I Will Be Speaking at DAA OneConference!

I am excited to announce that I will be speaking on an Analytics Careers Q&A Panel at the Digital Analytics Association’s (DAA) Annual OneConference October 5-7th in Chicago!

In this blog, I want to share details about the conference, but also my “why” for applying.

Conference Information

I am excited and honored to get to speak on a Q&A panel at the Digital Analytics Association (DAA) OneConference 2021 with Jim Sterne and Garrett Mark Scott to talk about Advancing Your Career in Analytics. Jim will talk from a leadership perspective on how to “care and feed your digital analysts”, Garret will talk about “balancing between task-based and team-based work”, and I will be talking about my experience as a “full time data scientist, part time student”. For anyone who doesn’t know, I am currently pursing a Masters in Analytics at Georgia Tech, and you can read about my experience so far here, here, and here ?? .

The DAA’s mission is "advancing the use of data to understand and improve the digital world through professional development and community", and their vision is “a better digital world through data.”

The DAA OneConference is the premier educational and networking event for analytics professionals. Featuring a lineup of globally renowned industry experts, attendees gain valuable insights on topics ranging from differential privacy and strategic visualization to data democratization and leadership development. Whether you are a practitioner or an executive, this is the one conference you won't want to miss.?Source. This year they have both a virtual and in person option, and I will be speaking at the in-person event where masks are required for all attendees.

Why did I apply?

Through this experience, I learned two things:

1. Don’t be afraid to apply to speak - Worst case they’ll say no; Best case(s) they’ll say yes or give you feedback for next time
2. Don’t give open ended commitments into “the void” - someone will remember and hold you to it???

In January 2021, before my time at Atlassian, I went to MeasureCamp US, an (at the time virtual) analytics un-conference. What’s an un-conference you might ask? It’s a free conference held on a Saturday (so it’s accessible, but you really have to want to be there), where everyone is encouraged to give a session, and the agenda isn’t created until the day of. Crazy? Kind of. Some sessions were really formal, technical and well prepared, while other sessions were more discussion based and/or made up on the fly because they were inspired by other speakers. I had a great time, learned a ton, and met a ton of great people.

One of those made up on the fly discussion topics was lead by Marissa Goldsmith, and it was called “Why Aren’t More Women Speaking at MeasureCamp?” Marissa noticed that attendance was pretty 50/50, but the speakers were >80% male. We had a great discussion about The Female Confidence Gap, referenced statistics from Lean In, talked about strategies that would encourage more women to speak, and reenergized the #diversity-in-analtyics channel in the #measure chat community* to continue the discussion to improve future MeasureCamps and encourage each other to be more confident! In that discussion, I gave an open ended commitment to what I thought was the void of “I will try to speak at the next conference I have the opportunity to” which in my head was the next MeasureCamp US (since it’s really casual and low pressure), and no one in the room would remember anyway. Or so I thought.

Well, a few months later I started at Atlassian! One day, Dylan Lewis, who was in that MeasureCamp discussion with me and heard my open ended commitment to speaking, pinged me with a speaker application for OneConference and told me to apply! I came up with a few excuses (like “well I just changed companies so I don’t have any projects to talk about”), but after a little brainstorming and a lot of waffling, I submitted my “Full Time Data Scientist; Part Time Student” pitch to talk about what it’s like pursuing a Masters while working full time and how it’s impacted my career.?It turns out they liked the topic and are putting me on a Q&A panel about careers in analytics!

And now, my calls to action for you:

1. Have you ever made an open commitment into “the void” that you thought everyone forgot about? What was it? What’s stopping you from pursuing it? Go do it now!
2. When’s the last time you attended a conference? Go out a find a conference (maybe the DAA OneConference) to attend! You never know what you’ll learn or what life changing people you’ll meet!
3. Start presenting! This could be applying to speak at a conference (like I did!), or just speaking more internally to your company. Build up your confidence about yourself and your work, and start building your personal brand. I promise, your unique experiences and perspective will value when you share your work and your stories.