Upcoming Events
- September 29, 2020
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🛠 LO Tool Talk - Great Expectations
September 29, 2020 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
https://trove.zoom.us/j/939602920?pwd=VG92bDFXb05In this week's office hours, Sam Bail from Great Expectations will talk about pipeline testing and how Great Expectations helps data teams eliminate pipeline debt through data testing, documentation, and profiling. As usual, we'll have lots of time for community-led Q&A so *you* can guide the discussion around why you might use it, how GE differs from similar testing frameworks, and how it works in the wild.
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- October 13, 2020
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Hold - ☕️ LO Meetup - Our Next Blog Post
October 13, 2020 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
https://trove.zoom.us/j/939602920?pwd=VG92bDFXb051OGlvZ1E1OHhRTVFvZz09The LO team will lead a conversation about our as-yet-unpublished next blog post. More details to come (spoiler - it will be about leading data teams, agile methodologies, and making your work more valuable - you know, like all of our content 😂).
Hope to see you then!
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- October 27, 2020
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🛠 LO Tool Talk - Census
October 27, 2020 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
https://trove.zoom.us/j/939602920?pwd=VG92bDFXb051OGlvZ1E1OHhRTVFvZz09Boris Jabes from Census will talk about moving data back out of your data warehouse and into the tools your teams use every day. As usual, we'll have lots of time for community-led Q&A so *you* can guide the discussion around why you might use it, the new dbt integration, and how it works in the wild.
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Past Events
Meetups
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Locally Optimistic Meetup - Linear v. Circular Projects
Alexis Johnson-Gresham and Caitlin Moorman lead a conversation about breaking down data projects into circular and linear tasks, and how to use that framework to improve stakeholder communication and project planning.
Blog post part 1: https://locallyoptimistic.com/post/linear-and-circular-projects-part-1/
Blog post part 2: https://locallyoptimistic.com/post/linear-and-circular-projects-part-2/ -
Locally Optimistic Meetup - Data Clinics
Jacob Frackson of Dialogue and Sami Yabroudi of Ro lead a discussion about implementing data clinics to manage the chaos of ad-hoc requests and deliver better results to happier stakeholders.
Jacob's article: https://towardsdatascience.com/implementing-data-clinics-will-save-time-and-get-more-done-e1f003e1c5ee
Sami's article: https://medium.com/ro-data-team-blog/data-clinic-and-data-requests-ro-453196829847 -
Locally Optimistic Meetup - Agile Analytics
Alexis Johnson-Gresham and Michelle Ballen lead a conversation about applying agile methodologies to analytics teams - what works, what doesn't work, and how you can adapt agile to suit analytics better. This Locally Optimistic blog series is a great primer: https://www.locallyoptimistic.com/post/agile-analytics-p1
https://www.locallyoptimistic.com/post/agile-analytics-p2
https://www.locallyoptimistic.com/post/agile-analytics-p3 -
Locally Optimistic Meetup - Open Data
Fabio Beltramini from Looker leads a panel on how to contribute to open data projects and how to start your own! Panelists include Izzy Miller and Leigha Jarett of Looker, Thomas Vladeck of Gradient Metrics, and Chris Whong of Qri.io. -
Locally Optimistic Meetup - Proficiency v. Creativity
The magic of a data team is the combination of rigorous proficiency and open ended creativity. But maintaining the right balance requires building a team culture that finds time and enthusiasm for both. Focus too much on proficiency, and you’ll have accurate reports created by people who are probably bored every day and stakeholders who don’t really understand the value that the data team can add. Enable too much creativity, and you’ve got folks making decisions based on questionable data or a team that works on projects that are interesting but not relevant to the business. How do we reliably find that magic balance?
Caitlin Moorman moderates a conversation about proficiency versus creativity in analytics from this recent post: https://www.locallyoptimistic.com/post/proficiency_v_creativity. -
Locally Optimistic Meetup - Peer Reviews in Analytics
In this conversation, Katie Bauer and the LO community discuss how peer review really works on analytics teams, focused on 4 topics:
- What is the goal of peer review?
- What is being reviewed? Code? Analyses?
- Where does review happen - where in the process and what in what tools?
- How do you ensure accountability and that the peer review process has good coverage?
Some resources noted in the talk:
The art of giving and receiving peer reviews gracefully (with matrix of code quality impact / emotional impact of review): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY6eA2_2hOg
Fishtown Analytic's PR template: https://github.com/fishtown-analytics/dbt-init/blob/master/starter-project/.github/pull_request_template.md, and how they use it: https://blog.getdbt.com/how-to-review-an-analytics-pull-request/
Brooklyn Data Co's PR template: https://github.com/brooklyn-data/co/blob/master/pr_templates/dbt_modeling_pr.md
Github Suggested Changes: https://help.github.com/en/github/collaborating-with-issues-and-pull-requests/incorporating-feedback-in-your-pull-request#applying-suggested-changes
Github Draft PRs:
https://github.blog/2019-02-14-introducing-draft-pull-requests/
Slab as a documentation tool: https://slab.com/
Tool Talks
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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. -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk - Spectacles
Dylan Baker, Josh Temple, and Tom Miller talk about continuous integration and Looker, with their open source tool, Spectacles (https://www.spectacles.dev). -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk - Castor
A conversation with Tristan Mayer of Castor (https://en.castordoc.com/) about democratizing data, automating data dictionaries, and what's next for Castor. -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk - Airflow for Beginners with Astronomer.io
A conversation with Viraj Parekh of Astronomer (https://www.astronomer.io) creates a basic Airflow job from scratch in 20 minutes and answers questions from the Locally Optimistic community about getting started with Airflow. -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk - SQL Notebooks with Count
A conversation with Taylor Brownlow and Ollie Hughes of https://count.co/, which enables users of varying levels of technical ability to create sql-based notebooks for analysis. -
Locally Optimistic Tool Talk: Data Modeling with Dataform
Dan Lee of Dataform gives an overview of the Dataform platform, creates a platform in real time, and Dan and Dataform users answer questions on how the tool performs in the wild.
AMAs
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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!
