SDS 682: Business Intelligence Tools, with Mico Yuk

This is episode number 682 with Mico Yuk, host of the Analytics On Fire podcast. 

00:19

Welcome back to the SuperDataScience Podcast. Today I’m lucky to be joined by Mico Yuk. A straight shooter who pulls absolutely no punches in her assessment of, well of anything, but particularly about vendors in the data analytics space. Mico is host of the popular Analytics on Fire podcast, which has a cult following. She co-founded the BI Brainz group and analytics, consulting and solutions company that has taught over 15,000 students analytics, visualization, and data storytelling courses, including at major multinationals like Nestle, FedEx, and Proctor & Gamble. She authored the Data Visualization for Dummies book and is a sought-after keynote speaker and TV news commentator.

00:59

In this episode, Mico details her BI, business intelligence and analytics framework that persuades executives with data storytelling. She fills us in on what the top BI tools are on the market today, and the BI trends she’s observed that could predict the most popular BI tools of upcoming years. All right, let’s jump right into our conversation.

01:20

Mico, welcome to the SuperDataScience Podcast. I’ve been trying to get you on the show for ages, and now you’re finally here. Where in the world are you calling in from? 

Mico Yuk: 01:28

I’m from hot Atlanta, Georgia. 

Jon Krohn: 01:29

I’ve never been to Atlanta, but I’ve heard good things. 

Mico Yuk: 01:32

Yeah, I mean, we have a lot going on here. I don’t know if you saw, we recently got the FIFA and the Olympics coming here, so like, construction is in and traffic is insanity. Not that we need more, but like we, we’ve got, we got awarded both, so it’s- 

Jon Krohn: 01:45

Yeah, I do know- 

Mico Yuk: 01:46

It’s [inaudible 00:01:46] here.

Jon Krohn: 01:47

It’s the longest commute in America on average. 

Mico Yuk: 01:51

So I’m like you, like we were talking before the show. I live on one road and I just go back and forth. I, I’ve, you know, in Atlanta you have to do it for your sanity. 

Jon Krohn: 02:00

Yeah. So I had you recommended to me as a guest by several people, and I think the last person of at least three people that recommended you was Kate Strachnyi, who’s a wonderful person in the data community. And so on the third recommendation, I was like, all right, we’re doing this right away. And then it took a while to get you booked. You’re a very tough, a very hot ticket in town down in hot Atlanta, but we’ve now finally pulled it off and you’re here. So you’re the host of the Analytics on Fire podcast. 

Mico Yuk: 02:36

Yes, sir. 

Jon Krohn: 02:36

It has been, and it may even be still today, the number one podcast in analytics. You are in the top 2% globally across all podcasts, including like all the mainstream podcasts out there, which is wild. And you have somewhat of a cult following. So I understand you can tell us a bit more about this, but when you go to conferences, you have people coming up to you. Yeah. Tell us about it.

Mico Yuk: 02:59

Yeah, so Analytics On Fire is a cult. It’s no longer a podcast. That’s what we call it, a cult. Then, because I will go to conferences and because we didn’t produce like t-shirts and cups, people will print their own things, come up and be like, “Hey, Mico, like, I’ve been watching you for like, how many years and I have my cup with me cuz I knew you were here.” Or their t-shirts or like, you know, I have people that will like walk up and many times and be like, “Oh, when I started my job, your podcast was mandatory to my job”. So, you know, because we’re like your podcast, we’re like, you know, educational. We bring in leaders, taught leaders like yourself, and they talk about topics that are relevant that can really help people. So the whole premise of it is that we do no bs. So there’s no fluff on our podcast. We tell it as it is good and bad. So I think people appreciate that, you know, there’s no marketing. 

Jon Krohn: 03:43

Yeah. You are famously no bs. That’s one thing that I know about you for sure. 

Mico Yuk: 03:47

Yeah. Perfect. 

Jon Krohn: 03:47

So speaking of educational, you also co-founded an organization called BI Brainz, like Business Intelligence Brains, but the Brains has a “Z” on the end, or Z depending on where you’re in the world. 

