Ch 8. What Makes a Great Analytic Pro-fessional?

Taming The Big Data Tidal Wave

7 June 2012SNU IDB Lab.Jee-bum Park

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Outline Who Is the Analytic Professional? The Common Misconceptions about Analytic Professionals Every Great Analytic Professional Is an Exception The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional Is Analytics Certification Needed, or Is It Noise?

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Who Is the Analytic Professional? (1/2)

Analytic Professional The most common names used traditionally

– Analyst– Data miner– Data scientist– Predictive modeler– Statistician

Analytic Professional– Spend a lot of time analyzing big data and using tools

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Who Is the Analytic Professional? (2/2)

Analytic Professional Great analytic professional

– Have no problem picking up a new programming language or tool– Learn about a new data source and how it can be applied

Analytic profes-sional

Big data

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Outline Who Is the Analytic Professional? The Common Misconceptions about Analytic Professionals Every Great Analytic Professional Is an Exception The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional Is Analytics Certification Needed, or Is It Noise?

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The Common Misconceptions about Analytic Professionals (1/3)

The Common Misconceptions It is usually assumed that

– A great analytic professional is going to need A statistics, math, computer science, or similar degree

– Success will require a master’s or PhD degree– Programming experience

The logic behind this criterion is that– A great analytic professional must be able to use tools well

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The Common Misconceptions about Analytic Professionals (2/3)

The Common Misconceptions Having skills is certainly necessary to be a great analytic profes-

sional

But they are not sufficient to make a person a great analytic pro-fessional

While those skills are important, they are not the most important factors in distinguishing a great analytic professional

StatisticsMath

ProgrammingGreat ana-lytic profes-

sional

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The Common Misconceptions about Analytic Professionals (3/3)

The Common Misconceptions A great analytic professional

– Understand the business problems an organization is trying to solve– Understand how to generate the analysis needed to address the organiza-

tion’s business problems effectively

Analytic profes-sional

Business problems Solving effectively

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Outline Who Is the Analytic Professional? The Common Misconceptions about Analytic Professionals Every Great Analytic Professional Is an Exception The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional Is Analytics Certification Needed, or Is It Noise?

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Every Great Analytic Professional Is an Exception (1/3)

Education Don’t focus exclusively on formal education

Focus on whether an analytic professional has learned what is re-quired to do the job

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Every Great Analytic Professional Is an Exception (2/3)

Industry Experience A great analytic professional in one industry can learn about an-

other and become great there

Getting some outside perspectives from another industry can be quite beneficial

A team can learn a lot from somebody outside the industry

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Every Great Analytic Professional Is an Exception (3/3)

Beware “The List” Hire knowledge and skills, not check boxes

Many aspects of a great analytic professional involve factors that aren’t technical in nature at all

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Outline Who Is the Analytic Professional? The Common Misconceptions about Analytic Professionals Every Great Analytic Professional Is an Exception The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional Is Analytics Certification Needed, or Is It Noise?

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The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional (1/4)

Commitment Commitment is a trait that benefits every profession

This trait tends to come across in an interview based on how the candidate describes hos or her past work and successes

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The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional (2/4)

Creativity Creativity is how to get around those barriers and still get to an

end result that hits the mark

A creative analytic professional will have a good story to tell you

For example– Clean data is only in textbooks– Clean-enough data

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The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional (3/4)

Business Savvy Great analytic professionals have the ability to understand the

business model– How analytics can address that business’s problems

Great analytic professionals are going to be able to focus on what the important metrics and outcomes

For example– The right level of granularity– Focusing on the important

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The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional (4/4)

Presentation and Communication Skills A great analytic professional is going to be able to engage non-

technical people

Analytic professionals must get the results across to them effec-tively, or the results may as well not exist

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Outline Who Is the Analytic Professional? The Common Misconceptions about Analytic Professionals Every Great Analytic Professional Is an Exception The Often Underrated Traits of a Great Analytic Professional Is Analytics Certification Needed, or Is It Noise?

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Is Analytics Certification Needed, or Is It Noise?

Analytics Certification It’s not a bad thing that they have the skills and motivation to pass

a relevant exam

But certainly they will only be a starting point in assessing a candi-date

Thank you