Twice weekly, I share proven strategies to help data scientists get noticed, promoted, and valued. No theory — just practical steps to transform your technical expertise into business impact and the freedom to call your own shots.
Five Lessons From 100 Conversations
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The most valuable lessons I’ve learned in my data science career weren’t learned in a classroom. They came from conversations with people who’d already figured things out the hard way. My podcast has been a more valuable learning tool for me than all of my university degrees combined. Over 100 episodes, I’ve had the chance to speak one-on-one with some of the sharpest minds in the industry - CEOs, best-selling authors and leading researchers - on everything from cutting-edge AI to what it actually takes to build a lasting career in data. No single guest has all the answers. But together, these conversations have assembled, like the pieces of a jigsaw, and a picture has emerged about what it really means to create value from data. Here are five things that stuck with me: 1.
“The mission of data science - as somebody who, as a business leader, champions it - is to help people make those better and better and better decisions. And if you’re not doing that, you’re not creating value. Full stop.” - Mark Stouse, CEO Proof Analytics (Episode 53) 2.
“Think to the business process that you’re going to impact and the decisions that are going to be made. And keep asking questions until you fully understand how what you’re doing is going to be used to change or improve somebody’s decision.” - Prof. Jeff Camm, Inmar Presidential Chair in Analytics Wake Forest University School of Business (Episode 81) 3.
“If you go in with the attitude that I’m going to change the world, you probably won’t. But if you go in thinking, I just want to solve this problem, I’m really intrigued by this problem. And you come up with a solid base solution to that problem, that’s your best chance.” - Prof. Steve Stern, Custodian of the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern cricket scoring system (Episode 94) 4.
“It didn’t matter if I had a better tool, a better visualization, a faster process, none of that mattered if I could not accomplish one of these five things. If I couldn’t help my clients to make money, to save money, to make their clients happier, to make their employees happier or to reduce risk, I was wasting their time.” - Gregory Lewandowski, Founder and Chief AI Strategist GLEW (Episode 60) 5.
“Do something at the beginning of every presentation to show your audience that you understand their pain. Put something in there that conceptualizes, even if it’s just restating to them something that they’ve told you already, if they believe you understand their problem, then they’re already halfway to being persuaded that you can help them fix it.” - Dr Russell Walker, Principal Consultant Walker Associates (Episode 74) One hundred episodes in, and the conversations are only just beginning. The next chapter of the podcast starts this Thursday and is dedicated to going even deeper - bringing you more of the kind of masterclass-level insight that changes the way you think about your work. You can listen to the first 100 episodes of “Value Driven Data Science” on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or at https://valuedrivendatascience.com/. Here’s to the next one hundred. Talk again soon, Dr Genevieve Hayes |
Data Science Impact Algorithm
Twice weekly, I share proven strategies to help data scientists get noticed, promoted, and valued. No theory — just practical steps to transform your technical expertise into business impact and the freedom to call your own shots.
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