Most analytics and data projects have started thinking of investing in big data initiatives.  With so much buzz about big data, organizations have started investing or are thinking of investing in Hadoop While it is great to stay on top of trends, it often ends up being another investment where the full benefit and potential is simply not realized. The learning curve is too steep and the time to implement too high. Current analytics resources lack the strong programming skills required to conduct even simple analysis tasks and activities using Hadoop. In this post, I would like to focus on providing a better understanding of what types of analysis are better suited for Hadoop vs. non-Hadoop technologies in order to simplify…

At Splunk, we are committed to providing the best product and customer service.  Feedback from our customers helps us identify areas in which we are doing well, and areas of opportunity for improvement.

A number of our customers should have received a Customer Satisfaction survey email today.  The short survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete.  The response is anonymous and will remain confidential.  We will use the data to improve our products and services.

We truly appreciate your participation and look forward hearing from you.

Time flies.  Couple of weeks ago, I was visiting a major retailer to finish up my kid’s back to school shopping.  To my surprise, I found number of holiday items – Halloween, Christmas lights and other items on the shopping racks. Hmm….I just realized that retailers are getting ready for the holiday season.

This is the time when retailers look forward to increased activity in their stores and online.  As ecommerce is picking up, more buyers prefer to do research online and make purchases through websites or mobile apps.

Holiday season can be nerve wracking for website owners who count on site availability, better user experience to drive website conversion.  Many website drive a major portion of their yearly…

Couple of weeks ago, we talked about the need to appropriately invest in people, when you invest in technology.  I wanted to continue the discussion and focus on the new area of “Big Data” – more specifically the analyst who works on big data – the “Data Scientist” and the data analyst.

I love the term “data scientist”.  It has finally made the data junkie’s job title more glamorous.  It has given both name and fame to the role.  Well everyone is talking about “big data”.  Many organizations think  hiring a data scientist is requirement for solving all “big data” problems and the only analyst required with a big data problem are data scientist. If you have invested in…

You hear this quite often.  We all love to share the excitement of a new purchase – be a new car or a new gadget.  Feelings from purchasing a new software are no different.   Organizations tout on their investment in a new tool or technology, soon to realize that they have not achieved the full value or benefit from their investment.  There is a perception that investment in tools/technology is the answer to all the problems.  Well that is just the beginning for solving the problems.  There are two important questions that I tend to ask:

1) Was your selection the best for solving the problem you were aiming to solve?

2) Have you invested the right resources or…

Every now and then, you get so busy at work/home that you put off few things you like to do.  I know everyone goes through this.  For the last few weeks, I have been both busy and lazy.  Busy at work and lazy about writing a blog post.  My good friend and desk neighbor is kind enough to remind me that it’s always good to write…thanks Erin!

I wanted to focus this short post on two key elements of successful analysis and analytical teams.  On any given week, I interact with number of customers and organizations.  A clear distinction of successful analytical function is the focus on the two elements – intent and outcomes.  Many have talked about…

It happens to me quite a bit that I hear a song and then it keeps playing in my head.  My 4 year old is notorious for singing the same song over and over and then I find myself humming during my long train ride to work.

Sometimes, it happens at work – you hear a thing and you keep hearing about the same thing in almost every conversation.  I am sure you have had those times too.  A number of you will have had days or weeks when you have had some discussion on “big data”.

For the last three weeks, I have had number of conversations on the topic of big data.  Strata,

On February 10, Forrester Research published research titled “Welcome to the Era of Digital Intelligence”.  Joe Stanhope and the crew at Forrester have done a fantastic job at laying out the current challenges in the web analytics space and laying out a framework for Digital Intelligence.  I couldn’t agree more.

Forrester is redefining web analytics as “Digital Intelligence”.  According to Forrester, Digital Intelligence is:

“The capture, management, and analysis of data to provide a holistic view of the digital customer experience that drives the measurement, optimization, and execution of marketing tactics and business strategies.”

What this means to the analytics industry is quite interesting.  Web Analytics solutions that have provided clickstream reports and some level of segmentation are…

Many of you have read about the exciting launch of Splunk version 4.3.  This release has a number of enhancements which will help users.  Splunk is used by many users for web analytics and probably wondering how these features affect you.  Well, I am very excited to share that these features are available in the Web Intelligence App and also available for web analytics using core Splunk.  I am going to focus on couple of the features in this blog post – sparklines and data preview.

Context is King for any insightful analysis.  The context can be based on time (time series reporting) or comparing trends for various dimensions.  Visualization of these trends can make analysis faster and…

At Splunk, we are committed to providing the best product and customer service.  During my last three months at Splunk, I have heard number of success stories as well as feedback from our customers on areas that we could do better.  I firmly believe in measuring the feedback.   Feedback from our customers helps us identify areas that we are doing good and areas of opportunity.

Starting this week, we have initiated our first Customer Satisfaction survey.  The survey is a very short survey – 6 questions that will help us gauge how we are doing. The survey should take less than 5 minutes.  The response is anonymous and will remain confidential.

A randomly selected set of customers should have received…