Great article David, I know zero about stats functions, great intro.

Cheers

Ck

Glad you liked it Chris,

The more I look at stats the more sceptical I am about government statistics.  Lies, damn lies and statistics and all that.

My favourite quote was that a statistician is someone who draws a mathematically precise line between an unwarranted assumption and a foregone conclusion!

I spent 6 years with McCann-Erickson (part of the world's largest Advertising group) so I have a lot of notes on using databases to measure advertising response rates and geodemographic profiling etc.

I've also got a fair bit on using trigonometry to work out positional geography i.e. where your stores are in relation to each other and your customers.

Depending on how the this article is received I may write these up from the database angle.

Remember, marketing guys have expense accounts and know where the good pubs are, so this stuff can be useful

Interesting article -- I've done quite a lot of d.p. and analysis in my time but I think you've introduced the topic very well.

>>I've also got a fair bit on using trigonometry to work out positional

>> geography i.e. where your stores are in relation to each other and your

>> customers.

>>Depending on how the this article is received I may write these up from

>>the database angle.

I'ld certainly be interested to read that.

I found this article very useful-thanks. I work as a researcher for a national UK charity and due to budget restrictions I don't have a copy of SPSS and didn't realise that SQL Server had some of these functions.

David-you seem to have experience with SPSS, how does its 'functionality/ease of use' with these functions compare with that of SQL Server bearing in mind that it is a dedicated analysis suite,

Thanks again

Mark