Skip to content
HeyJared

Explain the Data

Explain the Data is for anyone who wants to tell better stories with data. Subscribe now and get a free data storytelling guide.

Newsletter · By Isaac Oresanya · Official site

Indexed issues, last 90 days
5
Latest publication
Sep 1, 2026
Audience
Checking…
Earliest in this view
Jul 7, 2026
The latest indexed work is over 30 days old. There may be a gap in what we hold.

Latest issues

  1. Issue · Sep 1, 2026

    Actual vs Target vs Forecast (opens the original)

    Excerpt

    Read excerpt

    A company can miss its target and still have a strong year. It can also hit its target and still have a problem.That sounds strange until you separate two ideas that often get mixed together: targets and forecasts.A target is what the business wants to achieve. A forecast is what the evidence says is likely to happen. They are both useful, but they do different jobs.The problem starts when reports, dashboards, and meetings treat them as if they mean the same thing.Thanks for read

  2. Issue · Aug 11, 2026

    Stop Comparing Everything To Last Month (opens the original)

    Excerpt · Neutral tone

    Read excerpt

    If a company makes $120,000 in sales this month, that sounds useful. But is it a good result or a bad one? You cannot really tell yet.Maybe the company made $90,000 last month. Now $120,000 looks like an improvement. Maybe the goal was $150,000. Now that exact same number looks disappointing.Or maybe the company made $140,000 at the same time last year. Now the business may actually be falling behind.All of these stories use the exact same $120,000.The number did not change at all. The compariso

  3. Issue · Jul 28, 2026

    Stop Making Impossible Promises with Data (opens the original)

    Excerpt

    Read excerpt

    Weather forecasters never say “it will rain tomorrow.” They say there is a 70 percent chance of rain.That small change makes a big difference. It tells you rain is likely, but it also leaves room for a dry day. Nobody gets mad at the forecast when it does not rain, because it was never a promise.Data work should sound more like this.When you say a new feature will bring exactly 1,200 users, that number can sound like a promise. If the feature brings in 1,050 users, people think you missed it, ev

  4. Issue · Jul 14, 2026

    Customer ID, Email, Or Name: Which One Should You Trust? (opens the original)

    Excerpt · Critical tone

    Read excerpt

    Working with data means working with real people, and real people are messy.Every customer dataset needs a way to tell one person apart from another. That sounds simple until you try to do it.Most teams end up choosing between three common options: customer ID, email, or name.They may all look useful, but they are not equally reliable. The one you choose can change the accuracy of your whole project.The field used to tell one customer apart from another is called an identifier.Why Names Are Not

  5. Issue · Jul 7, 2026

    The Reason Companies Still Need Analysts (opens the original)

    Excerpt

    Read excerpt

    If data was always clean and ready to use, companies would not need analysts as much.They would connect the numbers to a dashboard tool, refresh the page, and move on.But that is not how real work goes.Analysts matter because information does not arrive in a neat little package. It comes from broken tools, old habits, and human mistakes.Someone has to make sense of it, check what is true, and turn the mess into something the business can trust.The mess is not a distraction from the work. The mes

Publishing over time

Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.

Recurring subjects

Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.

Audience

No verified audience measurement yet.

About this data

Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.

Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.

See coverage about Explain the Data