Last week I visited Chicago with my wife and son to find him an apartment.  He just graduated from Pitt and begins his next adventure in the working world.

On the first day, we visited seven places and he had to make a decision that night because the market was moving fast.  Talk about pressure.

We reviewed the list of data points including rent, square footage, location, time to office, layout, amenities, etc.  The two remaining choices were equal.

As much as he was data-driven through the process, in the end, he chose based on feeling.   It was not measurable.  That’s a big decision on intuition.

This reflects how companies talk about being data-driven.  People interpret this as decisions being made ONLY with data – but it’s not true or realistic.

How can you innovate or veer from the known using information from the past?  These types of decisions are often based on intuition and experience.

Sure, there are no guarantees, but neither does rigorous data analysis guarantee an outcome.

Now for those of us who work with data …

Recently, I wanted to wildcard-union Google Sheets in Tableau, but the driver changed and that was no longer supported.  😭  Then I found Sheetgo.com.

It’s like Tableau Prep Builder for spreadsheets.  It’s feature-rich, has a drag & drop interface – and it has a free version. 

Here’s what it looks like:

I built and tested this in 15 minutes and have a lot more to explore.  If you work with cloud-based spreadsheets, check out Sheetgo.

What tools do you use to wrangle data?  Comment and share your wisdom.

Best,
Lee
Rewriting How People See Data™