I Need a Writer’s Virtual Apprentice

As a writer, I have found it invaluable to have a virtual assistant to assist me with research, content curation, social media sharing, event booking and a host of other time consuming, often manual tasks. This has been a big help, as my VA also help me stay on task, meet timelines and more than double my productivity.

One thing I do often is share selections from my books as repurposed blog posts. Writing my first book was a passion project, but I have found that sharing part of the book across social media has impacted a lot more people than those who buy and read the book.

A good VA can actually be much more than just help take away some of the administrative and marketing tasks that are in the end time wasters. A really good VA with a talent for writing themselves can be mentored as well. In effect, I’m turning VAs with the right talent and aptitude into mini-versions of myself… akin to an apprentice. A virtual writer’s apprentice.

One of the biggest killers to any small business is wasted time, and in many ways, being an author is like running a small business. Entrepreneurs who have trouble delegating things and like to do it all themselves, end up spending most of their time that someone else can be doing better, faster and cheaper.

To some extent, authors who have publishers and promoters don’t have to worry about this a much, but most authors are like entrepreneurs… one person shows. Prone to wasting time and not doing what they do best.

This is especially true today where what we write ends up being shared across so many mediums, making content accessible to a much broader audience.

Lately, I’ve also been getting more and more into podcasting where I can use my VA to edit, keyword, upload and curate media files. I’ve played around with a few podcasting apps and hosting options on my own, but having someone dedicated to will undoubtedly keep my casting more consistent.

I also enjoy having simple images designed by my VA to add to the podcast, add the intro and outro and on the social media posts. Filming the podcast, which I have played around with, can then turn the blog into a vlog for upload and shafting on YouTube. This will broaden my reach even more. That’s why I write… to share knowledge, empower the use of data analysis in decision-making and inspire people new to analytics to keep going. I will be really ramping up these ways to share my years’ worth of content.

And while doing all of the above, I have my VA look for other podcasts to guest on, places to do media interviews, events to speak or sign books at, and other event managers stages to promote and sell my book.

I’m still thinking of more ways to use a VA as a writer. Feel free to add any that you can think of. A lot of writers like myself can benefit from your suggestions.

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. Let’s Get Started

For those of you who follow me and have not yet attended one of my trainings, I want to share with you what we do. Here are some excerpts from a recent talk I gave in Chicago with Powerteam International.

Let’s talk about how to master your data to increase your income. Over the next couple of blog posts I’m going to walk you through some tips on how to increase the insight you glean from your data and use that to increase yyour income. We’re going to cover five things.

First of all, we’re going to talk about how big data is a wave of disruption. It’s causing massive disruptions in every industry and every type of business. We’re going to talk about how data analytics is a process. You have to be able to understand the entire process, to be able to master the data in your business.

Next, we’re going talk about how to find the right data at the right time. Like anything worth finding, this will require a map. You have to be able to look at your data throughout your business like you’re mapping something and going from start to finish.

We will next cover talking making impactful data visualizations. It is actually something that is quite hard to do, so I am going to talk about some tips on how to make some better visualizations.

Then finally we will cover storytelling with data, which is how you influence decision makers.

To recap…

1. Big Data is Disruption

2. Analytics as a Process

3. Finding the Right Data

4. Data Visualization

5. Storytelling with Data

I generally cover this subject matter over a two-day course, but for written consumption I have condensed it.

I have made it very layman.

So, we’re not going sit here and go through a lot of complicated technical stuff. This is more of a high-level perspective of my experience. Of what I know about analytics and why I want to share with you.

A little about me, so I have about 20 plus years of experience working with analytics or data analysis work. Most of my professional experience came with Wells Fargo Bank.

I worked for 15 years with Wells Fargo’s as a senior analyst. For the last seven or eight years though after I left Wells Fargo, I set up my own business. I’ve been teaching people how to be analysts. Talking to companies about how to use more data in their decision-making. Talking to people about how to really level up with their business.

I’ve been doing a lot of that in Asia and I just recently moved to Florida. I am expanding my business towards the East Coast and up here in Chicago. I also have a master’s in education. I was a teacher before I was an analyst. My favorite thing to do is talk about analytics in a way that could help empower people. This is me fulfilling my destiny.

