Data communities have played a major role in the careers of many analysts, but times they are a-changin'. We're not sure if we're different, if the communities' purposes and missions have shifted, or both. One thing we are confident in, though, is that Pedram Navid was absolutely the right guest to invite on to the show to explore the topic alongside Michael, Moe, and Val. His blog post last year that discussed how "this used to be fun" was a great reflection on some of the environmental trends influencing the communities we've come to know and love. But don't worry, it’s not all doom and gloo ..read more

Long-time listeners to this show know that its origin and inspiration was the lobby bar of analytics conferences—the place where analysts casually gather to unwind after a day of slides interspersed with between-session conversations initiated awkwardly and then ended abruptly when the next session begins. Of the many conferences where this occurs, Marketing Analytics Summit (née, eMetrics) is the one in which this show is most deeply rooted. And, we'll be recording an episode in front of a live audience with all of the North America-based co-hosts on Friday, June 7, 2024, in Phoenix, Arizona ..read more

As a general rule, analysts are drawn to precision: let's understand the business problem and then go figure out how the data can be acquired and crunched to provide something specific and useful. Fair enough. Where, then, do pencil and paper and 10-second sketches fit in? Or hastily and collaboratively drawn flippy chart or whiteboard sketches? We could draw you a picture to explain, but podcasts are an audio medium, so, instead, we brought on the illustrious illustrator, consultant, and author, Dan White. From triangles, to rolling snowballs, to trees, to Venn diagrams, to the conjoined tria ..read more

They say an analysis is only as good as the question that was asked, so for our 2024 International Women's Day Episode, Julie, Moe, and Val were joined by Taylor Buonocore Guthrie to discuss how to ask better questions. Every analyst is naturally curious, but the thoughtfulness that Taylor puts into what type of questions to ask, how to ask them, and when to ask them to get the optimal response is truly an art form. Instead of drilling the five-whys the next time you are gathering context with a business partner for an analysis or conducting discovery interviews, try prompting them with, "Can ..read more

Is it just us, or does it seem like we're going to need to start plotting the pace of change in the world of analytics on a logarithmic scale? The evolution of the space is exciting, but it can also be a bit dizzying. And intimidating! There's so much to learn, and there are only so many hours in a day! Why did we choose that [insert totally unrelated field of study] degree program?! These questions and more—including a quick explanation of bootstrapping for Tim’s benefit, which is NOT bootstrapping or bootstrap—are the subject of the latest episode of the show, with Kirsten Lum, the CTO of st ..read more

The data has problems. It ALWAYS has problems. Sometimes they're longstanding and well-documented issues that the analyst deeply understands but that regularly trip up business partners. Sometimes they're unexpected interruptions in the data flowing through a complex tech stack. Sometimes they're a dashboard that needs to have its logic tweaked when the calendar rolls into a new year. The analyst often finds herself on point with any and all data problems—identifying an issue when conducting an analysis, receiving an alert about a broken data feed, or simply getting sent a screen capture by a ..read more

The backlog of data requests keeps growing. The dashboards are looking like they might collapse under their own weight as they keep getting loaded with more and more data requested by the business. You're taking in requests from the business as efficiently as you can, but it just never ends, and it doesn't feel like you're delivering meaningful business impact. And then you see a Gartner report from a few years back that declares that only 20% of analytical insights deliver business outcomes! Why? WHY?!!! Moe, Julie, and Michael were joined by Kathleen Maley, VP of Analytics at Experian, to ch ..read more

Aptiv, Baidu, Cerebras, Dataiku… we could keep going… and going… and going. If you know what this list is composed of (nerd), then you probably have some appreciation for how complex and fast moving the AI landscape is today. It would be impossible for a mere human to stay on top of it all, right? Wrong! Our guest on this episode, Matthew Lynley, does exactly that! In his Substack newsletter, Supervised, he covers all of the breaking news in a way that's accessible even if you aren't an MLE (that’s a "machine learning engineer," but you knew that already, right?). We were thrilled he stopped b ..read more

It would be a fool's errand to try to list out every expectation for an analyst's role, but where should you draw the line? How specific do you need to be? And how can you document the unspoken expectations without stepping into micromanagement? Tim, Moe, and Julie took a run at hashing these questions out in our most recent episode so you don't have to rely solely on that generic role expectations grid you got from HR. Even though this topic is about setting expectations for other analysts, the conversation took quite a few introspective turns about how your internal standards are calibrated ..read more

To mentor, or not to mentor, that is the question: whether 'tis more productive to hole up in a cubicle and toil away without counsel, or to hold close one's experience to the benefit of no one else. Perchance, the author of this show summary should have checked with one of his mentors before attempting a Shakespearian angle. But, he didn't, and the show title is pretty self-explanatory, so we'll just roll with it. On this episode, Michael, Val, and Tim chatted about mentorship: its many flavors, its many uses, and what has and has not worked for them both when being mentored as well as when b ..read more