Re: [PhillyOnRails] Somewhat OT, Statistics

[Flinn Mueller <theflinnster@gmail.com>]

On Jul 23, 2007, at 11:49 AM, Toby DiPasquale wrote:
> E.g. in marketing, there is a technique that marketers call
> "segmentation". This is essentially the act of breaking up your  
> customers
> or potential customers by some set of attributes. However, this is
> typically done in an ad-hoc manner based on assumptions made by the  
> person
> doing the segmenting. A better approach is to use legitimate  
> clustering
> techniques to have the data tell you what clusters ("segments")  
> exist and
> not have to guess.

Assumptions!  That was one thing that always pissed me off when I  
took stats in college.  Guess and then see if the stats supports your  
hypothesis.  I went to a business school and I think the prevailing  
attitude from the faculty was that most of the bus. ad. students  
weren't going to be doing any serious number crunching.
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