Author Archive

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Creating Simple Data Visualizations as an Act of Kindness

A lot of people who are new to data visualization feel that they have to design something novel and amazing in order for it to have impact. But novelty is the icing, not the cake. It is not the core of a what makes a data visualization successful (or not).

When Decisions Are Driven by More Than Data

Stories are all about relationships, and so are data. It’s not the datapoints, or the nodes, that matter—it’s the edges between them that paint the trendlines and allow us to say something about our future.

The One Key Skill of the CDO

In this post, Julie talks about the necessary skills for a CDO, as learned through her research for the “Understanding the Chief Data Officer” report.

With Data, Ask “What” Before “How”

At the Strata + Hadoop World conference in New York last week, there were an impressive 16 tracks of session talks. A lot of them focused on the tools that everyone is excited about, but I focused on the goals people are using data science to accomplish. Here are a few of the sessions that stood out.

5 Ways to Facilitate Failure

Failure is appealing as a stepping stone along the path to innovation, but it’s very scary in practice—especially when you can’t yet see where the path is leading. We’d like to suggest the following five guidelines as a place to start.

CDO FAQ

This month’s Throwback Thursday feature looks at some frequently asked questions about the role of the Chief Data Officer. An updated report will be forthcoming in September.

Sanjay Mathur at Cultivate

Cultivating an Experimental Enterprise

Last month, SVDS CEO Sanjay Mathur spoke at O’Reilly’s conference on engineering leadership, Cultivate, about Eating Change for Breakfast. While on site at the event, he spoke with Radar’s managing editor, Jenn Webb, about creating an Experimental Enterprise.

King of the Hill? The Perils and Possibilities for a CDO

The role of the Chief Data Officer (CDO) continues to gain attention and proliferate as more companies hire them, and others wonder with increasing anxiety whether they should, too. The promise of data and the business value it can unlock is tantalizing, but also somewhat confusing to many organizations — the role of the CDO is, too.

Can You Hear Me Now? How to Communicate with Remoties: Part 4

Parts 1 through 3 of this series looked at our preferred scenarios and best practices for instant messaging, video conferencing, and phone meetings. This final installment focuses on email.