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2018 Women In Analytics Conference Recap

By Mai Alowaish posted 04-06-2018 02:31 PM

  

A few weeks ago, an article on The Harvard Business Review shared the fascinating outcome of a study, which indicated that “within one year, attendees of a conference for women were twice as likely to be promoted.”

My first thought was, “Really? But How?”

Luckily, I was already signed up for the Women In Analytics 2018 Conference and was about to experiment with that statement myself. Still wondering how the conference would help me advance, it became clearer and clearer as the day progressed.

Stories that Inspired Me to Revisit My Career Path

I found myself subconsciously starting to revisit and plan my career path. Without even thinking about it, that article’s theory was already working; and with each session, the path became clear.

Step 1: Rediscovering My Path

The conference opening speaker, Robin Davies from Ford Motors, told the story of Ford’s journey to build and sustaining enterprise analytics; and how it transformed their “motor business”. Their transformation took three years, and enabled Ford to implement targeted marketing to send relevant content, allowing them to gain the competitive advantage and improve results.

My path re-discovered: This made me think about the clients that I work with on a daily basis, and how we enable them to see those rich details.

Step 2: Refining My Path

The next stop was with healthcare, and a medical doctor who turned to analytics after being inspired by her mother. Dr. Karen Amstutz shared how Artificial Intelligence (AI) now plays a major role in medical diagnosis. This is an initiative that is still in the works, as hospitals continue to have medical records living in silos.

My path, refined: Learning new skills and standards from our data governance experts at Blast will provide the right alignment for data collection and implementations.

WIA PanelStep 3: Affirming My Path

The discussion panel about Innovative Applications of AI included ladies from the healthcare and academic field. It was very enlightening to see the strategy shift to focus analytics efforts on building tools rather than just delivering reports.

My path, affirmed: I love how at Blast we’re building tools and not delivering reports, helping organizations make better and faster decisions, and then take action through self-serve analytics.

Step 4: Defining My Path

My favorite session was the “Identifying Data Science Opportunities for Non-Data Scientists.” Both presenters Lisa Gardner and Doreen Luke were not data scientists, and had long experience working with data scientists to enable them to get the right data for valuable insights.

My path, defined: This inspired me to use my strength in analytics implementations and capitalize on my knowledge of eCommerce applications to contribute to the data scientist role.

Inspired by Women in Analytics Making an Impact

Seeing all these women doing great things with data and analytics was indeed inspiring! Hearing how they made their impact in different sectors and industries, made me feel proud to be a part of the Women in Analytics community.

Read more about Mai’s journey and WiA recap.


#WomeninAnalytics

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