By coloring analytics as a technical function, our employers discount the importance of analysis itself. The decisions we support are more valuable than the technologies we build, but organizations aren’t structured to recognize that; social status and the power dynamics of Silicon Valley compel us to overvalue engineering skills; we’re kingmakers, and people don’t see it (View Highlight)
The collective sentiment was well summarized by an email I got from an experienced practitioner: “Senior leadership hasn’t fully internalized the shift from ‘reporting’ to ‘analysis’. If you think that an analyst’s job is just dumping numbers into Excel…of course you’re not going to want to pay top-tier salaries for real analysis.” (View Highlight)
Beyond improving how we select analysts, we can also better cultivate them. Tristan Handy alluded to this problem in his (very kind) response to my post: We all seem to be at a collective loss about how to train analysts to do the squishier parts of their jobs. (View Highlight)
want to practice problem solving that will make you a better analyst? Even Reddit can’t help you.
At best, this lack of training leaves most new analysts unprepared for the realities of their job. At worst, they’re unaware of what that job even is. This gap is apparent in our “senior shibboleths:” It shouldn’t take several years of experience and frustration for aspiring data scientists to realize that SQL will probably solve more problems than AI. But it often does, and that’s our failing, not theirs. (View Highlight)
As much as we invest in analytical technology—from the billions that investors put into data vendors to the billions that companies spend purchasing those tools—it’s worth considering if we’re investing enough in the people who make those tools useful. Without them, all our technology is just expensive servers and websites, churning through busywork. The best analysts have shown us that these investments can be worth it. But the rest of us have to do more than celebrate those superstars and claim their abilities as our own, if only our confused managers could see it. (View Highlight)
