Rhea R Prabhu

My most important takeaway from this course was how to use tableau to analyze data sets and visually represent my findings. I feel as though I will be able to better work with data for future projects/courses. I also have a greater appreciation for gathering data to create data sets and transforming it so ti is standardized.

A data-driven service I usually use is the New Yorker. If the data from the activity on this site were represented in a spreadsheet, the columns would be: name of user,
date, (when you started on a page and when you leave) duration on page, articles visited, advertisements visited. This would help the New Yorker better cater content for each…[Read more]

A KPI that I use frequently is the steps tracker on my iPhone. It is a SMART KPI because

S: It is specific because I set a goal I want to accomplish for the week. If I fall short of it, I fail, if I reach or exceed it, I succeed.
M: It is measurable because the pedometer counts the total # of steps I take and breaks it up into days/weeks.
A:…[Read more]

A common mistake I have made in the past is to not back up the data that I was working with, and at times create different versions. This has particularly happened to me on excel sheets for finance classes, such as intermediate corporate finance, in which I would work on a pro forma without saving my progress at various stages. That way, if I made…[Read more]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/13/americans-arent-rejecting-trumps-immigration-ban-outright-but-it-has-a-tough-road-ahead/?utm_term=.2bfd1b7b6645

The article uses polling data to determine whether the travel ban that Trump instituted is as unpopular as the media portrayal of it on different media stations (i.e. CBS). It…[Read more]

I believe that “ask why” is the most important data principle. A infographic tells one story, but any single story has multiple facets, that cannot all be conveyed. As a result, I think it’s important that the viewers of infographics take it upon themselves to research the opposite case that an infographic makes, and to research individual…[Read more]

Data Science has had a large impact on Social Media platforms, which have been able to aggregate and analyze user data to gain insight into knowledge about individual users, their preferences and who they are. This has many effects, including the perpetuation of the filter bubble (i.e. Facebook which caters your newsfeed to your preferences and…[Read more]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/tom-brady-beats-the-world-again/

The study discusses how the Patriots, more specifically Tom Brady, win Super Bowls and play off games. The data provided Brady and non-Brady Super Bowls by wins and losses for Quarterbacks with more than 10 passes since the 2001 season. It accounts for past attempts and large…[Read more]

Conventional wisdom states that having an impairment of some sort (hearing, reading, etc.) is a setback, due to which the Goliaths of the World will always triumph over the Davids. However, in his book, ‘David and Goliath,” Malcolm Gladwell identifies that over 30% of the most successful and well known business leaders have suffered such…[Read more]

The most important takeaway from this course was the inherent biases in data and the cycle for bad decision making. I saw both of these in application during this election cycle, and multiple other circumstances in which the the incorrect collection of data led to mistrust of data and so on. Tableau was also a very important takeaway since I know…[Read more]

I use the NY Times app every morning, when I wake up to read at least an article. If I were to store the data from this service in spreadsheet, a row would be an individual username, and the columns of data would include the time spent per article, the genre of article, comments posted, articles saved, and times articles were accessed. This would…[Read more]

The article I chose discuss the wide range of projections for a win for the Clinton campaign. The article provides three reasons: (1) She is is still within the range where a fairly ordinary polling error could eliminate it (2) there was a higher third- party vote count (3) Clinton’s coalition is not structured into the electoral college as well.…[Read more]

I use the personal finance app, Mint, to measure how financially responsible I am for a given month. I created a budget based on my income and my projected expenditures. If I exceed this threshold, I am deemed financially irresponsible for the month. This KPI is SMART because it is specific to the financial goals I set; it is measurable because I…[Read more]

A mistake on excel that I have made many times when I was initially familiarizing myself with it was copying formulas that used relative coordinates and working on a database without fully backing it up first. The former is an issue because certain values need to be locked in and shouldn’t change when the cell is dragged down. If I didn’t try to…[Read more]

***Blue for Clinton and Red for Trump

The article I found interesting is titled, “2016 Election Forecast,” and it uses poll data to show the change in projected electoral and popular vote and subsequently chances of winning for each candidate. The accompanying map (to the data) shows the breakdown of popular and electoral votes for each candidate by state and is color coded red (for…[Read more]

From the article, “Stephen Few on Data Visualization: 8 Core Principles, I believe the most important principle is simplify because data visualizations are supposed to really information in a convenient and easy to access way. If a particular data visualization is too difficult to understand, it has a high chance of being overlooked and ineffective.

Rhea & Maris

Good infographic:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html