Decoding Data Science: A Useful Guide to Basic Terminology (Part 1)

Are you new to the world of data science and feeling a little overwhelmed by all the jargon and technical terms? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! In this 2-part series, we’ll be breaking down the basics of data science terminology to make it easy and accessible for everyone.

Today, we’ll be exploring five key terms that are essential to building a solid foundation in data science.

Data Science

The field of combining programming, mathematics, and statistics to analyze data and provide insights for decision making and problem solving. Data Scientists have high-level technical skills and use various programming languages to collect, interpret, format, model, predict, and manipulate data.

Algorithm

A set of repeatable instructions, usually expressed mathematically, used to process data. Algorithms can be constructed by humans or machines and adjusted until the desired result is achieved. Machines are now commonly used due to advancements in Artificial Intelligence.

Data Analytics

The process of using existing information to answer questions for better business decision-making. It involves continuous collection and analysis of data, with a focus on ensuring data integrity and accurate evaluation of research results.

Data Mining

The process of sorting large data sets to identify patterns and relationships that can help solve business problems. It is a component of Data Analysis and one of the core disciplines of Data Science. Data mining techniques and tools can be used to predict future trends and make more informed business decisions.

Big Data

A term used for data that is too large and complex for traditional data management tools to store and process efficiently. Big Data can provide more complete and precise answers by confirming information from multiple data sources.

Understanding these key terms is essential for anyone looking to get started in data science. Stay tuned next week as we continue to explore key concepts and terminology in data science.

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Daniel Meyer is the head of Sonic Analytics, an analytics firm that has been in the Big Data industry for over 20 years and has offices in Manila, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Ocala, Florida. He is an accomplished author, public speaker, and business expert specializing in virtual staffing and process automation.

Dan is known for providing big data analytics solutions, including business intelligence and data storytelling, to small businesses seeking to improve their use of data, virtual staffing, and technology. He strongly believes in using analytics for civic responsibility, and offers training, consulting, and education to promote this advocacy.

With his experience in training over 10,000 Filipinos, Dan is passionate about empowering the youth with valuable skills, such as graphic design, video editing, and data analytics. His objective is to equip them with the necessary abilities to harness the dynamic employment opportunities that lay ahead for millions of Filipinos.

Data Analytics in the Philippines: Unlocking Unlimited Potential

In recent years, the Philippines has seen a growing interest in data analytics, with organizations and companies investing in this field to improve their decision-making processes and gain a competitive edge. This trend is especially clear in the finance, healthcare, and e-commerce industries, where data analytics has become an essential tool for success.

The Philippine government has also recognized the importance of data analytics and has taken steps to promote its use. The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) have started to offer free online training courses for data analysts to fix the skills mismatch and shortage that has been seen in this field. This training is intended to cater to unemployed individuals, including high school graduates, and equip them with the necessary skills to enter the job market.

The Analytics Association of the Philippines estimates that by 2028, the country will need 500,000 analytics professionals. This need is not just in the IT field; data analysts are also needed in many other business fields. The entry-level salary for data analysts in the Philippines can go as high as P25,000 per month, making it an attractive career option for many.

To meet the demand for skilled professionals in this field, universities in the Philippines are starting to offer courses and degree programs in data analytics. The University of the Philippines Diliman has a Master of Science in Data Science program, while Ateneo de Manila University has a Bachelor of Science in Data Science program. This move by universities is important for making sure that the Philippines has enough skilled workers to meet the growing demand for data analysts.

It is also important for companies and organizations to talk to people in the industry to find out what skills are needed for jobs. As Sherwin Pelayo, executive director of the Analytics Association of the Philippines, said, “We talked to our industry members, and they said that if these skills were taught in senior high school, we would hire those who possess them.” The executive director of Philippine Business for Education, Justine Raagas, agreed with this point of view and stressed the need to talk to these sectors because they know what is needed in the workplace.

The Department of Trade and Industry has also emphasized the importance of knowing the skill sets needed by companies and training people based on these needs to ensure their employability after graduation. This approach ensures that individuals are equipped with the necessary skills that are in demand in the job market.

