Locally Optimistic hosts periodic events focused on data leadership, data tools, and making your team more effective. Locally Optimistic meetups and events are remote and open to all community members.
Add all Locally Optimistic events to your calendar here, or check out upcoming and past events below. Community member Emilie Schario also created a Zap to add any new Locally Optimistic videos to Todoist.
Upcoming Data Leadership Events
Nothing from December 2, 2022 to January 2, 2023.
Past Locally Optimistic Events
Data Leadership Events
LO’s meetups are an opportunity for community members to lead conversations about data leadership topics important to them. If you are interested in leading a meetup or suggesting a topic, see more information on our community page. This is a great opportunity to start speaking about data topics in a low-risk way with an amazing community supporting you!
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Locally Optimistic Preview - Early Career Advice + Retention and Churn
📣 Conference Talk Preview: Early Career Advice + Retention and Churn
- Zachary Chetchavat shares three different (increasingly complex) approaches to modeling retention and churn at SaaS businesses.
- Jessica Cherny shares advice for folks early in their data careers.
Meetup participants provide feedback to help improve the talks. -
Locally Optimistic Meetup: All about recent job transitions is now available
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Locally Optimistic Meetup: From Data-First Roles to Data-Adjacent Roles
Ever wonder how people move from data-first roles (data analyst/data scientist/analytics engineers/data engineers) to data-adjacent roles (product management at a data tools company/finance/ops/customer success at a data company/etc)? Ask our panel about their experiences!
In this panel we'll have Sid Sharma (Solutions Engineering at Sisu Data), Brian Gillet (Product Marketing Manager at dbt Labs), and Nicolle Eagan (Product Manager at Materialize) talking about their experiences moving from data-first to data-adjacent roles. Here about their paths, how they think about their careers, and whether moving into data-adjacent roles is a career detour or a career change! -
Locally Optimistic Meetup: From Data Management to Data IC
Have you wondered if the management-IC career pendulum applies in data? Ask our panel about their experiences!
In this panel, we'll have Caitlin Hudon (OnlineMedEd), Erika Pullum (Hex), and Lindsay Pettingill (Iggy) to talk about their experience moving into management and then into IC roles. Hear about their experiences, considerations, and thoughts on the process. -
Locally Optimistic Meetup: Getting Started with Experimentation
You hear about experimentation. It looks cool, but how do you actually get started with an experimentation practice?
In this panel, we'll have Michelle Ballen (Future), John Lee (Cameo), and Sean Taylor talk about building an experimentation *culture* and *practice* at your organization. They'll talk about common mistakes and share some of their prior wins. -
Locally Optimistic Meetup: Staff+ IC Data Careers
Let's talk about career growth for individual contributors (ICs). The only way to grow in data isn't management. Let's talk to people who have Staff-level roles in Data!
In this panel, we'll have Harlan Harris (Algolia), Paige Berry (Netlify), and Terry Joyce (Trove Recommerce) discuss their own career journeys and how they think about their own careers. They'll talk about their decisions to move up the technical IC career track and considerations that they made.
Tool Talks
LO’s Tool Talks are an opportunity for community members to learn about emerging data tools. They consist of a product demo and lots of time for community questions about the tool and uses cases, with both the tool’s team and actual users available to answer questions. If you are interested in leading a tool talk or suggesting a tool for us to feature, see our community page for more information.
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Locally Optimistic Tool Talk: Eppo
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Locally Optimistic Tool Talk: Deepnote
Elizabeth Dlha and Jakub Jurovych introduce us to Deepnote, a new kind of Data Science notebook. They walk us through the product and answer community questions.
https://deepnote.com/ -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk: Spectacles Round 2
Josh Temple and Dylan Baker of Spectacles walk us through the new dbt integration for Spectacles, and the roadmap for where this integration is going in the future. -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk: Census
Sean Lynch from Census talks about moving data back out of your data warehouse and into the tools your teams use every day. Includes Q&A from the community about why you might use Census, the new dbt integration, and upcoming improvements. -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk: Great Expectations
Sam Bail of Superconductive, the team behind https://greatexpectations.io, discusses how Great Expectations helps data teams eliminate pipeline debt through data testing, documentation, and profiling. We begin with a walk through of the tool, with lots of community-led Q&A and some sneak peeks of what is coming up for Great Expectations.
Slides from Sam's talk: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_i4rQc-Z7fHGGnOfV2bufhkAeyJfY0RS/view?usp=sharing -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk: Iteratively
A conversation with Patrick Thompson and Ondrej Hrebicek of Iteratively (https://iterative.ly/about/) walk us through how to capture clean, consistent events data and answer questions from the Locally Optimistic community about Iteratively.
AMAs
LO’s AMAs are casual interviews with some of our amazing community members, who tell their stories about building and leading data teams, career progression, and their own data journeys. This series is on hold, but if you are interested in helping us revive AMAs, please speak up in #virtual-events in our Slack community!
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Locally Optimistic AMA: Matt Mazur
WordPress.com's Simon Ouderkirk sits down with Matt Mazur, Locally Optimistic community member, freelance data analyst, and serial entrepreneur, to discuss career journeys, analytics knowhow, and communication - also some laughs.
Sharp viewers will also catch Simon mixing up Trotsky and Tolstoy, classic!
You can find all of our content at https://www.locallyoptimistic.com/ -
Locally Optimistic AMA: Claire Carroll
WordPress.com's Simon Ouderkirk sits down with Claire Carroll, Locally Optimistic community member, dbt Community Manager and Analyst at Philadelphia based Fishtown Analytics to discuss career progression, learning from other teams, green flags and red flags, and of course, the infamous LEFT JOIN OR DIE t-shirt!
You can find all of our content at https://www.locallyoptimistic.com/ -
Locally Optimistic AMA: Taylor Murphy
Simon Ouderkirk of WordPress.com sits down with Taylor Murphy of Gitlab to discuss Analytics journeys, a data organization translation of DevOps, hiring for data roles, and moving from a leadership spot into an individual contributor role.
Ingest more great data and analytics content, and join our Slack community at https://www.locallyoptimistic.com/ ! -
Locally Optimistic AMA: Sam Swift
Simon Ouderkirk, Director of Data and Analysis at WordPress.com, sits down with Sam Swift of Bowery Farming to discuss working in data and analysis, the trouble with job titles, and the nature of negotiation within organizations. -
Locally Optimistic AMA: Caitlin Moorman
Caitlin Moorman joins Simon to discuss building a data team, thinking about how to help folks climb their own ladder, and the mysteries of measurement!