Mico Yuk: 04:03

Yeah, we won’t talk about The Jerk Off. That wouldn’t sell us the one with the S cuz he’s known name. 

Jon Krohn: 04:07

Oh, okay. I see.

Mico Yuk: 04:11

[inaudible 00:04:12] All right. 

Jon Krohn: 04:11

S or not, BI Brainz has been a big hit. You’ve had 15,000 students use some kind of education from the platform. So you have online students, but also in-person trainings. And so you’ve had seven-figure revenue for the online course alone, eight-figure revenue if you include the other kinds of training. 

Mico Yuk: 04:35

Consulting, yep. 

Jon Krohn: 04:35

Yeah, consulting. And so I understand that a big part of what BI Brainz teaches is your BIDS framework. This is the B I D S framework, which is the BI slash analytics data storytelling framework. And so the idea here is it’s a framework for allowing data storytelling, data visualization to persuade decision makers, right? 

Mico Yuk: 05:02

Correct. So I started off as a consultant and enterprise quickly rose up to top 1%. So I worked in New York, I think I told you that on 42nd and second quickly became like top 1% in the world in that, in that field. And then realized that like I went through so much that I wanted to help other people in the enterprises basically go through what I didn’t go through. And so I actually developed a framework to help people that were like me. Didn’t know it become such a hit, let’s be honest. Like I put it out there and I was like, oh, you know, I’m going to put it out there before, you know, community and all this stuff. And then, you know, who knew there were so many people like me that were really struggling with this. You know, just we were, we had data visualizations, we had reports, but it’s like, how do you tell the story? Like, how do I get Jon to make a decision because putting a chart in front of Jon is not working. Right? And so crafting that story and created a framework around that, particularly for enterprises where there’s all these complexities and diplomacy and all that stuff that became a hit. So it was, you know, it was even surprising to us, to be honest. 

Jon Krohn: 05:57

So yeah, tell us about the framework. Break it down for us. 

Mico Yuk: 06:00

Yeah. So without advertising, it’s very straightforward. So one of the things I noticed Jon, and you’ll appreciate this cuz you know, you’re in a decision making role, right? You’re an executive, is that a lot of times, you know, when you come to need and reporting, people tend to focus on two things, right? They focus on the data and they focus on the medium, the output, whether it’s the visualization or the report. What I tend to realize, and what I learned was, before you get to all that stuff of visual and data, you actually need to understand what the hell the person wants. And so what I did is I created a framework on three tenants, which is the first one is what you ask. So when you’re working with someone, what are the exact type of questions you need to ask and not ask? 

06:40

Then it’s what you write. So the second part is about actually how to storyboard and we’ve created our own storyboard, and then it’s what to, what to visualize or draw, right? So then it’s what, how do you express and communicate that? So we kind of went backwards, but that was again, just based on my experience consulting with Fortune 500 companies around the world. And that has been a hit. We’ve had multiple companies adopt it from Shell to Ericsson to Nestle, you name it, across the globe. They’ve brought it in. You know, a lot of time we get data leaders or BI leaders that will bring it in, adopt it, and it it works with any BI tool. So we’re tool agnostic.

Jon Krohn: 07:16

Oh, gotcha. So some people, I guess the big kind of tools in the BI space are Tableau, Power BI- 

Mico Yuk: 07:23

ThoughtSpot. Correct. And so with us, it doesn’t matter, right? I mean, the reality is that, and you notice this, Jon, all these tools have a bar chart right? Now, you know, one of them may take two clicks to get a bar chart, another one may take three clicks, but you know, they all have a bar chart. And so we stayed away from the tool and we focus on a framework and whatever output you have, you can actually build in any tool that you want. Because you notice the tool, the tool, this is like the Fortune 500, right? It comes and goes, I mean, in the next three years it’s all going to change again, right? Today it was Tableau, first it was Business Objects, then Tableau, now it’s Power BI. Two to three years from now, it’ll be, you name it, you know. So we, it was very smart for us [inaudible 00:08:03] tool because I think tools come and go, but you got to have the foundational knowledge. 

Jon Krohn: 08:07

Nice. Do you have from your perspective there, do you have any insights for us on what the next tool might be? 