In conclusion, the Philippines is slowly but steadily embracing data analytics, and we can expect more changes and improvements in this field in the coming years. The government, universities, and private sector must continue to work together to make sure that the workforce has the skills it needs to meet the growing demand for data analysts. By doing so, the Philippines can position itself as a hub for data analytics in the region, and its workforce can contribute to the country’s economic growth and development.

Don’t miss out on more of Dan’s expert content. Follow his social media channels for exclusive tips, insights, and valuable information on data science and analytics.

How It All Started

One thing that has been a challenge for me over the years is that I am constantly evolving as a entrepreneur, as a businessman and an analytics expert.

A consequence of this constant evolution is that I have launched several brands as vehicles to deliver training, coaching, and consulting based on my intellectual property. I have lot of information bouncing around in my brain that I know can be very useful to people looking tot make sense of the numbers in their business.

To that end I recorded this video. I want to help you make sense of all the things I have been doing since I launched my first business in 2011… BPO Elite.

Daniel Meyer heads Sonic Analytics, an analytics firm with offices in Manila, the San Francisco Bay Area and Ocala, FL. With over 20 years in Big Data, Dan is one of the most sought-after public speakers in Asia and offers big data coaching and analytics training seminars on both sides of the Pacific. Dan has also recently joined the Powerteam International family as a small business analytics resource speaker.

Sonic Analytics(www.sonicanalytics.com) brings big data analytics solutions like business intelligence, business dashboards and data storytelling to small and medium sized organizations looking to enhance their data-driven decision-making capabilities. We also advocate the use of analytics for civic responsibility through training, consulting and education.

As citizens of this great democracy, we need to look at the data (analytics), plan a course of action (strategy) and share our data-driven viewpoints (presentation). This approach to a data savvy work force starts in school. So, we started an internship program to empower our youth to use Analytics, plan Strategy and Present their insights… ASP!

When not training current and future analysts, you can find Dan championing the use of analytics to empower data-driven citizenship by volunteering his expertise with schools and non-profits dedicated to evidence-based social progress like Saint Leo University’s Women in STEAM 2020 Conference.

Putting Your Data to Work

Analytics is my passion, and empowering people to use data is what I do best. There is a countless number of people I could thank that have helped me get to the point where I am today. From my friends and family, to teachers and educators, to managers and co-workers, the list is as long as the pages in this book.

Being a great analyst means a lot more than just being good with numbers and understanding formulas and models. You have to be as much an artist and a scientist to really have an impact. You have to enlighten as well as inform, inspire as well as update and empower as well as report. That’s my secret, being able to take what is just numbers to most people and turning the data into a story

So this book series is mostly because of those people who have empowered, inspired, and enlightened me. Hopefully this book allows you to become the catalyst to do the same for others in your organization.

I’d like to share with you a video about the books and why I wrote them.

The Many Brands of Dan Meyer

One thing that has been a challenge for me over the years is that I am constantly evolving as a entrepreneur, as a businessman and an analytics expert.

To that end I recorded this video. I want to help you make sense of all the things I have been doing since I launched my first business in 2011 and all the things I will be doing in 2020 and beyond.

Amazon Will Spend $Millions Up Skilling Its Workforce.. Shouldn’t You?

Saw this article in the New York Times Today

If Amazon is investing in up skill training, because they can see what’s coming, why wouldn’t everyone else? Offering companies analytics and data science up skill training seems like a sound business model right? And that my friends, is why we have Sonic Analytics.

Give you and your team access to skills on the future. #dataspark #sonicanalytics #dataiswealth

I ran a data science-centric program the past 18 months to do just this for Accenture’s Philippines operation. We put over 500 Accenture employees through our Applied Analytics Training Series covering topics like Data Mining, Blending and Visualization, discussed case studies by the likes of Google, Best Buy and HP, and conducted exercises giving attendees a chance to design business dashboard prototypes, build predictive models in Excel and practice data story telling. We can do the same for you.

