The craft of analytics has suffered due to the severe hype surrounding commercial data-mining tools. Try checking the websites of most commercial data-mining software vendors to confirm for yourself. Buying that million dollar tool will not help if you do not know the craft. Unfortunately, even the ‘consultants’ of such companies confuse the tool for the art. Often enough, all that these consultants can do is regurgitate the same meaningless crap their marketing guy shafted into their heads.

But the playing field is changing. As in other fields of human endeavour, the tools are getting better and cheaper, thus removing the first barrier to entry: Access to professional tools.

A few years back I wouldn’t have dreamed of writing a blog about doing comprehensive analytics using entirely free open source software. This blog will introduce you to both the tools and the craft, and show you how to simplify your analytics process and drive productivity in the analytics value-chain. Stuff your BI vendor is’nt seen talking about.

Seth is right. The bar’s getting a lot higher, because access to professional tools is a lot easier. Read Seth Godin’s Blog: Tools vs. Craftsmen.