Data Mining Interview: Guillaume Main

Data Mining Research: Could you introduce yourself and explain your way to statistics?

Guillaume Main (GM): Hello Sandro ! My name is Guillaume and I’m working in statistics and webanalytics. Today, i’m a consultant in statistics as a freelance and in webanalytics as an employee in a parisian web agency. Both are really exciting. In the past, I have been working as a responsible for data processing for 7 years : my mission was to make samples for surveys (with quota sampling, population representative data…) in TNS SOFRES, the pollster. Afterwards, I have been working as an online programmer in OpinionWay for one year. My mission was to create online surveys (with complex filters, open and closed questions, multiple choice questions, double entry table etc…). Now, my job in webanalytics is interesting too : it deals with eMarketing and many others e-things like conversion optimization or trafic management.

DMR: What is StatBase and who is it for?

GM: Initially, I wanted StatBase to be a service similar to what Google did with his tool Google Internet Stats, but in a french way. Unfortunately, it didn’t work very well and very few people seemed interested in it. I must say that it was difficult to update, every week, and I didn’t find a good solution to automate StatBase. Globally, it’s also quite complicated to get the French to contribute to something online : they need a carrot. That’s the reason why I’m thinking about a new tool that would be a custom market search-engine to be aware with pollster’s activities.