Dan Meyer heads Sonic Analytics, an analytics advocacy with offices in Manila, the San Francisco Bay Area and as of February 2019, Ocala, FL. With over 20 years in Big Data, Dan is one of the most sought-after public speakers in Asia and has recently begun offering public training seminars in the United States. Dan has also recently joined the Powerteam International family as a small business analytics resource speaker.

Building Businesses By Doing Things Many Don’t Do

Early in my career, I realized that I had a very in-demand skill, something that people really needed in the business. I knew how to use Microsoft Excel. The ability to make spreadsheets and turn them into reports and to do analysis, surprisingly, was something I had a natural talent for.

It’s actually quite amusing to think how my entire career trajectory benefited from my innate ability makes sense of large files of numbers in a speadsheet. I was able to start doing that on a regular basis, making reports and doing different types of business analysis work that added a lot of value to the bank. Making sure we targeted the marketing of our products to specific, much more likely to buy, geographic and demographic groups accelerated the adoption rate and drove up cross sell of additional products.

Before I knew it I had a 15 year career with Wells Fargo and in that time, I got to do all kinds of analytics from end to end. Bringing in new data, structuring it, putting it in databases, and figuring out how to extract insight and report to senior management was something I got really, really good at.

After years of great experiences, working on huge data science projects and working across various teams to roll out complex analytics solutions. So, after doing that for the bank, I went into business myself as an analytics expert. I’ve spent the last decade working with a wide range of companies helping them level up their use of data.

Now, I am working small business owner and entrepreneurs as Icoach them into how to look at their data the same way Wells Fargo looks at its data. I help them implement analytics systems and processes — solutions that will help them mimic what the big successful multinational companies are doing with their data —so then they can be more competitive. That opportunity to coach them and give them a chance to be successful is what’s driving me.

It all starts with a commitment to start doing things that most other businesses aren’t doing very well or even at all.

Sharing an excerpt from a recent issue of Success Profiles Magazine that I was featured in. Thanks to Brian K. Wright and Bill Walsh for the opportunity!

Francisco Bay Area and as of February 2019, Ocala, FL. With over 20 years in Big Data, Dan is one of the most sought-after public speakers in Asia and offers big data coaching and analytics training seminarson both sides of the Pacific. Dan has also recently joined the Powerteam International family as a small business analytics resource speaker.

Seven Years in the Philippines

In January it will be seven years since I left Wells Fargo and moved to the Philippines to set up an analytics training company.

As year seven comes to a close, some reflection on how I got to where I am now would be beneficial to my strategic planning for the next seven plus years.

BPO Elite was my first venture and the idea was to train fresh graduates and young professionals to be analysts. It was a pretty successful first year in terms of developing a training approach to teaching the fundamentals of business analytics. Business wise we made a lot of missteps along the way that ended up dooming the business. But the training method was sound and I started to build up my credibility as an analytics experts in the Philippines.

Year One was all about validating that empowering people to be analysts was indeed something I could do successfully.

Year Two brought DMAIPH, Decision-Making, Analytics & Intelligence Philippines to life. Based on the business lessons learned from the shortcomings of BPO Elite I focused more on building an influencer network. Entering in to business deals where other people would market my trainings, freed me up to focus on meeting with influencers. The goal became to work within existing networks and expanding reach so that more and more people learned about the important of analytics with DMAI top of mind on how to train people to do it.

Year Two was the year I built the foundation that allowed me to become the top analytics training expert in the Philippines.

In 2014, I launched a separate business focused on the outsourcing of analytics and data heavy customer care solutions. For a large part of the year the analytics trainings took a back seat to setting up a team of 100 office and home-based staff for clients in the U.S. It wasn’t the reason why I moved to the Philippines, but the opportunity proved to be quite lucrative and allowed me to keep doing analytics trainings and speaking engagements without having to worry to much about that part of my business being profitable.

Year Three was all about doing what needed to be done to make a profit.

By 2015, the outsourcing business was running smoothly, and I was able to get back to doing a lot of partner trainings and public speaking engagements. I had the good fortune to now be one of the most sought-after public speakers on analytics in the region, speaking at schools, conferences, and tech event I was also able to start getting my message outside of Manila and being asked to do events across the country.

Year Four was the year where I my face (actually the credibility behind it) really started to sell.

2016 was a big year for DMAI. I published my first book, Putting Your Data to Work. My goal was to make a guidebook that Filipino professionals could use a both a companion to my trainings as well as a resource to convince decision-makers to invest in more training. I also upped my game with doing more public trainings and speaking at even bigger events. It was a very profitable and satisfying year.

Year Five was where I perfected training content and my public presentations. The book was really the lynchpin behind all that.

By 2017, I began calling what I do as more an advocacy than a business. I got involved in several large-scale analytics training initiatives not just in the Philippines, but across SE Asia. I helped found an association to further an analytics centric focus in the outsourcing industry and was even invited to give testimony before the Senate of the Philippines.

Year Six was where it all came together. I hit that sweet spot where I was really good at something I loved doing and I got well paid for it.

2018 could have easily been a redux of 2017. In fact, we started doing a lot of high paying in-house trainings, bigger and more successful public trainings and I was being invited to take part in all kinds of big picture initiatives across the region. But something changed. 2017 was the year where I had reached the mountain top. As I look back at 2018, I have accomplished everything I had set out to do back in 2012.

That said, I’m not done with the Philippines yet!

Already have 5 trainings booked for the first quarter of 2019. Including ones coming up in January and March. Here are the links to find out more:

https://www.sonicanalytics.com/data-analytics-20

https://www.sonicanalytics.com/data-analytics-30

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for my adopted home in the tropics as I also look to expand my trainings to where I spent much of my youth… the state of Florida. .

Will be laying some seeds the next several months and kick off my first trainings and speaking engagements in the Sunshine state early next year.

Let’s see where the next seven years of championing analytics takes me.

Dan Meyer Quotes 2

DMAIPH – Decision-making, Analytics & Intelligence Philppines

Over the past few years businesses in the Philippines have invested heavily in big data, analytics and data science, but still have not achieved the expected outcomes of data-driven companies.

Based on our learnings from the 100’s of Filipino businesses and 10,000s of Filipinos who have taken part in DMAIPH Analytics trainings all across the country, we have crafted a proven, non-technical approach to upskilling your team in analytics.

In 2019, we will be launching two new training programs: (1) Our DMAIPH Applied Analytics Master Class series for executives, leaders and decision-makers and our (2) DMAIPH Applied Analytics Boot Camp series for practicing analysts.

We will feature case studies of real Filipino run business, exercises based on actual analytics challenges being solved by Filipino analysts, and provide you with a copy of my book, Putting Your Data to Work, an analytics guidebook for the Filipino professional

Connect with us via our marketing partner, http://www.sonicanalytics.com to learn about upcoming analytics trainings and events.

Hunting For Those Missing Elements – Massive Analytics Upskilling

One of the best things about bringing new people on board is that you tend to get pretty insightful feedback.

Let me show you why I really value a fresh pair of eyes as I try and lead my team of analysts in our advocacy to conduct massive upskill training in the Philippines.

Thanks to Ludz Pridas, a new business analyst on the AAP Analytics Team, for creating most of the content below.

On one hand it’s refreshing to know that all of these observations are things we are actively working on. On the other, it can be little frustrating that we haven’t worked them all out yet to a point where the whole team see the big picture.

So that is my first missing element I need to focus on, upping the level of internal communication. Not easy with a team that works virtually a lot. We use Trello, that helps. We have monthly strategy meetings, but probably need to have them a little more frequently.

Another “missing element for us to do a massive training is the opportunity for advancement, a llack of advances towards other training”… the ecosystems is very fragmented. As the number of training options and academic programs focused on analytics grows, so does the difficulty for someone looking to upskill.

Unification of the ecosystem is a top priority of the AAP as we set up partnership agreements with various other organizations. Advocating for standards built around the APEC Data Science & Analytics Core Competencies Map helps. But we need to do a lot of networking and storytelling to build a successful framework for someone to easily determine which upskill option is the right one for them.

We also have to both make things simpler and add more complexity. It is even harder to pull this off then it sounds. Most people looking for analytics training are pretty new to many of the concepts used by cutting edge analytics teams. And a lot of people needing the training simply aren’t numbers people. So we need to keep things fairly layman.

At the same time we need to use the framework to help people easily level up and progress. That cant all be done in person. So online tools will be essential, and there are a lot in the works. Also additional resources for self-guided learning need to be developed and shared.

And the final point that Ludz pointed out to me is “the lack of trainers to teach analytics, to guide the audience beyond our standard 2 days of fundamentals. It’s just not enough to learn all the stuff about analytics quickly.”

Yes, that is why we are gonna do a run of the Train the Trainer in Bacolod in Feb and are working to set up a fun of Train the HR Trainer early in 2018, and another run of Train the Trainer in Davao in April. A large part of my time this coming year will be spent growing the numbers of experts.

By my calculations, to train 500,000 Filipinos by the end of 2022, we will need about 10,000 experts to conduct various types of training.

As I said at the top, these are things we know. We just need to get better at talking about them to a point where everyone involved gets it. That’s who advocacies from one man shouting in the wilderness, to a society of learners working together to optimize the use of data across the county.

Interested in helping the AAP achieved our analytics moonshot? I hope so because it gonna take all of us.

Analytics Leadership – DMAIPH is a founding member of the Analytics Association of the Philippines (AAP.PH) and specializes in arming the Data-Driven Leader with the tools and techniques they need to build and empower an analytics centric organization. Analytics leadership requires a mastery of not just analytics skill, but also of nurturing an analytics culture. We have guided thousands of Filipino professionals to become better analytics leaders.

Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to discuss a uniquely tailored strategy to ensure you are the top of your game when it comes to Analytics Leadership.

Analytics Education = Out with the Old, In with the New

Having spent the last 5 years talking about analytics here in the Philippines, it seems we are finally at a place where a significant percentage of leaders and decision-makers are now aware that they need a good analytics strategy for their business to succeed.

Now that we are finally at point where people in power get, we have another challenge. Just because they get it doesn’t mean they know how to enable it.

In fact most of our current solutions to educate and train when it comes to analytics seems to be a bit old fashioned. Analytics evolves much faster then traditional education models can keep up with.

In fact, most people learn analytics on the job. Some attend public trainings. A few receive practical experience while in school. Very few learn in vocational or apprentice like programs.

Almost all the training is done in person, with an expert teaching in a classroom setting.

Most of the training is done by talking theory and doing some exercises on mock data.

Due to data privacy issues, few companies allow employees to get up skill training while using their own data and towards solving real business problems.

To compound the challenge, there are a precious few analytics experts to go around to meet the surging demand for analytics education and training.

When I do the math… 500,000 Filipinos need analytics training in the next 5 years to ensure we can deal with the wave of digital transformation the world in undergoing.

So now what?

It’s easy to say online training is the solution. And it is part. But just filming a training and reshowing it loses a lot of the impact. When learners aren’t engaged they struggle to absorb most of the content.

So live online classes that have an interactive ability are key.

Harnessing the power of YouTube and looking at things like TED talks give us some ideas.

Formal corporate trainings can be supplemented and eventually superseded by meet-up groups and more informal learning sessions.

Formal education has to transition more from the class room and to on the job.

Right now, students spend 90% of their time in classroom and less then 10% on the job working with real data solving real problems. Many schools struggle with educating on analytics topics because they don’t have qualified professors.

Lets flip that around. Let the subject matter experts working in the field do more of the education in the workplace.

That’s just three ideas; Interactive Analytics Talks, Optimizing Meet Up Groups and much more dynamic On the Job training.

What else can we do to shot for the moon?

Analytics Training – DMAIPH offers a wide range of analytics centric training solutions for professionals and students via public, in-house, on-site, and academic settings. We tailor each training event to meet the unique needs of the audience. If you need empowerment and skills enhancement to optimize the use of analytics in your organization, we are here to help. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to set up a free consultation to learn which of our DMAIPH analytics training solutions is best for you.

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