Wish you knew more about it? A lot of people search for information, and land on sites that are, well, too geeky. They’re aimed at programmers, people who pride themselves on knowing all the intricacies of their favorite software, or (eek!) math majors. These are not good source for business people aiming to get a grip on the topic.

Maybe you’ve come across ESPN ’s FiveThirtyEight.  This is the right kind of reading for you. These articles, written in normal human English (ok, much better than normal), can be read and understood by any educated adult. Great. Still, there’s a much wider range of analytics topics, and viewpoints, on the web that business readers can understand and put to good use. It’s a matter of knowing where to look.

Start right here.

You’ve already found one of the best places to get the scoop on analytics. Several Forbes contributors specialize in analytics and have hands-on data analysis experience. These include Piyanka Jain, Author of Behind Every Good Decision: How Anyone Can Use Business Analytics to Turn Data into Profitable Insight, Bernard Marr, Author of Big Data: Using SMART Big Data, Analytics and Metrics To Make Better Decisions and Improve Performance, and yes, me, Meta S. Brown, Author of Data Mining for Dummies.

You will also find information about analytics woven into a wide variety of other topics. Contributor Gil Press writes about “technology, entrepreneurs and innovation,” a tag line that might not scream “analytics” to you, but take a look at his headlines and you’ll see that it has everything to do with analytics. Press’ column is a particularly good source for analytics education, because his material is well-researched and well-organized. Also look for analytics angles from authors such as enterprise computing expert Louis Columbus (CIOs Are Prioritizing Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing And Security In 2016/2017 Budget Cycles), media business expert Ana Seave (Elsevier CEO Using Unique Data Sets And Analytic Processes To Maintain Competitive Edge), policy expert Kalev Leetaru (Is The Era Of Social Media Analytics Coming To An End?) and a personal favorite, weather expert Marshall Shepard (The Death To One Of The Most Abused Questions Ever: Was That Caused By Climate Change?).

All The Analytics News That’s Fit To Print

If you overhear people arguing about analytics during a coffee break or drinks after work, chances are the conversation started with an article published in The New York Times. You won’t find an analytics section, or even a column, here, but analytics angles are woven into business, science and political news on a daily basis. If you want to keep up with the analytics buzz in the business world, you simply have to read it. Get started right now with this weekend’s Who Will Become a Terrorist? Research Yields Few Clues by Matt Apuzzo.

[The New York Times is the only one of the resources mentioned here that has a paywall. I pay and it’s worth every penny. If you’re too broke or too stubborn to pay, you can still get it at your library.]

Get Smart

Analytics galore, with a few new articles most every day, and an archive stretching back for years, SmartData Collective covers the gamut of analytics topics, and it’s all selected with business readers in mind. Recent items include Larisa Bedgood’s How to Personalize the Retail Experience with Data and Melissa Thompson’s Gartner warns of approaching apocalypse for IoT data management.

Have It All

Another site devoted to analytics for business readers is All Analytics. If you like audio, you’ll like All Analytics, which has the largest archive of audio seminars on analytics around. (They do have plenty of text, too!) Some of the latest on All Analytics is Emmett Cox’s article The New Frontier of Retail Analytics: It’s Magic, audio class Life in a World of Big Data, Autonomous Cars and IoT, and a calendar of upcoming analytics events around the country.

Are We Having Fung Yet?

Kaiser Fung, Author of Numbers Rule Your World, writes about analytics clearly, in a style that’s easy to understand. His blogs, Junk Charts and Numbers Rule Your World, are fun to read, and great for learning.

Tips and Tricks

Tips, Trick and Comments in Data Mining and Predictive Analytics, the blog of consulting firm Abbott Analytics, explains real-world business analytics. Here you’ll find good-sense views that help you understand what analytics does and does not do, along with practical tips for readers who have some experience and hands-on involvement in analytics.

Do you know other great resources where business readers can learn about analytics? Please let us know – leave a comment.

[Note: These are resources that I like and consider to be some of the very best sources for business people to learn about analytics. Besides Forbes, I’ve written for SmartData Collective and All Analytics. Dean Abbott of Abbott Analytics is a fellow coauthor on one my books. (And, if anyone from The New York Times reads this, I’m always available as a source.)]