We’re asked all the time for some good books around analytics, big data, and their applications to business.  We love what we do, so after a short poll around the office, we put this together.

Introductory Courses:

Competing on analytics

The Signal and the Noise

Naked statistics

201-level Courses:

How Not to be Wrong: the Power of Mathematical Thinking 

How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business

Seminal Academic Papers:

Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases

And pretty much anything by: Amos Tversky, Dan Ariely, Richard Thaler, Daniel Kahneman

Behavioral Psychology:

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Fooled by Randomness

Predictably Irrational

Great for specific anecdotes and hearing about analytics in action:

Priceless

How to cheese off people at an industry conference cocktail hour

Read Black Swan and tell people that analytics are useless.

Point out this National Bureau of Economic Research paper says that search engine marketing is negative ROI.

And a category-buster that’s just plain fun:

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions