A list of seven habits — This post captures the essence of my experience building data teams at various companies. The title and outline are from the book by Stephen Covey. Be proactive. Effective data teams are proactive about infrastructure decisions, about quality assurance, about the implementation of privacy and governance processes, and about the design of their…

Case 1: Evaluating MLOps platforms — I recently spoke at the apply(meetup), an event bringing together ML and data practitioners. Thanks to Kevin, Demetrios, Tecton for making this happen! Below is the transcript of my 10-minute talk. Introduction Not so long ago, I met with over 20 MLOps and another 10 DataOps companies to understand their challenges…

Everlasting game — Keeping the 4-year-old tradition, I put together a list of some of my favorite songs. The list is ordered so the songs flow well. I hope you like it. The songs Everlasting Game (feat. Masta Ace & DJ Ill Dijitz) by Awon & Phoniks — Nothing Less. …

It doesn’t pay to swing at every pitch — Plate discipline is an interesting concept I came across recently, learning more about baseball. Scouts and managers use metrics that measure plate discipline to assess batters and pitchers. A batter with plate discipline swings at strikes and takes all else. A strike is a pitch that passes through the strike…

All at sea, exploring the data dictionary — Data toolmakers and the larger data community have long been reclaiming water terms to refer to products, services, actions, and concepts. There is a wealth of discussion about whether data is more like oil or water. Most recently data has been likened to electricity. …

Let me be your DJ — Following the tradition from the last two years, I picked out 20 of my favorite songs from 2020. Before I get into the songs, I wanted to share some interesting links from friends in music. DJ Keybo I love this original mix by DJ Keybo. He describes it as, “Hip Hop &…

Let me be your DJ — Following the tradition from last year, I picked out 20 songs from 2019. Before we get into that, here are a few interesting links. My friend Q—a great source of musical inspiration—has put together best-of-2019 playlists. Surely you’ll find some treasures you missed. There is also an amazing 2019 compilation…

A comparative analysis — Beginning in the first decade of the 21st century, internet companies were able to gain visibility into the business in ways never possible in the age of spreadsheets and relational database management systems. No longer did they need to wait for end-of-quarter financial results in order to gauge business performance…

An algorithm — There are many ways to organize a data science team within a company. One of the most effective is the hybrid model, as I explain verbosely in a post and briefly in a thread: Models for integrating data science teams within organizations A comparative analysismedium.com Q. Embedded or centralized? A. Both. Embedded for context, relevance, communication efficiency, and to be in…