The Puzzle Girl and the Time Series Website


The first thing I ever published that attracted any real attention was just after I finished my PhD.

I started writing the puzzle page for Actuaries Magazine as a way of filling my suddenly empty weekends.

I didn’t expect it to lead to anything.

Yet, in the years that followed, people would walk up to me at conferences and want to shake my hand because I was “the puzzle girl”.

Once someone even offered me a job because of it.

Prof Rob Hyndman, one of the world’s leading applied statisticians, has his own version of this.

For him, it was a website called The Time Series Data Library - an online collection of around 100 time series data sets made available for other academics to use for their teaching.

At that time, none of his published research was well-known. Yet, at conferences, he became known as “the guy with that fantastic website.”

Neither of us set out to build authority. We just did something small, put it out into the world, and let it compound.

In the latest Value Boost episode of Value Driven Data Science, Rob joins me to explore how that same principle - selectively giving away your work for free - helped him become one of the world’s most cited statisticians, and what data professionals at any stage of their career can learn from this approach.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

  1. Why Rob decided to give away his work for free from the start of his career [01:42]
  2. How open source software multiplied the impact of his research [05:58]
  3. Why authority building is a virtuous cycle and how to start it [09:47]
  4. Why starting small is the right move [10:35]

You don’t need a large platform or a publisher. You just need to start.

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

Episode 102: How Giving Away Your Work for Free Can Build Your Authority as a Data Scientist

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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