The Accidental Analyst: Show Your Data Who's Boss

Are you drowning in a sea of data? Would you like to take control of your data and analysis to quickly answer your business questions and make critical decisions? Do you want to confidently present results and solutions to managers, colleagues, clients and the public?

If so, you are an Accidental Analyst! Although you didn't plan for a career as a data analyst, you're now in a position where you have to analyze data to be successful. Whether you've been working with data for a few years or are just getting started, you can learn how to analyze your data to find answers to real-world questions. Even if you're an expert, you'll find creative ideas on how to work with accidental analysts. Using illustrated examples, we'll walk you through a clear, step-by-step framework that we call The Seven C's of Data Analysis.

Read this book for inspiration, ideas and confidence to begin tackling the problems you face at work. Keep it by your desk as a reference on how to organize, analyze and display your data using best practices of visual analytics. Don't worry, you can continue to use your favorite spreadsheet or data analysis software—this information is not tied to any particular application. Throughout the book, we also include tips, tricks, and shortcuts that took years of analyzing data to discover and understand!

This book is valuable for users of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Business Objects, Cognos, JMP, Microstrategy, Panopticon Software, QlikView, R, SAS, SPSS, Tableau Software or Tibco Spotfire.

Please visit us at www.AccidentalAnalyst.com for articles, our free newsletter and upcoming events.


"This is a wonderful book, filled with practical advice.
... a great resource for building analytical prowess."
Stephen Few
Best-selling author of "Show Me the Numbers" and "Now You See It"

"Finally, a book that clearly explains the fundamentals of business analytics!"
Tim Latendress
Financial Analyst

"This book is an amazing resource for regular business people."
Diego Saenz
President, Petplace and former CIO of Pepsi Latin America

In his talk at the 2012 Tableau Conference, Pat Hanrahan, PhD,
explained that the book changed how he thinks about analytics and
inspired him to develop a new approach to teaching.
Professor at Stanford University
Co-founder of Tableau and Pixar
Two Academy Awards


Eileen McDaniel, PhD
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Freakalytics, specializing in educational materials and analytical training with the goal of empowering people to get the most out of their data and take decisive action in their daily work. Her unique experience in science and business inspired her to adapt the scientific method for business, resulting in the Seven C's framework. She also is co-author of Rapid Graphs with Tableau and the Rapid Dashboards Reference Card and App.


Stephen McDaniel
Co-Founder and Principal Data Scientist of Freakalytics. He has over 25 years of experience as a statistician, analyst, data architect, instructor, data miner and software innovator. He has been a faculty member at The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI) and at The American Marketing Association. He is lead author of SAS for Dummies and has worked with over 100 organizations including Netflix, SAS, Tableau, UC-Berkeley, Duke and the US Navy.