It’s no secret that many data scientists chose this profession in part because they enjoyed maths and wanted to avoid writing essays.

When I was managing a data team, my team members would happily spend hours writing code. But ask them to write up what they’d done and suddenly everyone was too busy.

Getting them to document their results in the form of a report was a lot like pulling teeth. And I understood why - to them, writing felt like a distraction from the “real” work.

But over time, I noticed something. The data scientists from my team who had the greatest impact within the broader organisation - the ones who got invited to present to senior leadership and earmarked for “better things” - weren’t necessarily the most technically gifted. They were the ones who did put in the time to document their ideas, and who could explain to their stakeholders what they’d done and why it mattered.

Good data work doesn’t speak for itself. The most impactful data scientists within any organisation are frequently the best communicators. And building authority beyond your organisation is virtually impossible unless you’re capable of sharing your ideas with the world.

Technology has made it easier than ever to get your message out. Anyone can start a blog in just a matter of minutes. But building authority isn’t just about writing. It’s also about getting your writing read.

And in a world flooded with AI slop, standing out from the crowd has become harder than ever.

In the latest episode of Value Driven Data Science, Cynthia Dunlop, co-author of Writing for Developers and Senior Director of Content Strategy at ScyllaDB, joins me to share practical frameworks for writing blog posts that stand out, build genuine authority and actually get read.

You’ll discover:

1. Why AI-generated content has made personal experience more valuable than ever [05:10]
2. The three Ps test for finding topics you can write about with genuine authority [08:56]
3. The blog post patterns that work best for demonstrating expertise [11:03]
4. How to use AI to improve your writing without letting it replace your voice [16:33]

In a world flooded with AI-generated content, the most powerful thing you can do is write something only you could have written.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or click the link below:

​Episode 117: Writing Your Way to Authority as a Data Scientist​

Talk again soon,

Dr Genevieve Hayes