I have a company called Sonic Elevate. Since 2011, we have trained over 8,000 people. Conducted over 186 trainings. We’ve worked on over 50 projects across Southeast Asia.

We at Sonic, work with a wide range of companies, a broad spectrum of types of businesses. The one thing they all have in common is they all have a lot of data and they’re all struggling to use that data effectively. It doesn’t matter how big or how powerful or how amazing a company is. They have to really look at data in a way that allows them to constantly optimize this.

I want to share with you a few of those things that some of these companies do within the framework of the outline I listed above.

Big Data, Analytics, Data Governance, Data Visualization and Storytelling with Data.

If you want to attend a training or set up some time for a 1 on 1 coaching session, let’s connect.

https://www.coachtheworld.com/en/dataiswealth

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.

From Putting Your Data to Work… A Basic Overview of Analytics

Analytics is about looking for patterns in data to help answer questions. Most businesses use analytics to help ensure more data-driven decision-making.

The primary people responsible for conducting analytics on the massive amounts of data we have today are analysts. Analysts are skilled in using various technologies and methodologies to identify, inventory and integrate large amounts of data quickly.

Many Analysts today feel like they are drowning in a sea of data. They need to know how to take control of their data and analysis to quickly answer business questions and make critical decisions. They want to confidently present results and solutions to their managers, colleagues and clients.

You should get started by building a baseline understanding of analytics. The term analytics can often be used interchangeably with statistics and data science. What separates analytics from disciplines like statistics and data science is generally the speed of the analysis and the focus on solving business problems.

The most common form of analytics is business analytics, which is usually used by senior leaders and decision-makers to investigate problems, validate assumptions and to guide strategic planning.

Business analysts are therefore the most common type of analyst. If you do a job search on the title analyst, as many as half the posting will likely be business analysts. However, analytics can be used in an almost limitless number of business functions in specific areas like HR, recruitment, marketing, finance, and so on. Each one can have its very own analyst.

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Analysts have been around a long time, but recent technological advances have both allowed us to produce and capture more data as well as give us the ability to analyze immense data sets quickly. Thus we are amidst a huge boom in the applications of analytics and the need for analytics talent across the globe. Analytics is something just about every business leader is trying to figure out how to use more effectively in their business. To add to our challenge, the demand for good analysts is booming just as fast as the explosion in big data.

As a result, there is a huge shortage of people who are skilled in working with data to answer questions and solve problems. This is why you have seen the number of analyst job postings increasing at an amazing rate.

If you are a business leader, manager, owner, and/or executive are not actively trying to surround yourself with analysts and if you are not infusing an analytics centric culture in your business, you will most likely soon see your business fail.

A business needs analysts to make sense of big data, manage the storage of the data, and know when to use which of the 4 types of analytics (descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive). To be effective, analysts need to have business intelligence tools to create data visualizations, build business dashboards and tell stories with data.

So whether you are an analyst or someone who oversees analysts, Putting Your Data to Work is designed as guidebook to help you get the most out of your business data.

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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.

Revisiting “My Analytics Story” for the upcoming 3rd Edition of Putting Your Data to Work

My Analytics Story

Analytics is in many ways a new profession and up until very recently few people have seen being an analyst as career path. In fact, the majority of analysts became so by accident. To understand analytics, the first thing you should know is that there is no one, right way to analyze things.

As with my case, most analysts are drawn to analytics because they like to solve problems, have an affinity for working with data, are tech savvy and above all else… insatiably curious. By the time I first had analyst in my title, I had already been doing analytics for several years.

Before I was even out of college I became the “Data Guy. I found my novice skills with Excel, my interest in sharing knowledge and my ability to solve problems made me highly employable. Still, there is nothing specific in my background that would suggest I’d become an analytics expert someday.

I majored in History with a plan to be a teacher and even obtained my Master’s Degree in Education. After college I started to teach, but the school I was working at went bankrupt. So I took a job with Wells Fargo Bank just to pay the bills and 15 years later I had amassed a wide range of analytics skills.

If you ask anyone with analyst in their job title, most of them have similar stories. Until recently you could not even get a degree in analytics as schools are just now offering analytics focused courses and degrees.

