A Call & Offer to People Analytics & Data Science Professionals

With this people + organizations + data stuff, do you get the sense that there is something potentially very important for humanity?

Sometimes the people I'm close with tell me my emotions about my work scare them. Why do I care so much? For me, it is a total madness. When you see it, you can't unsee it. You know what it is and what its potential is, and yet, none of us can quite grasp the significance.

Today there are numerous concepts, proofs, measures, methods, projects, and technologies, but it all seems to sift through the fingers like sand. How much time do I have?

While I am proud of some of the unobvious difficulties I solved in writing People Analytics for Dummies - and I think some folks enjoy the easter eggs I hide in my writing - that project is an unfinished sentence to me. It is like being young again and having a brief conversation with the person of your dreams, and you were kind of backward and didn't ask for the number. You have no idea where you stand. In your mind, you have regrets. You are left to wonder if you will ever see them again. It is like the start of harmony, with a note left unfinished. There is loneliness to this.

I want badly to use the sports analogies. Gruff 1950's annoucer, "Bottom of the 9th, down by one", but isn't that cliche? I made myself smile there, but that may be it. On the other hand, I don't know if anyone who reads would relate to my wrestling examples. I guess that's a book for a different audience. In short, there is a moment, and you know it won't last. Within that moment is a call to secure the victory for your team right then, to produce a finality. To produce the one you want, not the one you fear, you have to go deeper into the magic of what you do than you have ever done before. The odds are against it, that is clear, but that is why it is exceptional and the only way it will happen. Once you have experienced this you want to do it again and again as long as you still have the physical ability.

There are various problems to solve.

For now, I am going to hit pause on trying to bring people analytics to the non-technical business audience. I get the need, but I'm tired. I applaud the effort and am happy to help wherever possible.

The Problem: Right now, I'm interested in people all around the world that build things that work with data and code. You know the type; they use Github. They read Packt. They figure things out on their own. There are plenty of opportunities for their time and talent. They are working out who they are, and what that will be. They hate HR. I'm sorry, but they do. They are competent in what they do and probably smarter than the rest of us, but they didn't study behavioral science and just don't know what they don't know.

What I want to do is get very practical about how to offer entry into very rigorous and practical behavioral science methods that can be ported more readily into data science. I want this to be the most comprehensive guide ever created. I'm looking to reduce the pause to search or translate, or re-inventing an approach to a problem someone has worked on before, or the stuff that just flat fails. Even for myself, the effort is to organize some material that will permit a reduction in the constant research and communication required to explain something I want to get others excited about, believe in, and build or help me make. I don't know if that is a big audience. No idea. I don't care. Those are the people I enjoy working with and the problem I want to work on now. That's the book I want to write. I want to learn more in writing this book than I know. I want to go places I haven't gone before.

The Need: I am looking for some people interested in improving the intersection of behavioral science and data science who are willing to be earlier reviewers of deep but rough draft chapters on an ambitious book project.

The Offer: The passion for the spirit of human achievement and scientific development should drive your interest, as it does for me, but what I can offer in return for your support is: 1.) I'll buy you (& a handful of whomever you would like) copies of the final product. 2.) if you want to run, we can work shoulder to shoulder and get some use case examples going. I'll give you as much credit/mention in the book as you want. 3.) From a job/startup networking perspective, I will work on your behalf to find or create opportunities and align recommendations. There are various projects in play. 4.) If you want to write, I can help you get started on a book project, too if you want, and we can co-develop and market (various connections at various publishers)

Reach out by Linkedin or email me at [email protected]

The project will evolve, as will the marketing, but below is the basic idea:

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Title: Practical Guide to People Analytics for Data Science Professionals

?Subtitle: Bring your data science models to life with people data?

Meta Description: There are many books for data science professionals, but none on the unique challenge of human problems and data. This book is the first practical guide to people analytics written for data science professionals.?

?Key Features: ?

- Learn how to get high-quality human preference, attitude, and behavior data into your data models?

- Proven process to help you identify the people data you need to unlock new insight?

- Practical step-by-step instructions for projects new to you that have millions of dollars of value?

Short Description:??

In this Packt People Analytics guide, you will find a practical framework to connect people to business outcomes. This framework will focus your attention on the data you don't have that you most need to produce more business value.?

Long Description:??

Even the best data science techniques can't help you get the correct answers if you have the wrong data. Since businesses consist of people, it seems evident that you are missing a critical ingredient if you want to understand them and don't include people data.???

Yet it is not as simple as tossing whatever data you have on hand into the mix. Much of the data collected in Human Resources Information Systems and employee surveys are not put together carefully for a specific analytical need or purpose. In a world filled with ever-increasing systems and data, executives sometimes assume insights will be automatic, but it takes many things to go right to make sense of the chatter.??

In recent years there have been some significant people analytic successes but inconsistent wins and losses. The uses applied in one context do not apply as well to others. The best data models are built for a purpose.????

This book is not another foray down the same tired path. To focus your effort on the correct data, you need a proven problem framework, practical measures to populate it, and a rigorous data science toolset to close the gap. That's what this book is here to help you do.?

Highlights of things the book will include:?

• Designing people measures that will make data models perform better?
• Using conjoint analysis to model employee preferences?
• Dealing with non-linear people problems like performance?
• Applying multiple regression to model organization attrition?
• Analyzing open survey text with Natural Language Processing (NLP)?
• Categorizing people data with machine learning and AI?
• Exploring a catalog of people analytics measures, analysis, and uses?

Audience:???

Whether a seasoned data science professional or an I/O psychologist looking to deploy data science, the Packt Practical Guide to People Analytics for Data Science Professionals will enhance the unique value you bring to your work. Whether you are on a data science team for a multibillion-dollar company or the lone People Analyst for a small technology startup, the practical people analytics frameworks, measures, methods, and processes proposed in this book can work for you.

Author's bio:??

Mike West was a pioneer of people analytics at a global pharmaceutical company (Merck, Sharp, and Dohme), a specialty retailer (PetSmart), a technology company (Google), and a hospital (Children's Health) before leaving the corporate world to start the first niche people analytics consulting firm - PeopleAnalyst. Since then, Mike has done contract work for over two dozen companies, invented the 4S and Triple-A People Analytics frameworks, and is the author of People Analytics For Dummies. Through writing, speaking, and business Mike's work has influenced hundreds of companies.

Reach out by Linkedin or email at [email protected]