“Maybe a twelvemonth since Suddenly I began, In scorn of this audience, Imagining a man, And his sun-freckled face, And grey Connemara cloth, Climbing up to a place Where stone is dark under froth, And the down-turn of his wrist When the flies drop in the stream; A man who does not exist; A man who is but a dream; And cried, “Before I am old I shall have written him one Poem maybe as cold And passionate as the dawn.”". Daily it becomes clearer that Yeats had a Silly Series.
Today, it is time to talk to Anil Batra, a man with a profound respect for the potato – for which I profoundly respect him.
As a kid, whe n people asked me how to spell my last name, I always said Bat (BAT) ra, so you can call me Batman. Then Judah Phillips once mentioned me as Anil “Batman” in one of his blogposts and that prompted me to add a picture of Batman on my blog. It was there for almost 6 months before I changed the format of my blog.
What do you think is the most surprising thing about you?
I can write damn good and complex SQL. I can also code in ASP. People don’t believe that, they don’t know that I have worked in IT before. When I was building a datawarehouse for a healthcare client, I stumbled upon IIS log files and that was my entry into Web Analytics. That was in 2000.
You tutor students taking the Award of Achievement in Web Analytics course at UBC. Do you think it’s actually worth anyone’s time to take the course?
Yes it is. It provides a great background in Analytics. I think majority of the students benefit greatly from it. Many have found their first job in Web Analytics after the course.
Say furshnizzlemydizzle three times really quickly. What colour am I thinking of?
Rainbow. VBGYOR those who don’t know what colors are in a rainbow.
If you could be part of a dashboard – how would you represent returning visitors?
Using $$$
Who is your superhero-sans-cape in the web analytics community and why?
There are so many people helping the Web Analytics community grow and become integral parts of the business. They all are my superheroes.
If you want online privacy, stay offline. Discuss.
Hmmm..Privacy? What is that? There is no such thing as privacy, offline or online. The moment a kid is born, the privacy is gone. Hospitals collect information, you have to report to state, then when you drive home those freaky roadside cameras & satellites are all taking your picture and there goes your privacy. Online should be of least concern and compares nothing to the offline privacy issues.
What is your wish for the remainder of 2011?
The year is over though my wish is that we drop the term “HiPPO” and live in peace and prosper together.
Do you have any good potato recipes?
You really don’t need any recipe for potatoes, no matter how you eat them they always taste good. Just add potatoes to anything you like and you will have good tasting food.
Potatoes are also sort of bounce rate. Bounce rate can be found in every report/dashboard and poatates are found in every type of food.
