Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. 
― Allen Saunders

Hello audience! It has been a shamefully long time since my last post — so long, in fact, that logging into my WordPress blog I was met with a new post editor!

In my last post before I went off-grid, I suggested that I would be taking some time to re-brand my skill set to data science in general and R in particular. I hinted my overall mix of blog content would be shifting away from Excel and into other tools and “data philosophy” more generally.

So, did I meet these goals? Stay tuned to find out!

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So… did I meet these goals? Rather than answering, let me just provide an update. You’ll see… it’s complicated. 

Thankful analytics

Not too shortly after signing off, I was referred by a friend (I’m forever indebted to you, Ted!) to a job posting for the coding bootcamp Thinkful. Their instructional design team was building the curriculum for a new data analytics “bootcamp” and needed a subject matter expert to take the lead.

Impressed by my online corpus of writing (and specifically that written for a liberal arts graduate audience, as that is a common persona for many of their students), Thinkful brought me on to the contract.

Over 300 pages (and counting!) of created content later, and I can only say this has been a fantastic experience. As a content creator, you often wonder whether you’re writing to an empty room. Is anyone getting anything out of this? Am I?

Not so with my Thinkful curriculum — I know that it’s helping dozens of students get their first job as a data analyst. I can’t think of more meaningful work than that — it’s something my own blog has been devoted to with the “Hired with Excel” theme. 

Take that idea, turbo-charge it as a multi-skill curriculum and staff it with a panel of giving, creative people and you get some idea of Thinkful’s data analytics bootcamp. Read about the program here. I would encourage any of my readers who are interested in learning to code, analyze and tell stories with data to check out the program. Not only will you gain a tight Excel proficiency, you’ll pick up skills in Tableau, Python and SQL (That’s really an impressive skill set!) with a focus on career-readiness and “thinking like an analyst.”

I am so thankful for what I have been able to build with Thinkful and look forward to continuing the relationship. 

More content coming

So, that was the great bulk of my time. It wasn’t exactly self-studying data science concepts in R, but it definitely sharpened my data acumen and made me a more well-rounded analyst. I’m now comfortable writing about everything from SQL to case interviews to statistical inference now, and hope to bring that versatility to this blog… someday.

A positioned professional

I wanted to take the last few months away from writing and content creation to “re-brand” myself into a more skilled and versatile professional. 

What I didn’t reckon with, however, was the idea that my content creation itself could help me become a more skilled and versatile professional. It’s been so exciting to get involved with the growing world of online data training on a professional level, outside the “home base” of my blog.

There’s so much to learn and pursue that I couldn’t imagine saying that I’m “bored” or “stuck.” Data analytics is really an exciting field to be in, especially for those of us keen to share what we know. 

Thanks for being part of the adventure. Seriously, I consider my network more valuable even than my content or knowledge (Although as I’ve explained, the two are inextricably connected.). As my work at Thinkful confirms, I get joy from seeing other analysts thrive just as I do myself.

To close on a high note: We’re all in this together!

The post Time for an Update first appeared on Stringfest Analytics.

Just an update that I am not going to be posting as regularly on the blog, probably for the rest of 2018. You might see an occasional post or two if the mood strikes, but for the time being I want to focus my attention on improving my acumen in data science and especially the R programming language.

What’s next?

This blog is often classified as an “Excel blog” and I love the application and especially its community. I wouldn’t expect as much content on this topic in the future, but I do plan my posts to continue in the vein of data management and innovation which has been its core theme.

The Microsoft BI stack (including Excel) has become quite sophisticated and continues to expand and I have simply not kept up on the changes to Excel (Power Query, dynamic arrays, etc.) and other tools like Power BI and Microsoft Flow in order to provide the best possible content. Instead I have focused my efforts on data science with R. They are both good tools and are really meant to work in tandem. Tools are tools and I really want to focus on how these tools contribute to being a more thoughtful analyst.

Posts in the future will likely use R as the software vehicle and I plan to continue posting “analyst philosophy” posts like this and this. While these posts don’t get much traffic they come with extreme personal reward and provide a more holistic look at what it means to be an analyst.

In the meantime, I would highly recommend my new course on R for Excel Users. This is “the course I wish I had” when starting to learn R as a spreadsheet analyst.

You can also drop me a line or connect on social media.

The post Time for a Break first appeared on Stringfest Analytics.