In 1998, I had the good fortune of being hired by Wells Fargo. The factors that contributed most to my success with the bank were two things inherit in the culture; the progressive use of data in decision-making and the accepted practice of moving up the corporate ladder by moving between departments.

If I had to pick one thing above all others that had made me a good analyst, it is my ability to quickly assess a problem and then identify the data needed to solve the problem. For me, finding the right data is the most important trait to have and also the hardest to teach. It comes out of being curious and letting that curiosity drive you to find answers.

For 15 years that drive lead me to add new skills, learn new technologies, and develop new methods to become a proverbial jack of all trades when it comes to analytics. I often describe myself as a super hero, curiosity being my super power and the wide range of skills I’ve picked up being items on my analytics utility belt.

I am far from an expert on most of the ever increasing number of analytics tools out there, but I know what they can do and what they are good at. There are definitely a lot of people who are better at different aspects of analytics and no one can know it all. But in the end, I have become in many ways a guru of analytics.

I love talking about the fundamentals of analytics, explaining it in layman’s terms, empowering people new to the concept. I also have a passion for sharing my experience with predictive analytics models, using SQL code to write a complex series of table joins between data sources or figuring out what tool would be best use to build a business dashboard.

For the past 7 years now I have been exploring data sets, answering questions, and providing solutions here in the Philippines and loving every minute of it. Analytics… it’s more fun in the Philippines! 🙂

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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.

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.

Data Science Philippines – Feb 2017 Meet Up

My talk is the 2nd one, a little over half way through the video. Listen first to some real data scientists talking about their trade, then it’s my turn where I talk about just how many data scientists there are in the Philippines right now. Thanks to DataSeer for asking us to sponsor and for setting up the event. Looking forward to many more to come! 🙂

Putting Your Data to Work is SOLD OUT! Working on the 2nd Edition Now!

I feel so excited to share with you all that we are now completely sold out of my recent book, Putting Your Data To Work: An Analytics Guidebook for the Filipino Professional.

I am currently working on a 2nd addition with additional images, content and an expanded section on predictive analytics.

If you would like to pre-order a copy of the 2nd Edition, send us an e-mail at analytics@dmaiph and we will add you to the waiting list.

My plan is to have copies available by mid March if not sooner.

Thanks so much to all of you who purchased a copy of the 1st edition. I’m proud to say that we’ve gotten some fantastic feedback from readers that I will incorporate into the new edition.

2017 is the year that Analytics will go mainstream across the Philippines. My book is a great guide for ensuring your organization has a solid analytics foundation as the era of Big Data is upon us.

My Analytics Story – My passion is solving problems by bringing together the best talent, cutting edge technology and tried and true methodologies. DMAIPH is all about empowering people towards better Decision-Making through the use Analytics and business Intelligence. This is what I do best. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly for a free consultation about getting more analytics into your career and your business.

Intelligence Gathering and Process Training in Manila

Another search term that someone used and ended up on my blog… wonder what specifically there are looking for.

I love intelligence gathering work myself. When I was at Wells Fargo one of my primary duties was to gather intelligence on others money transfer companies that compete with the bank for remittance market share.

I was really, really good at it and had a lot of fun doing it. I’ve used that passion to help several clients since then.

Helping them look outside their business to start incorporating competitive intelligence into their analytics process.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has put together an Intelligence Gathering Process training for companies in the Philippines.

It sounds like something that would be really interesting to do.

Survey time to see how much interest I can generate.

Analytics in the Philippines – The Philippines is at the center of the action when it comes to solutions to the global need for analytics. Blessed with a solid foundation of young, educated and English speaking workforce, companies around the world are look for Filipino analytics talent to fill analytics positions. DMAIPH was set up to facilitate these solutions and bring the talent and the business together. And that is exactly why I wrote Putting Your Data to Work, the first analytics guidebook designed specifically for the Philippines. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can help you take advantage of this unique global opportunity.

My Passion for Analytics > Why I Do What I Do

With each morning, I wake up and feel a renewed sense of purpose.

A new day, another chance to use my brain to solve problems.

Some days it a project for a client, some days it’s a new batch of people waiting to be empowered to do more analytics, and some days it’s a more personal use of analytics to solve life challenges.

