Data Driven

In this Data Point recorded at a Costco during the post-holiday shopping season, Frank explains his algorithm for determining that magical point when a lot of data becomes “Big Data.” Given the constant advances in storage technologies, that borderline is a moving goalpost that’s hard to measure. Or is it?

In case you’re wondering, why it’s been quiet here, Frank had a car accident last Monday and, in this Data Point, shares his hastened desire for self-driving cars. Also a cameo by a dog.

Normal schedule should resume shortly.

In this Thanksgiving episode of Data Driven, Frank and Andy reflect on the two years since the inception of Data Driven at a humble Dunkin Donuts in Gaithersburg, MD.

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Last night, I spoke at the DC Emerging Technologies Meetup at the Gensler office on K Street on Applied AI: Use cases of AI in business and government.

It was a really great conversation and an awesome meetup with some very smart people.

While Andy and Tim are living it on at the PASS Summit in Seattle, Frank was at the University of Virginia today running a hands-on-lab showing off the basics of the data science process: ingestion, processing, analysis, and visualization.

#2Hosts2Coasts

Andy catches up with what he’s been up to at the PASS 2019 Summit, SQL Server 2019, and driving late at night.

In this DataPoint, roving reporter Tim McAliley explains what he’s been up to on the last day of PASS 2018.

Andy is at PASS 2018 waiting for the Day 2 Keynote to start.

PASS 2018 is this week in Seattle, Washington. Andy is on site and he even has a booth for Enterprise DNA! Rumor has it that there’s even a Data Driven logo on the booth!

We are also excited to have Timothy McAliley as our very first “roving reporter” covering events and happenings all around the conference. Be sure to like us on Facebook to stay up to date and have access to all the bloopers we make while recording DataPoints!

Hurricane Florence hit the US East Coast nearly seven weeks ago, yet the cleanup is on going and many people’s lives are still not back to normal.

In this DataPoint, Andy talks about the importance to remembering that there are people behind the statistics and data we gather.

Frank’s Thoughts:

What prompted me to think about this was how in the first few years after 9/11, I had shared my photos of the event with a researcher at NIST. In email exchange, I remember explaining to him that I would send him more data after I attended “another memorial service, third one this week.” He wrote back snarkily, “you know a lot of dead people.” To which I replied, “I knew a lot of people in the Towers.” He wrote back quickly, apologizing how his excitement for data collection got the better of him and he never really thought about the people who died and that he’s not just researching a fire, but a mass murder.

That interchange stuck with me and, as I saw parallels between our excitement about “Andy Weather,” I thought it would be a teachable moment.It also helped that he was down in NC to volunteer to help the people whose lives have been upended by the storm.

Andy’s Thoughts:

Frank is spot on. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the numbers and forget that the numbers represent lives.

Hurricanes are massive storms. The damage they cause takes months and years to fix. Some of the damage – like lives lost or permanently altered – is irreversible. That’s easy to overlook in some moments and – often – requires a paradigm shift in thinking for data driven people (like me).

We should strive to help others at every opportunity – especially those recovering from disasters – because we are the only “us” we’ve got.

It’s data. But it’s not just data.