Microsoft’s open source data visualization tool extends the functionality of its cloud services, especially Azure Data Studio

I wrote an Azure Data Studio post about a number of features that treat data exploration with the convenience of an IDE experience. But occasionally you need data visualization to see how the data could be best represented in a graph. There is a programming framework that can be used in Data Studio for that purpose. It is called Sanddance. …

If you are planning to build a business, there are a lot of metrics you can choose from to help guide your marketing and operational cost. In a previous Better Marketing post, I explained what these metrics are — KPIs — and how they are used.

This post will examine a specific KPI, one that demonstrates a valuable way to look at how effectively you are attracting the audience you are looking to. That metric is called Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC.

What Is CAC?

The customer acquisition cost represents the total cost from sales and marketing efforts required to acquire a customer…

You have likely heard about Clubhouse, the audio-chat app that allows users to talk with other users in real-time.

Is joining Clubhouse a useful tactic for your marketing strategy? While the app is certainly exciting, its value is still a work in progress, facing the evolving challenge of rapidly growing a social media platform, as well as competition rising just as quickly.

The Basics on Clubhouse

Clubhouse is an audio-only social app that allows people to host virtual chat rooms. App users come to chat about a variety of topics, from tech to popular culture. Users can browse discussions in each room so they…

The more you use social media, the more likely you will come across trolling behavior. It’s no big deal to just block a troll if your social media usage is casual. For those who use social media for commercial choices — i.e. selling a book, raising funds for a non-profit, or activism — examining troll behavior and how to best manage that behavior is a must for maintaining a digital profile. Trolls come to online profiles, but you can keep them away. Here are a few ideas of how trolling interaction should be kept in check.

Trolling by definition is…

Seems like everywhere you look, someone wants to be a thought leader on some subject. Speaking out is meant to give an advantage in leadership and drawing attention to what you have to say. But with so much social media proving exposure to so many insights, it is really important to know what and when to contribute to a public conversation. Understanding the differences makes the difference in identifying meaningful, inspiring thought leadership.

Thought leaders are assumed to be people with interesting opinions. While that is true, it runs a bit deeper than that. Thought leaders are people with informed…

If you are launching a digital ad to sell your book, webinar, or product, you will dabble with metrics that just show how many visits are occurring on your website. Digital ads have made marketing costs more affordable for small businesses, non-profits, and solopreneurs to advertise a product or service within a certain budget.

Most people look at the cost per click metric — if they look at metrics at all — and decide they have useful information to determine if they should still be advertising more or stop spending.

What people should look at are two metrics that most…

There are many technology platforms that business leaders and small team members see these days. IDEs and platforms have expanded their services beyond specific code. Yet team members may not know how to best contribute to the technical conversations online, be it with a developer or, these days, a data scientist. One tool that was just introduced, GitHub Discussions, may be the most helpful in gathering a development team with various skillsets on the same dialog to support a project involving a programming language.

What Is GitHub Discussions

GitHub Discussions is a platform for open transparency conversations that are not necessarily linked to a…

If you deal with analytics or marketing you will likely run into the term KPI, which stands for Key Performance Indicator. But what performance should be “indicated” in your dashboard? There are a lot of ways to approach selecting a KPI, but there are a few concepts that should be kept in mind no matter how the KPI is chosen.

Let’s start with the basics. KPIs are metrics linked directly to business growth.

There are many metrics that can seem useful as a KPI at the start of a campaign, such as follower growth on a social media platform. …