Quantifiably Good
I was trying to play with the hex map concept. But I noticed my state abbreviations were only showing up on a handful of my marks. I discovered that you can simply click on Label in the Marks card and select "Allow labels to overlap other marks": And boom! All labels are now on display.
If you had asked me five years ago what direction I wanted to take my career, I am absolutely certain I would not have said product management. Yet here I am, managing a data products team and loving it. Product management wasn’t much of a thing in data five years ago – there were product... Continue Reading →
I’ve been having discussions lately about data strategies. And, living in London, these conversations often end up in a pub over beer and evolve into philosophical debates on trends in data management, data warehousing, business intelligence, etc. So I thought I’d start a series on the topic and see where it leads. One area that... Continue Reading →
Everyone understands the phrase “looking for a unicorn.” Are you that BI engineer with great people skills? “You’re a unicorn!” Are you a data scientist with a talent for visualization? “You’re a unicorn!” But everyone’s really looking for a platypus, that odd combination of duck, beaver, and otter. While looking for a new position last... Continue Reading →
My daughter got accepted to a summer program at MIT for women in engineering. So we thought since we'll already be on the east coast, why not extend the trip into exploring colleges in the Northeast. Now, being from the Pacific Northwest, my geography skills for anything east of the Rockies starts to get a... Continue Reading →
I've climbed Rainier a couple of times and there were a few crevasses we had to cross. Some were just a mere jump, others were wider and had to be crossed with a ladder. Got me thinking about crevasses in data and how you might want to fill in those crevasses with the last known... Continue Reading →
This morning, I was perusing an article on NPR about humanitarian icons. The short of it is - UNOCHA (United Nation's Humanitarian Agency) has created 295 icons to help convey useful information. 295? Wow! That does seem excessive. Why not create a new icon language and stack a few icons together to communicate? Oh wait,... Continue Reading →
We often ask children what they want to be when they grow up. I have no idea what my answer was when I was a kid – some people have memories of wanting to be a doctor or fireman but I was in high school before I decided and then I changed my mind 100... Continue Reading →
Today I was asked how to extract the directional component from a street address. For example, the following 3 street addresses should have a directional value of 'East': E Street East Road Big River Blvd E My first approach was to do the old fashioned case statement. Select street_address , case when address like 'E%'... Continue Reading →
A few months ago I interviewed for a job in London. I’ve always wanted to live in Europe and this role seemed made for me. But moving from the U.S. to London is a big step, so when I was offered the position I of course turned to data to help me decide if I... Continue Reading →