Visiting the mother ship

Northwestern Sept 2012Though I’ve long socialized and worked online, I am for the first time in my life enrolled in a school program that is completely online. This has been more difficult for me than I imagined it would be when I first enrolled in the Predictive Analytics program at Northwestern. After all, in the time I was at Blackbaud I worked easily with clients and co-workers hundreds of miles away, many of whom I never met face to face.

I jumped at the chance to attend the 2-day September open house that Northwestern hosted for students in four online MS programs: Predictive Analytics, Medical Informatics, Information Systems, and Public Policy & Administration. Having the chance to meet other students face to face, hear from faculty, and see presentations from people working in the field was much appreciated.

The highlight for me was a talk by Bill Franks, author of Taming the Big Data Tidal Wave, who Continue reading

Data Gotham


Just so you’re clear on exactly who I am: I spent my birthday at the DataGotham conference and I was thrilled to do so.

There were many high points, but the most enjoyable part was Baratunde Thurston. That’s right, the author of How To Be Black and former Digital Director from The Onion did a little data-geek stand-up. Pure win.

What, exactly, was DataGotham? It was a gathering of people from the loosely defined “New York City data community”and included Continue reading