For those who celebrate or acknowledge it, Christmas is now in the rearview mirror. Father Time has a beard that reaches down to his toes, and he's ready to hand over the clock to an absolutely adorable little Baby Time when 2024 rolls in. That means it's time for our annual set of reflections on the analytics and data science industry. Somehow, the authoring of this description of the show was completely unaided by an LLM, although the show did include quite a bit of discussion around generative AI. It also included the announcement of a local LLM based on all of our podcast episodes to date (updated with each new episode going forward!), which you can try out here! The discussion was wide-ranging beyond AI: Google Analytics 4, Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM), the technical/engineering side of analytics versus the softer skills of creative analytical thought and engaging with stakeholders, and more, as well as a look ahead to 2024! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

We did it! Another year in the books, and 2021 was a bit of a ride. As we do every year, on this episode we reflect a little bit on the podcast and then a lot on the industry: what the major themes of 2021 were, and what we think might be coming in 2022. Google Analytics 4, 3rd party cookies, remote work and Zoom meetings, and even the metaverse! Plus, of course, this is our annual excuse to get our executive producer, Josh Crowhurst, on a mic! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

Remember that time you ran a lunch-and-learn at your company to show a handful of co-workers some Excel tips? What would have happened if you actually needed to fully train them on Excel, and there were approximately a gazillion users*? Or, have you ever watched a Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager training video? Or perused their documentation? How does Google actually think about educating a massive and diverse set of users on their platform? And, what can we learn from that when it comes to educating our in-house users on tool, processes, and concepts? In this episode, Justin Cutroni from Google joined the gang to discuss this very topic! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.

As an analyst, it's never a good idea to make predictions without data. With that said, for our first predictions episode, we've chosen to make some big and small predictions for the digital analytics space for the remainder of 2016 -- using only experience and intuition! Join us in Episode 30 as we rely solely on intuition to predict the next 9 months of a multi-billion dollar industry - all in under 45 minutes. Note: Due to the lag between recording and release, our prediction during the episode about a certain Heisman Trophy winner actually came true...before this episode launched.

People, places, and things mentioned in this episode:

Tealium Ensighten Signal Mixpanel Amazon Redshift Looker Adobe Analytics Google Analytics Optimizely Adobe Target Johnny Manziel Cleveland Browns Paul DePodesta Moneyball Ben Gaines Median Absolute Deviation (MAD) Brian Clifton Domo Sweetspot Intelligence Tableau Software eMetrics "I Predict a Riot" (Kaiser Chiefs)