Ilya Chukhlyaev has over 10 years of experience in online analytics. From 2013 to 2017, he headed the analytics department at Adventum, and since 2017, he has been the regional director of OWOX (CIS region). He defended his dissertation on web analytics in the USA, and took part in the largest conferences on marketing and analytics: Go Analytics, Matemarketing, etc. Among other things, Ilya is a teacher - he has already taught online analytics to over 200 people in his own courses.
Ilya has already given us an interview before — he talked about taiwanese telegram how a marketing director can build an effective analytics system in a company. Today Ilya shares a selection of the most useful, in his opinion, sources of information for an analyst: books, blogs and channels that will help you improve in the profession.
Ilya Chukhlyaev, Russia & CIS Director at OWOX BI
Why such a list?
Digital analytics is a field with a fairly young and not yet established knowledge base. For example, in 2008, Brian Clifton's very popular and cool book Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics was published. At that time, it was a breath of fresh air, had a good description of the basic practices of working with metrics. But a year later, it was unsuitable for reading. The practices remained, but due to changes in the Google Analytics interface, it became extremely difficult to perceive.
I offer books that are not focused on developing technical skills, but on expanding the strategic perception of tasks and projects. It is precisely this perception that middle and junior analysts often lack in order to take the step up to senior or head. Or even go into management.
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Books
The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist's Guide to Success in Business and Life
In Russian, the book is called "Game Theory". For techies it may seem "watery", but for someone with a less strong background in mathematics it will be quite interesting.
Why to read: The book covers the basic principles of decision making well, which is important to know for any analyst who wants their work product to be in demand.
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't
Why to read: This book is written specifically for analysts and helps you understand how to distinguish important signals in the data and information around you from noise that should not influence your decision.
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
Classic. The book is written in the format of a novel, can be read in a day and clearly explains optimization.
Why to read: The principles apply to both a manager and a product analyst.
Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals
Why to read: The book is very easy to read and clearly explains how to build a story, backing it up with data. It is very important for an analyst to understand why the graph he has built is incomprehensible to someone with a different mindset.
The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios
Why to read: the book contains many practical examples of how to and how not to build dashboards. The only thing is that not all examples are suitable for Russian realities. Our people perceive information somewhat differently than Americans.
Data Smart: Using Data Science to Transform Information into Insight
Why to read: the book is about Excel, but written with an emphasis on solving practical problems in working with a database. I recommend it to those who plan to work with database segmentation and want to learn how to draw conclusions.
Database Marketing 4e: The Masterplan for Starting and Managing a Profitable, Customer-Based Strategic Marketing Program
Why to read: The book is a collection of marketing theories and strategies that have been relevant for the last 15 years and updated to take into account digital platforms. This is a reference book for every marketer, but it will also be useful for an analyst, because it not only contains marketing tricks, tactics and tips, but also explains how to use marketing metrics, measure them, build and implement the most effective strategies.
"The Numbers Game : How Analytics Makes Video Games Live Better"
This is the only book from the list that I haven't read yet
But I'm ready to recommend Vasya Sabirova with my eyes closed.