Mico Yuk: 08:14

Yeah. So I have some thoughts. I get asked. That’s actually the number one question I get asked. 

Jon Krohn: 08:18

Oh, really? Ah, I was like, ah, I’ve got such a smart question. I bt no one thinks so much. 

Mico Yuk: 08:22

No, but I used to never answer it across the world. Like it’s literally, I’d be in these keynotes, I’d be at these like customer events, like at the vendor event, and they’re like, Mico, what tool do you prefer? I’m like, oh, f***. I’m like, well, it’s not the tool of the vendor I’m speaking at. So, right? So I was like, I refuse, I plead the fifth. But I don’t know, you know, I have some hope for ThoughtSpot, I think they’re doing some super cool stuff. They’re kind of ahead in NLP and, and kind of how they approach it. There’s some contenders up and common. You know, there’s this Headless BI concept now. Companies like GoodData. My good friend Ryan Dolley works there. So there’s some stuff, but I don’t know, I think Power BI is going to be the king of the land or queen for at least another three to four years solid. I just don’t see anybody that’s close enough. And I think Tableau’s going a different direction. So if anybody may be ThoughtSpot, maybe, maybe a GoodData. 

Jon Krohn: 09:21

So I have a few questions coming out of this. So first of all, what, what is Headless BI? What does that mean?

Mico Yuk: 09:26

Okay, so I know you’ve heard about Reverse ETL, right?

Jon Krohn: 09:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe you can break it down for our listeners. 

Mico Yuk: 09:32

Okay. Well, I am no specialist in Reverse ETL, but I could tell you what it is, only because I know the two companies very well that do it, which is Hightouch or Census. I think you’ve heard of both of those. So essentially Reverse ETL, what ETL used to be was you would have to take the data and get it into one place, right? And then when you get into one place, you would do all this stuff there and then you could use it. Reverse ETL is the opposite. Reverse ETL is, you know what, we’re not taking the data in one place. We’re going to put everything, we’re going to take all the data sources and let you kind of pull from them, pull it together, pull from them as needed and do what you need to do. So essentially what it does is it kind of eliminates this kind of, you know, single source of truth I call, you know, I call, so I can go on a rant on this. I live through the data warehouse era. I hate to age myself, right? And I call it data warehouse era The Lord of the Ring. Why do I call it this, what I call it The Lord of the Rings? You remember the ring in Lord of the Rings? 

Jon Krohn: 10:26

Yeah. 

Mico Yuk: 10:26

It was the precious. That is what a data warehouse is. Yeah. Do you remember how he went down the dark tunnel to try to get it ? He never came. 

Jon Krohn: 10:34

I see, I see. 

Mico Yuk: 10:36

You get it. Right? So I would look through the data warehouse everywhere. Everybody wanted a single story to the thruth. And so it’s kind of funny today to see that they’re like, you know what? The hell with that. Stop, stop. You no longer want that. Just give us our data. And so I think out of that, it has bred stuff like Reverse ETL and “Headless BI”, right? So a company like GoodData, and it’s, I hope I get it right. Ryan explained it to me. They’re not focused on having a encompassing, like a Power BI BI tool where they then hold your data and then you have the visual end, right? They’re focused on allowing you to take the data and you can actually connect it to any tool that you want, right? So it’s a Headless BI, it doesn’t have its own “face” like a Power BI or Tableau. Does that make sense?

Jon Krohn: 11:20

Gotcha. Gotcha, gotcha. So it’s kind of more like an API than a UI. 

Mico Yuk: 11:26

That’s exactly correct. And don’t get me wrong, they do have a visualization element or element to report on, but you don’t have to use it. So they allow people with all these different data sources to kind of be a bit more free, I guess, heterogeneous in terms of their approach in how they want to visualize, right? I think, I think it’s a result of the field data leaks. It’s a different discussion, it’s a result of the data leaks that everybody wanted like five years ago to fail. 

Jon Krohn: 11:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Mico Yuk: 11:54

Right. So now we’re headless, we’re like Headless BI, so yeah. All right. Pretty animated there. All right. I’m going on a runt. 

