Starting a blog on Analytics and BI...

After a few months of deliberation, I have finally bitten the bullet and started a blog website. The About page of this site tells you more about who the author of this post is, so I won't repeat it here. It previously felt like I had not quite reached the point experience-wise to be able to share valuable knowledge from which others in the Analytics and BI industry can learn.

The last couple of years with the post pandemic new normal, the new war in Europe, and the generative AI revolution as well as several personal events, nevertheless, have prompted a deeper introspection. I concluded that I have got useful knowledge and views to put out there. Hopefully, this will help those who share my interests and passion for growth in the exciting field of data, analytics and BI which is swiftly entering the new AI era.

That was the easy part, as even though it took some effort to make a start, there are quite a few practical questions to answer to set up the website and give it "life".

I don't claim to have an exhaustive list but below are the main steps I followed:

1. Clarify the aim of the blog and the topics to cover

2. Research how other Analytics and BI leaders have set up their blogs

3. Choose a platform to build and run your site on

4. Choose a name for your new blogging project

5. Set up the site and start blogging...

1. The blog's aim

Typically, the clearer the purpose of any activity the greater the chance of success. Unsurprisingly, this applies to blogs as well. In this case I am just trying to capture as much as possible of the knowledge and experience I find useful to strengthen my own understanding of that knowledge and perhaps someone else might find it useful as well. I have deliberately chosen a wider field of topics as I do not want to unnecessarily limit my interests.

I am sure though that as I iterate over the content the blog's objectives are going to evolve as well. My primary technical expertise is in building interactive dashboards and reports using tool like Qlik and Power BI so I expect a lot of the focus will be going there.

2. Research and inspiration

There are so many amazing Analytics and BI blog web sites out there that it can be daunting to explore them. The key is to look at them purely as something to aspire, to learn from, and to see how much is actually possible. Best not to compare as one of my favourite sayings is: "comparison is the thief of happiness."

I found this meta post, which had put together a review of the key Microsoft (Power) BI blog/portfolio sites as at Q1 2022, a great starting point. It includes a fitting interactive visualisation (picture below) summarising the sites by two dimensions (popularity, and tech/business focus).

Regarding Qlik, for me the indespensible source of concise wisdom has been Henric Cronström's blog (HIC).

3. Hosting platform

My priority was to go with a simple option as I am not a web developer and at this initial stage did not want to spend unnecessary amounts of time customising the UI. I needed a simple intuitive experience which offered useful templates and allowed me to get up and running asap. It was important that I did not have to spend a lot in advance as well. I focused on what was popular in the UK as that is where I am based and wanted to make sure the web site building experience worked smoothly.

So, I used comparison sites (plenty available via your preferred search engine) and in summary I made a decision across the following attributes:

• Intuitiveness of the web site building experience

• Templates richness

• Pricing flexibility

• UK site performance.

• Business email domain options.

My choice was Wix but there are quite a few other options which I am sure could work fairly well.

A concern might be how I migrate to a more cost effective platform as this site grows but that is a problem I would be happy to have later...

4. Name selection

I think this one is highly personal beyond the basic legal guidance in case you want to turn this into a business at a later stage. There is plenty of practical guidance online on taking the following into account:

• First impression - is it right?

• Pronunciation and spelling - easy to share?

• Main activity - descriptive enough?

• Trading and corporate names - unique?

• Scope - too limiting?

There is a Wix Business Name Generator which is worth having a look even for the fun of some of the weird and wonderful combinations that are getting suggested.

It's worth having a look at the official guidance for naming a company in the relevant country/state. e.g the UK Governmnet offers formal guidance and a handy tool for checking business names availability.

5. Just do it...

Once you are relatively satisfied with all of the above steps it's time to get down to business and start writing your first blog post. The preparation up to this point should make it a lot easier to avoid writer's block, e.g. most of the web site platforms offer intuitive blogging templates.

I found it relatively easy to choose a template and design, and to configure the basic structure of the site. Nevertheless, the devil is in the detail and it did take quite a bit of time to be done with the first few iterations. More are surely to come...

So, now that this first blog post is done, I hope it helps more people to start on this journey. Happy blogging!