Subtitle: It’s Called the Analytics Road Show!

Here’s the situation: our company has a data organization – it’s probably kind of like your company’s data organization: it has some data engineers, it has some governance experts, it has some analysts, some developers.

We’ve been making great strides in doing the right work, and getting better at delivering that work quickly, accurately, and in communication and consultation with our stakeholders.

But, that feels like table stakes, right? One lesson that really rings out to me from my time before I worked in tech, a lesson from one of the owners of the chain of bakeries where I taught over one hundred baristas how to do latte art:

You can’t work on the business if you’re always working in the business.

(This idea I believe originates with the book The E Myth ? Correct me if I’m wrong on that one though!)

This is something I’ve been cogitating on a lot these days: not just, how do we do what we do, and do it well? But, how do we improve the improvement? How do we improve our processes, our structure, the whole way we think about and engage with our data, with our measurements – even how we engage with one another within the organization.

So – I think I need to get outside of the organization to get greater insights here: I’m taking this show on the road. I’m calling it the Analytics Road Show. I have a deep and abiding love of chatting with folks – some might uncharitably call it nosiness – which I am hoping to leverage into a bunch of sit-down sessions with folks working in similar organizations but not mine.

Getting outside the building is a key part of this endeavor: I need to get at this with a beginner’s mind. So then, dear readers, where can I find folks willing to talk with ol’ SAO?

I have the great fortune of being a member of the Locally Optimistic Slack community (you should join us!), and when I dropped this into the #nyc channel:

… I got a serious no-joke resounding response. So, here goes nothing! July 15th and 16th (that’s next Monday and Tuesday!) I’ll be heading down the mighty Hudson to have coffees, lunches, and mid-level IPAs with some brand new friends in NYC.

I am really looking forward to this, as well as recording my thoughts in standard blog-post format for y’all – and internal action plans for my colleagues.