Jon Krohn: 12:01

Going back, you mentioned the Power BI you think is going to be queen for a while. So what is about Power BI that makes it the default choice today? 

Mico Yuk: 12:08

So it’s not a great tool. Okay. Power BI is not a great tool. I just, and forgive me, Lord, I have so many friends at Microsoft- 

Jon Krohn: 12:18

That must be the first Microsoft tool that people don’t like. 

Mico Yuk: 12:22

Right? No. Yeah. Okay. No- 

Jon Krohn: 12:25

I don’t have any, I’m like, if people haven’t figured this out from the show for, I don’t have any Microsoft software anywhere. 

Mico Yuk: 12:32

Okay. I’m an Apple girl, so I think I have Microsoft on my desktop, granted, but the licensing is always an issue cuz they can never get it right. But anyways, so Power BI is not a great tool. The power of Power BI is the fact that you get everything that comes with it, like Azure, right? So I think what they have done though is that they’ve allowed Power BI to show up in Office 365 where anybody can download it, but it’s a visualization tool coming from like a sophisticated tool like Business Office of Tableau, like I did. Power BI is like chop change, baby change. So, you know, I love Microsoft, oh God, let me help you, Microsoft people I love you. I was a Microsoft RD and a [inaudible 00:13:08] I need need to put this out there. I love you. 

Jon Krohn: 13:11

They do amazing research. They actually, they publish more than any of the other big tech companies.

Mico Yuk: 13:16

Well, I call them the Mercedes-Benz of our industry, right? Mercedes-Benz has more patents than anybody else, so I consider them to be, but what is good about Power BI is Microsoft. Microsoft’s innovation cycle and the way that they’re innovating. That’s why I would get Power BI, not because the tool is great, because they are not stopping, you know, you could see how quickly they jumped into OpenAI. I mean, they were on it before the thing got hot, you know? So I think with Power BI what you see is people see that Microsoft is leading as a company and they realize, hey, this tool one isn’t going to disappear and it’s going to continue to evolve.

Jon Krohn: 13:51

Gotcha. So it’s the queen because Microsoft evolves so quickly, they- 

Mico Yuk: 13:58

Innovation. 

Jon Krohn: 13:58

Integrate things so quickly and it also gives you great connectivity with Azure. 

Mico Yuk: 14:04

Yeah. Like take an example, the Python thing, Microsoft bought R, the Power BI team saw Python was running. Yeah. They bought, they bought R. 

Jon Krohn: 14:12

They bought R? 

Mico Yuk: 14:13

I believe so, yeah. Yeah. I think they, I think they, they bought R, they did a stake in it. They identified that Python was, Python was hot. And even though R was a big investment, they just, they just opened the door to Python. You know, they, they are, they’re very forward thinking. 

Jon Krohn: 14:31

Oh, yeah, I see. Yeah. So Microsoft hired Revolution Analytics- 

Mico Yuk: 14:35

Correct. 

Jon Krohn: 14:36

In 2015. And yeah, Revolution was a commercial provider of R software. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mico Yuk: 14:43

Correct. Right. And so think about that. They made this big investment and because they thought that was the way forward, again, they were ahead of their time, saw Python pick up, and I was there when, you know, when that decision was made and they said, you know what, investment or not, we’re opening the door to Python. And so Power BI fully works at Python. And so, you know, that level of thinking where you’re willing to be heterogeneous and even cannibalize your own products, that’s the company that’s going to thrive.

Jon Krohn: 15:06

I guess with how big they are, they’re going to have to be cannibalizing.

Mico Yuk: 15:11

Correct. 

Jon Krohn: 15:12

Butchering the process. 

Mico Yuk: 15:13

Cannibalizing, 

Jon Krohn: 15:14

Cannibalizing, they’re going to have to cannibalize something. Because they’re, they’ve got tentacles in everything. 

Mico Yuk: 15:21

In everything, correct. Yeah. So I just think Microsoft is a winning, they’re winning all around and I don’t, I don’t see that stopping anytime soon. I mean, you know, you have Salesforce, you have Google with Looker, you know, at one point I thought Looker was going to be up there, Google acquired them. You have Tableau, Salesforce acquired them. I mean, what, what do we really have left? You know, I don’t know if ThoughtSpot is going to get acquired, you know, micro strategy has been hanging around. No one will buy it because of the f*** up CEO. So yeah, it’s, you know, it’s, is this, should I not say that on this podcast? Sorry. 

