What they said

Exciting news!

Join us at #GoDataFest, a 3-day conference in Amsterdam that covers the latest and greatest in data-driven organizations, analytics engineering, data storytelling and visualization, and much more!

This is a great opportunity to learn from experts, network with peers, and deepen your understanding of the data industry.

And the best part? It’s completely free, thanks to the fine folks at GoDataDriven | Now Xebia.

Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to expand your knowledge and connect with like-minded professionals.

Register now at https://godatafest.com.

#DataDrivenOrganizations #AnalyticsEngineering #DataStorytelling #DataVisualization #FreeConference

Very happy to share that I’ve passed the Professional Communication: Business Writing and Storytelling course by The Economist, obtaining a final grade of 87%.

What are the 7 key takeaways that fit in a short post?

1. Think about the briefing: what’s the main message, who’s the audience, what’s the medium
2. Then think about the key points you want to make to get your message across
3. Order your key points on a map to form a journey. Is the path from one point to the next logical? Are there logical gaps?
4. Write the intro — a catchy sentence or two that invites the reader to take the journey — and the executive summary — ideally covering most key points
5. Then put some evidence or arguments beside each point
6. At this moment, you should have a solid enough structure and text that you can produce a first draft
7. Once the draft is ready, polish, polish, polish.
8. [Bonus] Grammarly is an excellent tool for non-native English speakers. For example, I use commas the Italian way — it just sounds right to me — and apparently, some actual rules dictate how to use them in English.

You can enroll on their site https://education.economist.com/courses/professionalcommunication

PS: Besides my coach Pieter de Swart, this is one of the many ways I use the ludicrously generous education budget at Xebia.

Curious?

Contrary to many tech companies, we’re hiring across the board, from Data Engineers to Data Strategists!

Check out our careers page at https://xebia.com/careers/data-and-ai/

#writing #communication #tech #data #storytelling

This boggled my mind:

There are 5 million fewer females aged 15-49 in China today than in 2020.

In just 3 years, 5 million people… disappeared.

Of course, they didn’t really disappear, some just aged.

But it’s such a large number that my mind had trouble processing it.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/01/19/chinas-birth-rate-continues-to-fall

“When you hold on to a belief so strongly that neither facts nor reason can change it, what you are doing is no longer science, but religion.”

https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm

Important note at the very end: to eat your Christmas tree, make sure it hasn’t been treated!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/dec/31/dont-chuck-christmas-tree-eat-it

This was me this week

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/cold_complaints.png

Corporate communication is stiff.

Not so much at GoDataDriven, where we strive to win your smile by leaving aside the corporate etiquette.

Merry Christmas.

How did this get past the designers of the Economist and / or PwC?

Slack Connect — the ability to create channels where members of two different organizations can post two — is the best lock-in mechanism I’m aware of.

1. It is genuinely a great feature. I don’t want to log in into another Slack plan just to chat with a couple of members. Every new Slack plan also means an extra login. This escalates to M*N logins(M = number of Slack plans, N = number of devices). Ugly, and Slack Connect tackles it.
2. It’s only available on paid plans
3. It’s only available — duh! — when both are using Slack.

Migrating from Slack to something else (or downgrading to a free plan) can be a serious business disruption.

As the business is what generates $$$, they will prevent any move away from Slack.

Genius!

https://slack.com/help/articles/115004151203-Slack-Connect-guide--work-with-external-partners