I almost forgot how much work it takes to prepare a book for publication. The first time, I went the self-publishing route with the book Business Analyst: A Profession and a Mindset. Next, I tried a mini-ebook format with the Business Analyst Mindset Digital Toolkit. Making a quality product requires not just a lot of work, but a special frame of mind where you are constantly questioning and being hard on yourself.
This time, working with a publisher, I was able to share this responsibility with an amazing publishing team, but it still took almost two years from writing the first sample chapter to submitting edited proofs.
And finally, on May 29, 2005, Foundations of Business Analytics: An Applied Approach was published as a textbook, complete with teaching materials and a test bank. This is a culmination of something new I jumped into five years ago — developing a college-level course and then teaching it at the Humber Polytechnic Business Insights and Analytics program.
I struggled to find a suitable textbook for my course, Introduction to Analytics — not too technical for an introductory course, but not so simplistic that it glossed over the many hurdles and challenges of creating useful analytical insights.
While I used many sources for teaching the course (yes, even the Government of Canada website), I wanted to create a resource that covers broadly:
- What is data, and the types of data
- Data management in an enterprise
- Analytics use cases in the business context
- Types of analytics
- Business analytics life cycle
- Analytics architecture
- Types and styles of analytics solutions
- The basics of analytics project management
- Legal and ethical implications of using analytics and AI
- Analytics careers
The book is visually rich because I believe in the power of visualization and pictures. Even a simple picture like this can hold the readers’ attention and stay in their minds, helping them to arrange their thoughts and plan:
The target audience for this book is both:
- Students of business and data analytics
- Businesspeople and leaders with a serious interest in using their data for informed decision-making
The book is available in paperback and digital formats and as a digital rental. If you are an educator, request a preview copy here.
Stay tuned for more posts about data and analytics. Writing a book is only a beginning, as it makes you think of new topics and opens new pages instead of closing them.
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