Jon Krohn: 15:53

No, I’m glad that, it’s awesome to have you be so open about, yeah, I try to, I guess I’m too diplomatic maybe too much of the time. I should take, I should take a note out of your book. I love it. 

Mico Yuk: 16:06

Oh, you didn’t see my last post telling people “Sionara [inaudible 00:16:09]”? Oh yeah. I’ll have to say that went viral. You didn’t see it? Yeah. I posted something controversial and I lost like 150 followers, like within hours. And they were all like, the top viewers were CEOs, founders, directors, executives, and I said, “Sionara [inaudible 00:16:26]” And it went viral.

Jon Krohn: 16:28

Oh my goodness. That’s wow. 

Mico Yuk: 16:31

I mean, after the pandemic, like life is, you know, it just, it’s got to be me. 

Jon Krohn: 16:36

Well it’s great to have that on this show. Thank you. Mico. Yeah, so f*** up CEO, 

Mico Yuk: 16:44

Michael, I mean he, Michael Saylor, like he’s all Bitcoin also, you know, it’s, if you want to do Bitcoin, you can invest in market strategy. 

Jon Krohn: 16:52

Okay. Yeah. I mean, so this is all news to me. But okay, so we’ve talked about the frameworks or sorry, we’ve talked about these different BI tools and got your great insights on them. I actually dragged you over here on a tangent. What we were talking about was your state, your BIDS framework- 

Mico Yuk: 17:09

Yes. 

Jon Krohn: 17:09

The BI and analytics data storytelling framework. And so you were telling us about it, you were saying that you break things up into three categories of questions. And so there was what kinds of questions to ask, and then there’s how do you visually communicate? And I didn’t catch what the third one was.

Mico Yuk: 17:26

And it’s what do you write? So we go from asking questions, taking the answers, and put them in the storyboard. So that’s the written part. And then we take that and we visualize and communicate it. Because what I found, what I found in, you’re in New York, right, Jon? Yep. Okay. So you’re known in New York crowd. It’s a tough crowd. Like it’s, I started my career in New York and I got my [inaudible 00:17:45] handed to me every day. It was like clockwork. I got, I went to work, got my [inaudible 00:17:48] handed to me, went back home, looked at it, cried, went back to work, got it, handed it to me again. Right? And so and so what I learned, what I quickly learned in New York taught me that lesson was that I was asking the wrong questions. So I would open my mouth and it would be like freaking like again, Lord of the Rings, like it would just like open the door to all these crazy responses that I couldn’t control. And so what I learned was I break the framework down into specific questions that you ask to get the right answers. So that, that was, that was a big starting point of how you actually get the conversation under control. 

Jon Krohn: 18:24

Nice. So I mentioned how you are, or you were a co-founder. I guess you, I guess you’re a co-founder, somebody’s co-founder forever. It’s present tense. You are a co-founder of the BI experience group that does the education around this framework and that has all these students and seven figure eight- 

Mico Yuk: 18:45

They’re amazing. 

Jon Krohn: 18:47

But that no longer is your focus. And actually your most recent role was at Count as their chief data evangelist, but you’re also, you’ve stepped back from that for the most part. You’re just doing a little bit of advisory. 

Mico Yuk: 18:59

Did it to a year. 

Jon Krohn: 19:00

Now. Yeah- 

Mico Yuk: 19:01

Correct. Yeah. 

Jon Krohn: 19:02

And so now you’re looking for your next big thing, at least at the time of recording. 

Mico Yuk: 19:07

Yes. 

Jon Krohn: 19:07

And so, yeah, tell us about that search. I know from a post that you recently made, I’m going to include a link to this post in the show notes. But you mentioned how when you scroll through your newsfeed and you see who’s being affected by layoffs, seems to be disproportionately affecting some groups. 