We are all in our own ways, analytical. We all use data in our decision-making, even if many don’t really see it. There is so much data in our lives that everyone practices analytics.

But what set’s me and people like me apart is that we are passionate about using data in our analysis. We are constantly looking for new data sources, to validate existing data and find ways to integrate it into what we do.

People like me often end up being analysts by profession. It is a good use of our innate curiosity and belief that just about any question can be answered if you have the right data.

A lot of analysts do seem to be more intelligent and probably more nerdy then many people. That goes with being reflective, taking educated guesses and not being overly emotional when it comes to decisions.

Finding people like me is something I constantly do. Talking about our data and sharing are analysis and partnering with each other to solve problems.

When you have a group of friends like this, you do great things in life. When you have a team of workers like this, you have a data-driven business.

So I talk about my story a lot. How I got to be a great analyst. How I have enjoyed a satisfying career and been successful in business. There are a lot of people who have similar dreams and similar abilities.

They just need to be empowered. To have the curiosity unleased. To be surrounded by people in both life and work that push them to use their analytics talent to do bigger and better things.

When you have the right data, being analyzed by great people, you end up with amazing results.

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That is why I love what I do.

That is how I wake up every day with a sense of passion about my ability to make a difference in the world.

If you follow my blog, read my book or are connected with me on social media, then you are probably wondering how to find a conduit for your passion for data and analysis too.

And that means there is a reason to get up tomorrow morning and do it all over again.

Published! Putting Your Data To Work

So happy to announce that the 2nd Edition of Putting Your Data to Work is now available.

To my knowledge this is the first analytics book written specifically for the Filipino.

Empowering analysts and advocating for the use of data and analysis in decision-making is what I am most passionate about!

E-mail us analytics@dmaiph.com to get a copy for 700 PHP plus shipping.

Analytics in the Philippines – The Philippines is at the center of the action when it comes to solutions to the global need for analytics. Blessed with a solid foundation of young, educated and English speaking workforce, companies around the world are look for Filipino analytics talent to fill analytics positions. DMAIPH was set up to facilitate these solutions and bring the talent and the business together. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can help you take advantage of this unique global opportunity.

Infusing HR Analytics into Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management Classes

One of the things I have been working on is helping a top school here in the Philippines develop a strategy to infuse more HR Analytics into their Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management Classes.

This effort is a precursor to a class specifically on HR Analytics, which is to the best of my knowledge, the first ever here in the Philippines.

So as I put more thought into the syllabus of each class, it occurred to me that a good way to approach analytics is to introduce it slowly over the length of the 3 classes, which follow in a natural progression.

Starting with the OB class, we can focus on how to identify data in an organization that will be useful to a HR team to measure things over time. To help really get at causality of human behavior on a wide scale, you need to have the data to understand context.

In the HR Management class, we will spend more time working on the inventory part of analytics, which is to bring the data into an analysis and reporting structure that helps us discover patterns and trends based on that data.

Then the HR Analytics class, we will then proceed on how to integrate the data and the analysis into tool like a business dashboard.

At a high level, the students will gain an appreciation for the wealth of data HR can access in an organization and how the analysis and reporting of this data can lead to more data-driven decision making.

Its great to have an understanding of why people leave a job, and to have good reporting on attrition patterns, but you also need to have the ability to enable strategic action based on data and not just observation or simple metrics.

That is what our students will be able to do that will separate them from other Psychology grads entering the workforce. They will be ready day one to be HR Analysts who can bring a much needed data centric skills set to a very people driven discipline.

If you are a school administrator or professor and need to get more analytics in your course work so your students are better prepared for the analytics centric jobs, connect with me. I can show you how. I even have a textbook you can use. My new book Putting Your Data to Work is ideal for the nascent analytics learner.

Analytics Education – Facilitating a mastery of the fundamentals of analytics is what DMAIPH does best.

All across the world, companies are scrambling to hire analytics talent to optimize the big data they have in their businesses. We can empower students and their instructors with the knowledge they need to prepare for careers in analytics.

Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can set a guest lecturer date, On-the-Job Training experience or other analytics education solution specifically tailored to your needs.