Author: Tom Tao

Tracking tennis using Apple Watch – My own takes after 18 month of usage

Playing tennis has been a major part of my adult life: It is fun, competitive and a truly global sport. More importantly, it has shaped my character and my social network. Over the past 18 months, I have been using my Apple Watch to track, and subsequently, to analyze my tennis performance along with swimming

In this post, we will cover the background, the pros and cons of different apps, and how the additional metrics playing a role in my mindset shift.

Three lessons learned from 5 years analytics experience in a Fortune 100 company

I have recently wrapped up 5 years (4 years + 9 months to be exact) of analytics career in a Fortune 100 company. In this precious in-between moments, I’d like to take the time to reflect on 3 lessons learned as an analytics professional in the digital marketing industry.

PowerQuery and PowerPivot, the two new powerful features for the latest Excel

You are a proficient Microsoft Excel user – vlookup is an appetizer, pivot-table is the main course, and VBA/Macro is your dessert. And your company just gave you an upgraded Microsoft 365 subscription, and a brand new version of Excel is just being served. You are wondering – “What’s new?”

As an analyst living and breathing with Excel, PowerPivot and PowerQuery are the two killer features, period. I’d like to share my story on how you can save time and make your spreadsheet work more efficient.

2017 Year-end review: books I read

Similar to the end of last year, I’d like to conclude my year of blogging with a post on books. During this year, my interest and commitment to reading are growing steadily. The number is backing me up …

by Tom Tao
Posted on December 31, 2017
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Year-end reflections from Toronto local chapter events, Digital Analytics Association

2017, I have been benefited greatly from the digital analytics association(DAA), including the eMetrics and certified web analyst destination, and five local chapter events in Toronto. This post breaks down these events I went to, what are they, how do they help me, and why they matter to me during the career development for a digital analyst.

Being a part of a bigger community

Earlier in my career, maybe 10 years ago, I had a similar feeling surrounded by a group of peers, sharing similar interests – tennis. We achieved great things together – workshops, tournaments, etc. That experience not only shaped my life-long hobby, but also gave me an opportunity to meet, work and have fun with a few friends that I am still contacting with now.

Back in 2017, I have a similar feeling – “being a part of something big”, after attending 5 local Toronto chapter events from DAA.

Improving swimming performance with Apple Watch (Watch OS 4)

Back in February in my first post of using Apple Watch to track swim, I wrote about the metrics available and usage in the Apple Watch, a handful of data quality challenges, and my plan of using data captured to improve performance. After logging another 22 workouts since Mar 2017, I would like to give an update, and also share a few more new interesting lessons learned.

Lessons learned from an unexpected doubles tournament

Tennis is a big part of my personal life. Playing competitive level matches since 2006, I have won a few tournaments in the “club” level. Ironically, I have never played in a doubles tournament ( never a fan of doubles game, and often complain about not even getting sweaty), nor have I played in a game organized by the companies I worked for (tennis might be such a “minority” sport that didn’t get much attention).

I broke both rules last week.

It was the 1st “3M Open” tennis tournament – featured only doubles matches. One of my colleagues in the lab signed me up for it. We have played together a few times in the past but never played doubles as partners. For both of us, the original goal was very clear –

“Enjoy the sunshine and have some fun. “

In the end, we brought the “3M cup” back home by winning three straight matches in a row. When I look back today, the experience was 100% memorable. But “fun” is not the appropriate word. Instead, it is more of the mix of drama, pressure, heartbreak, teamwork, and a sense of relief.

Let me tell you why:

Building a “digital dashboard” – Part 2 Technical side using Microsoft PowerBI

Introduction

I have been using Microsoft product for over 20 years, starting with MS-DOS, and Windows 3.1. Microsoft PowerBI is my favorite software so far: It is simple, updated frequently, and has the right amount of configuration to “get things done”. The user community used to be small back in 2015, but it is catching up quickly with the forum, free resource (YouTube search “PowerBI”) and paid resource (high-quality material like SQLBI and PowerPivotPro) .

At the same time, as an analytics practitioner, I also understand it is vitally important to keep a mindset of “software independent”. What matters the most is the ability to deliver high-quality deliverable in the most efficient way. A technology tool like PowerBI can help to achieve that, however, we need to be cautious of falling in love with the software, not your own craft and the value delivered.

My experience of becoming a certified web analyst

I have finally earned my certification practicing digital analytics from digital analytics association this week. I was so pumped and barely had any sleep the night after I got it.

In this post, I will share what is this certification and different options, why getting certified in digital analytics is important to me, and how I pass the exam test (without violating the confidentiality agreement.)

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by Tom Tao
Posted on July 22, 2017
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eMetrics Chicago 2017

Attending eMetrics 2017 in Chicago is a highlight of my career in 2017 – Both myself and my organization invested a lot to make the trip happen. I am glad it worked out well in the end.