Mico Yuk: 19:31

Correct. Yeah. So this is, again, not to me like, so just so we’re clear Count is amazing. I was not treated in any way discriminatory. I need to put that out there because some people wrote me, I said, what did Count do you? I’m like, Count did nothing. My, our CEO is amazing. I was treated amazingly, but this is just my observation and I’ve been watching it now for months. So if you go to tech layoffs, anytime you see tech like Shopify layoffs or another product, any company, just any of them just roll down. And what you mostly see is either women, older people, or just minorities as a whole. Okay. And so I I, I’ve been tracking this and I kind of started, I looked at it and I said, well, you know what, this is not conclusive, right? I was a data scientist, so I’m like, you can’t just look at a LinkedIn. 

20:13

Maybe women are more expressive, you know, and maybe they just go online and post. So I decided to start to speak to people and unfortunately behind the scenes, I had gentlemen, white males confirming to me that, Hey, something does look a little stinky, you know, in multiple companies. And I said, well, you know, like, what, what’s going on? And they said, well, there’s so much happening. It like, it’s happening so fast you only could see it after the fact. But I did actually go back in and confirm through a few companies with no names Paul, that like, you know, some people are watching this going, Hey, this, this is a little stinky. Like why do we get rid of the women on maternity and why we get rid of all, you know what I mean? So there is some discrimination going, you know, I had multiple women tell me, yeah, I am, you know, 35 or 38 or 45 and all that’s left is a 20 year old women.

20:59

I had, I’ve heard that multiple times, you know, or I had gentlemen tell me that. They’re like, yeah, I have all this experience. You know, and all that’s left is one set of age belief as a good example. So I, I, again, not conclusive until you have the data. I was a data scientist, so I’m sensitive to that. I understand that. But it’s very visual and it tells a lot. And so, you know, there’s definitely something happening and I think my biggest fear is that we’re, you know, three, four years from now going to look exactly how we looked before, like we’re reversing, you know? And so it’s just a big fear. But I went viral. Yeah. I just, I just put it out there cuz I was trying to call out to say, Hey, if you’re reading this, and then I got a bunch of private dms of gentlemen telling me, you know, hey Mico, what you do matters. And you know, thank you for pointing this out. Clearly you don’t want to be public, but you know, they, they’re like, what you do matters. You should just know that what you do matters. Don’t lose your voice. What you do matters. So I know that if it saved one minority in any category, whether it’s gender, ethnicity, race, or age, it was worth the word, the loss of followers. You know? 

Jon Krohn: 22:02

Yeah. I am aware of at least one big tech company that in layoffs was I think there’s a lot of constraints against letting people go when they’re in maternity leave. 

Mico Yuk: 22:14

Right. 

Jon Krohn: 22:14

But so something that they were doing was people who had been approved for maternity to leave, say to start next week. 

Mico Yuk: 22:22

That’s correct. 

Jon Krohn: 22:22

And that’s wild. 

Mico Yuk: 22:24

And it, and it just sabotages like somebody took the list and just sabotage it. But no, I spoke to women that were at home with their babies on leave and got the ax. I mean, just [inaudible 00:22:35] got the ax. Like they were scheduled to come back to work next week or da da da and they just, they just told them, don’t bother to come back. You know? So, you know, don’t get me wrong. Like I, I’m not saying again without conclusive data, we’re data people. We got to be careful that it’s, maybe it’s only visible the people who type of people who post, but it, it, you know, talking to people, I got a good perspective that yeah, it, there’s, there’s some smelly stuff going, you know, that, that supposedly it’s random but it just keeps all looking the same. 

Jon Krohn: 23:02

Yeah. Well, so there’s a good project out there maybe for a listener where something that I’m sure I’ve said on air before is that, you know, if you’re looking for maybe your first data analytics job or your first data science job, having your own portfolio of research on some, independently on some project that you independently conceived of. 

Mico Yuk: 23:20

So good. 

Jon Krohn: 23:20

So this could potentially be one where- 

Mico Yuk: 23:23

Agreed. 

Jon Krohn: 23:23

Look into this problem and see whether this is in fact you know, something that you can, that bears out in the data and yeah. If that is the case, then please tag Mico and me in a post about that. 

