Data science can be a very domain-centric experience. You’re in workforce analytics, so employee trends are your world; you focus on retail optimization, so it’s supply chain models all day long. When we brought together 15 leading data scientists this week for an exclusive confab, the common theme was: let us share our problems for outside input and learn from what others are working on.
“I’ve taken a lot of lessons and inspiration from the way people have solved analogous problems,” said one attendee, Shane McCauley, an ex-Googler, ex-Twitterer, who now works at Zume. Andrea Constantinof from Home Depot, agreed: “I’ve gotten a lot of value from sharing my thoughts with people not in the same space.”
The Data Standard, a new community for data scientists, seeks to give data scientists a way to connect online and in person (sooner than later, we hope!) to meet and share ideas and experiences, collaborate and gain that insight from analogous problems that McCauley and others are looking for. Our first event kicked off Tuesday with leading data scientists from Merck, Accenture, Home Depot, Google, TD Ameritrade, Ross Stores and elsewhere who joined by Zoom from their home offices.
At this first “Taco Tuesday,” data scientists shared projects they were working on and the things they were thinking about.Constantinof from Home Depot talked about the challenge of predicting future sales after the COVID impact. “I’m curious how companies are dealing with the change in customer behavior and how that’s going to influence our models going forward,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out how to predict March 2021 and usually I’d use historic data but that feels like the wrong move here.”
Michael Bazigos from Accenture gave a sneak-peek at a platform for major employers with large numbers of job openings to find furloughed employees that other employers on the platform are trying to help re-employ.
The Data Standard officially launches next month. Through our events and our content, we’ll give leading data scientists a way to share what they’re working on and get and give input. We expect these connections will lead to great collaborations. And we’ll feature this work and great ideas in our content and when we come together.
Sign up here for the next “Taco Tuesday” on May 5th, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and like us on Facebook to stay in the loop on our launch and news and events for data scientists!
