How To (and How Not To) Solve the Multi-Location Data Problem for Dental Service Organizations (and other PE-Backed Businesses)
18 September, 2025
We’ve been helping healthcare organizations untangle their data mess for years, and Dental Service Organizations (DSOs) represent the perfect storm of complexity. You’ve got 10+ (sometimes 100+?!) locations, each running different practice management systems, often on separate servers, with executives spending weekends manually compiling reports from dozens of spreadsheets. The good news? We’ve cracked the […]
Dashboards – Why Most Suck, but Some are Useful
3 September, 2025
In many respects, building a dashboard is easy. Almost anyone can log into a BI tool, select a few tables, cobble together some fancy charts, and call it a day. But constructing a tool your stakeholders actually use? That’s something else entirely. The truth is, most dashboards are built backwards. They start with a bunch […]
Where Are You on the Data Maturity Matrix?
3 September, 2025
One of the common experiences we have at South Shore Analytics when speaking to a new prospective client is that Leadership immediately asks – “how do we implement AI?” In response to this question, we typically propose a fairly simple one of our own: “if we asked you how many new customers you had last […]
Adapt, Don’t Panic: Thriving as a Data Pro in the AI Era
3 September, 2025
If you’ve opened a newspaper, scrolled LinkedIn, or sat through a team meeting in the past twelve months, you’ve probably heard some version of this question: “What are we doing about AI?” The implication, of course, is that if you don’t have a strategy, you’re already behind. And if you’re not using AI to transform […]
Reflecting on a Three Year Journey
3 September, 2025
by James Burke It’s hard to believe, but this week marks three years since Nick and I made the decision to begin working together. In light of these events, I thought it would be fun to spend a few minutes reflecting on our journey, and sharing some of the wins, trials, and tribulations that have […]
Agentic AI: You Want It, but Are You Ready?
3 September, 2025
In recent months at South Shore Analytics, one question keeps coming up from clients and prospects alike: should we deploy AI agents – and if so, how? An AI agent is a goal-driven system that plans and acts, and in the right system it can be an incredibly powerful tool. But without the right foundation […]
Why All Your Favorite Analysts Are Wrong About Saquon Barkley
3 September, 2025
Talking heads say the Giants were idiots. The data disagrees Press enter or click to view image in full size Author’s Disclaimer: Yes, this is a football story — not a list of data best practices or SQL tips. But it’s also a case study in how narratives snowball and how data can help keep […]
5 Common SQL Traps (and How to Avoid Them)
3 September, 2025
SQL is a powerful tool — but it can be easy to get tripped up. Whether you’re just starting out or have years of experience, certain mistakes creep in more often than we’d like to admit. In this week’s edition of SELECT * FROM South.Shore, we’re covering five common SQL traps we see all the time, […]
Mastering your Data Stack — Part 4: Building Your Dashboards
28 January, 2025
Metabase and Panel are the two products we utilized to craft our visualizations for this project Welcome back to our series where we are sharing a step by step walkthrough of our data stack development process. In the previous iteration of this series, we discussed how to transform raw data extracted from your sources into […]
Visualization Theory — The Secret to Game-Changing Dashboards
28 January, 2025
Photo by 1981 Digital on Unsplash If you have been following along with our recent content, you will know we’ve been putting together a Series outlining our tips and tricks for building a world class data stack. While writing the entry on Data Visualization, we found ourselves expounding on the theory behind visualization itself. So, we decided to publish a separate […]
Mastering Your Data Stack — Part 3: How to Transform your Data with dbt
28 January, 2025
A sample DAG from our NHL project — showing the connections and flow of models within dbt Welcome back to our series where we are sharing a step by step walkthrough of our data stack development process. In the previous iteration of this series we walked through how to initialize your selected Data Warehouse and […]
Mastering Your Data — Part 2: Tips and Tricks for Setting up a Best-in-Class Data Pipeline
28 January, 2025
Photo by Shahadat Rahman on Unsplash Welcome back to our series where we are sharing a step by step walkthrough of our data stack development process. If you have not already done so, we highly recommend checking out Part 1 of this series to familiarize yourself with the various components of the modern data stack, and to understand which components […]
Mastering Your Data — Part 1: Selecting the Right Pieces for Your Data Stack
25 October, 2024
This post represents the first in a series of content we will be sharing to walk step-by-step through our data stack development process and provide some guidance to others facing the common problem of consolidating data from disparate locations to drive meaningful insights. Of course, there are a myriad of ways to solve any problem […]
Leveraging Big Data in a Small Business: Unlocking New Opportunities
25 October, 2024
In today’s data-driven world, big data isn’t just for big businesses & corporations. Small businesses can also tap into the power of big data to gain valuable insights, make informed decisions, and drive growth. That said, many small business owners may feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data and the complexity of big data […]
Strategies for Implementing Dashboards Effectively
22 July, 2024
Uncluttering your Data Reporting: Proven Techniques to Build Dashboards that Drive Decisions Photo by Stephen Dawson on Unsplash Introduction: In today’s data-driven business landscape, dashboards have become indispensable tools for decision-makers. They provide a visual overview of key performance indicators (KPIs) and actionable insights that guide strategic planning. However, crafting an effective dashboard isn’t just […]