Category: Work
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Doing Data Science, Helping People Get Jobs @Indeed
Having just marked my 1-year anniversary at Indeed, it occurs to me that I have not yet blogged about my not-so-new job as a data scientist helping people get jobs. In addition to ending a long (7+ month) drought in my blogging practice, I'm also hoping that in sharing a bit about my work at…
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WTF Economy: Augmentation, Disintermediation and Small Acts of Production
Tim O'Reilly (O'Reilly Media) opened last week's conference on the Next:Economy, aka the WTF economy, noting that "WTF" can signal wonder, dismay or disgust. I experienced all three reactions at different times during the ensuing two-day "investigation into the potential of emerging technologies to remake our world for the better". I attended the conference because…
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Conversations, Re-evaluations and Recombinations: A David Whyte Workshop on Difficult Harvests
I attended my first David Whyte workshop last month, held at the First Covenant Church in Seattle. The theme was The Harvest of Winter, exploring the challenges posed by difficult harvests and the opportunities they provide for asking beautiful questions: disturbing, provocative questions whose answers can unlock deep, hidden insights. These questions become increasingly important during…
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Clear Mind, Wild Heart, Spiral Career Path, New Job
I recently accepted an offer to assume the role of Director, Analytics and Data Science, at Atigeo LLC. This career transition mostly marks a shift of title and status, as I've been consulting at Atigeo as a Principal Scientist for the past 18 months (part-time during the academic year and full-time during summers). I'm excited about…
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Valuable Advice on Preparing for Technical Interviews … and Careers
The cover of Gayle Laakmann McDowell’s book, Cracking the Coding Interview, and links to her Career Cup web site and Technology Woman blog are included in the slides I use on the first day of every senior (400-level) computer science course I have taught over the last two years. These are some of the most…
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Scott Berkun’s Personal Insights on the Experience of User Experience Professionals
Scott Berkun shared some mistakes and lessons learned from his experience as and with user experience (UX) professionals last night at a meeting of the Puget Sound Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (SIGCHI). In a highly interactive session, he also invited the 40 or so other UX professionals who attended the meeting to share…
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The Gaps, Crap and Gumption Traps in Creative Work
The poster above reflects hard-won wisdom acquired and shared by Ira Glass, host of PRI's This American Life, emphasizing the importance of perseverance in developing mastery of creative production. While Glass focuses on storytelling for radio and television, his insights and experiences about the gaps between ambitions and realizations – and the connections between quantity…
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Continuing Education: Senior Lecturer at the University of Washington, Bothell
I recently embarked on the next stage of my re-engagement with academia, as a Senior Lecturer in the Computer & Software Systems program at the University of Washington, Bothell. Like the Tacoma campus, where I taught last winter and spring, the Bothell campus cultivates a small college culture within a large university system: classes are…
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Irritation Based Innovation
If necessity is the mother of invention, irritation is the father. People can be motivated to make changes based on so-called positive emotions, but I would argue that anger is more often the spark for fueling innovation. Some people live by the credo Don't get mad, get even. But as Mohandas Gandhi so adroitly observed,…
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Fitting in vs. Belonging: The Costs and Benefits of Conformity
A while back, I wrote about Brene Brown‘s inspiring TEDxHouston talk on Wholeheartedness as connection through courage, vulnerability and authenticity. I have since read her most recent book, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are, and was so moved by her insights that…