Podcast of Small Differences: Recent Episodes
Otis Anderson
A podcast about data science, but also just about work. Hosted by Otis Anderson and Ian Blumenfeld, who have both data scienced for a long time. Hear from some data humans who have had some successes and some failures. We know, this isn't easy
This is a bulk re-publish of old, lost episodes.
Ian and Otis talk about recent sales in the BI sector, the Toronto Raptors. We learn that Otis has tendency towards overly literal descriptions. In the last few minutes we announce that the show will be on hiatus for a while.
This is a bulk re-publish of old, lost episodes.
Otis and Ian have no guests this week. They discuss workplace culture and career development.
Lauren Chircus drops by to discuss developing tools for data scientists. We also talk about what a data strategy gets you that tooling can't.
Drew Dillon has done product, executive things. He give you some insight into why it can be hard to see across an organization, why PMs lag on data.
Dave Guarino stops by to talk about working with government, political economy and living a life dedicated to not getting stuck on a local maxima.
Otis wants you to stop calling whole pieces of recommendation software "algorithms". Stichfix has an interesting model of data science and it is discussed. There's a bit about Top Chef.
Benn Stancil of Mode Analytics guests. We discuss how the wage differentials between "data scientist" and "data analyst" send the wrong signals to people about what is actually difficult about both jobs.
We revisit episode 2 and episode 7 . The role of empathy in manager-employee relationship is discussed further.
Maura Church guest stars . She talks about about managing and building data science teams with us. At the heart of the discussion is the tension between managing people to a successful career path, and adding value for the business.
Funding, capitalization, business models. Venture capital in particular is discussed from multiple perspectives.
OKRs. You probably have them. Should you? What should you try to get out of them? How do they make you feel?
We are re-publishing lost episodes
Ian and Otis answer some listener mail about what to use when there are no other data scientists to collaborate. They also address the question "Are analysts engineers?" and what that should mean to both hiring managers and candidates.
Bacon Hot Sauce entrepreneur and Chief Strategist Peter Fishman drops by to talk about election night, investigating metric drops and a few other subject.
Data Science has become dangerous. You could be hurting other people through the practice of your job, and there's no reason to try to reason through it all on your own. Guest John Taylor discusses some ethical frameworks as tools to help you with tough issues.
Otis and Ian get some gentle, snarky feedback. The theory of human capital is discussed at length.
We finally discuss Otis' workflow. Some time is spent on the dreaded correlated error terms. Some abuse is hurled at econ departments and stata.
We read responses to previous episodes. We discuss data engineering decisions early in a company, and discuss Ian's ML workflow in some depth.
recovering lost episodes
Ian has work news. Otis has fears about jira. Reproducibility has varying degrees of value.
Restoring lost episodes
Otis and Ian talk about self driving cars and ETL with a small segway in between.
01:54 Robot Cars and Pedestrians:
22:50 ETL
The last episode of the Podcast of Small Differences. We revisit some of the things we said about remote work. Then thank you for listening and supporting us. Thank you!
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We spend a lot of time on business metrics, business culture. Ian says some funny stuff about Canada.
If you need Cometeer explained to you, go to https://cometeer.com/
Otis is one of the people that has moved out of California. We discuss his reasons, and try to understand whether tech jobs will be coming back to the bay area after the pandemic.
A lot of the theoretical framework discussed here is coevered in depth in the book The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Moretti.
Otis and Ian catch up from a long and busy hiatus. We mostly discuss the structural problems facing journalism.
We're back. Ian and Otis catch up after the long absence. We discuss how working from home is different during a pandemic, and inspired by recent government forecasts relive some of our dumber career moments.