Mico Yuk: 23:38

Yeah. So anyway, so that was just something that I saw again, not hopefully not necessarily affecting me though I did have an interesting experience. Yeah, I’m out there looking for my next opportunity. I am interested in helping to build communities. I’m very, I’m very gunned up by how big DBT got on Slack, you know, that was very exciting for me. So I’m pretty excited, you know, not the developer advocate cuz I’m not as technical anymore, but anything at like drives community, events, engagement, that’s kind of where my sweet spot is. I’m a community like you a media person, community person. Right?

Jon Krohn: 24:08

Well no doubt- 

Mico Yuk: 24:09

[crosstalk 00:24:10]. 

Jon Krohn: 24:10

Yeah. You’re going to find an amazing cult to lead next alongside the cult that you continue to lead the AOF fam analytics inspired fam cult. 

Mico Yuk: 24:23

After I just defamed like five companies on the podcast. But yeah, that’s fine. I mean- 

Jon Krohn: 24:27

Yeah. It’s not going to be every company. So Mico, this has been a really fun episode of course. And we’ve also learned some great perspective on the BI and analytics landscape. So before I let my guests go, I always ask them for a book recommendation. 

Mico Yuk: 24:47

Yeah. So this is definitely not your typical data book. There’s actually two books that I like. The first one is The Richest Man in Babylon. It’s by George Clason. It is epic. I heard it first by, it was recommended by Noah Kagan from AppSumo, I’m assuming you’re familiar with AppSumo. And he recommended it. And so I took it and I did the audio version, which, you know, audiobooks always weird, depend on the narrator. It’s such a good book. It’s kind of like Slumdog Millionaire style, but the lessons that are learned are amazing. And if people like that book, one of my other favorite books I’m reading right now is The Psychology of Money. Those are both like epic books. 

Jon Krohn: 25:22

Psychology of Mind? 

Mico Yuk: 25:24

Of Money. 

Jon Krohn: 25:25

Of Money. 

Mico Yuk: 25:26

It’s epic. Yeah. So those are both, you know, and, and so much more not money, obviously I know they both talk about wealth, but the way in the style the books are written, it’s so much more deeper than, you know, just financials, right? It’s just overall mindset because, you know, financial wealth is a journey, right? It’s not a, it’s not a marathon, it’s no silver bullet. So those are two books I’d recommend. 

Jon Krohn: 25:46

Nice. Very cool. Great practical and economical tips for our audience there. Thank you Mico. All right, so I imagine there are lots of listeners out there who want to be able to follow you after this episode and get more real talk. 

Mico Yuk: 26:02

Except the vendors. 

Jon Krohn: 26:03

What’s good, what’s bad? No punches held back. So obviously your Analytics on Fire podcast is a way for them to go. How else can they follow you? 

Mico Yuk: 26:13

Yeah, so most people follow me on LinkedIn. It’s pretty easy. Micko, Yuk, M I C O Y U K. And then recently I opened up my Instagram account. I’ll be doing more on there. So feel free to follow me. And as you know, I’m getting ready to start my YouTube channel, so any of those channels will be great. As of today. I do a lot on Instagram. On LinkedIn, but you took [inaudible 00:26:33] 

Jon Krohn: 26:33

Nice. We’ll be sure to include links to all of those in the show notes. Mico, thank you for finally being on the show. It has been an absolute hoot to have you on and hopefully it won’t be too long before we can get you on again. 

Mico Yuk: 26:46

Yay. All right, well hopefully, hopefully you don’t have any sponsors that get pissed off, but yeah, I’ll be happy to come back. Thank you so much, Jon. 

Jon Krohn: 26:52

Thanks Mico. What a switched-on person Mico is about the analytics industry. In today’s episode, she covered her BIDS, BI data storytelling framework for persuading decision makers. She talked about how Microsoft Power BI is the queen of analytics today while ThoughtSpot could be the heiress. And she filled us in on how Headless BI tools like GoodData allow for Reverse ETL that’s extract, transform, and load operations. All right, that’s it for today’s episode. Until next time, keep on rocking it out there folks and I’m looking forward to enjoying another round of the SuperDataScience Podcast with you very soon.