Blog Stats - what's up with the antlers?

So I have had my blog for some time and, being a Data Analyst, the most fascinating aspect of having a blog is the data it generates.

So as I'm sure all of you are as interested in stats as I am I thought I would share some of statistics.

First of all, I like see how people actually find my blog. Do they come through Facebook? Google? Other? I want to identify the channels that are mainly generating hits to my blog. I added my blog to Google Analytics in August 2013 so it is now possible for me to see how it has developed over time.

The sources are divided in to 4 main groups;

• Organic Search - Googling, Binging and the like
• Referral - Links from other websites not classed as Social
• Direct - Direct links the blog or links that are not tagged
• Social - Links from Social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

So looking at the statistics, it shows that Organic Search has slowly increased over time.

This is also understandable as when there is more content on the blog, there is more that can be searched. I was expecting to see some sort of delay effect in the Organic Search as it takes a while before Google actually properly indexes pages but it is not visible The top deliverers over time has, of course, been the Social channel as I have mainly used this channel to get my blog out on the wide web.

The next thing I wanted to check was what keywords is my blog showing up on searches? Well below you can see the top 30:

I especially like the "moose antlers". Not really sure why that is so popular. *J and K, I'm looking at you!*

Finally it's quite interesting to see where in the world people are coming from when visiting my blog

I must say I am disappointed that there are none in Greenland who are interested in my blog.

New Opportunities

So the questions have been coming in:
"Are you changing jobs?"
"How did you find the job?"
"Don't you like your current job?"
So I thought it best to answer all in one single post.

Are you changing jobs?

Yes, I will be starting my new job at Tictail as a Data Scientist as of 1st December.

Don't you like your current job?

I like my current job as a Data Analyst at Rezidor and I love my colleagues. My decision to change jobs has nothing to do with being unhappy with where I am. It has everything to do with opportunities and the future.

How did you find Tictail?

Well, I didn't. Tictail found me. I recieved an email from Carl (CEO for Tictail). He said that he had found my blog on the internet, found me interesting and asked if I wanted to meet up for a cup of coffee. After some googling to ensure myself that the person wasn't a complete weirdo, I accepted the invitation.

We met up and I realized that this is a passionate person with a drive that could kindle anyone's interest. As he talked about the future of Tictail I could already start thinking about the data potential that lay within it's depth. His last question was direct - "What is holding you back from joining us?"

I asked to meet the rest of the team. A couple of weeks later I got to meet Siavash and J at Tictail's office. Being at the office I saw that the passion and drive was not limited to Carl. We talked numbers, models, analysis and potential. The questions asked were clever, the analysis had depth and I saw that Tictail has smart people with great abilities. We talked future and I saw how Tictail is really focused on getting a good team to deliver a great product. This drive was visible in every person I talked to, and made me realize that Tictail is going to go far.

So, next step is going to be Tictail and I'm excited!

Update: For those who want to join the Rezidor team you can apply to the Data Analyst role on LinkedIn here.

Not everything is at it seems...

Words are about creating pictures or ideas in other people's heads. When trying to engage other people you will pull from your own experiences and try and describe situations in words that will make sense to the other person.

This can be difficult when two people have not had similar experiences. I remember trying to describe the concept of a library to one of my Turkish friends who had never been outside the town she lived in.

But the problem of incomprehension is not the only obstacle. Words have amazing power and each person will attach experiences, pictures, and even emotions to the words. This is made abundantly clear when speaking with multi-lingual people.Suddenly everyday phrases can take on a whole new dimension when seeing the person's look of surprise, horror or confusion. Some examples:

• "I went for a lovely long jump last night."
• Overhearing a teacher shouting "DIE!!" to the students.
• When an expecting mother who decides to share her news exclaims "I'm embarrassed!"

It doesn't matter how well you know languages, you will always have a stronger connection to a sound in one language than in another. This makes the brain leap to conclusions before it has time to evaluate which language the other person is speaking in. In the above cases:

• "Spring" is the Swedish word for run. The same word means "jump" or "bounce" in German.
• "Die" means "Enough" is Hebrew.
• The word for pregnant in Spanish is "embarazada"

When learning languages you need to spend time working out which pictures/ideas/emotions to connect to the sounds. When there already exists emotions connected to the sounds you are hearing, it becomes harder to break or expand the bonds.

I still smile when I'm driving around Sweden and see the signs below. It's not very helpful as I probably take the speed bumps at a higher speed than I should, having attached a happy emotion instead of a careful emotion to the word.

And for those who are as fascinated by data visualisation as I am, Small World of Words is a cool website showing what word association people have and comparing how it differs to a standard Thesaurus.