Locally Optimistic

Or: How perspective changes when you're the one asking the questions Four years ago, I would have rolled my eyes at myself. Hard. Back then, on the data team, I had strong opinions about the right way to access data. Product managers who wanted to query t

What math education can teach us about using data for strategy My foremost memory as a Calculus student was the time I watched my precocious, impulsive classmate have a near-meltdown. As a parent of a two-year-old, and with the benefit of hindsight, I ass

Many professionals wonder how to stand out in the data job market when competition is so high. To stand out, candidates need more than just technical skills-they need a strategic approach, strong soft skills, and a clear understanding of what employers ar

In 1931, an Indian mathematician and librarian named S. R. Ranganathan published The Five Laws of Library Science. In the preceding century, libraries had undergone what he characterized as a revolution. Before then, librarians had effectively been tasked

Executive Summary We want our work to be impactful and used by stakeholders; we keep hearing that developing data products is the answer. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to get there. Successful data products help our collaborators decide how to improv

As you progress in your career, your focus shifts from completing discrete tasks assigned to you, to owning larger projects. Being able to execute complex projects with limited support expands your potential impact on your organization. And as you take ow

"Leverage" is an overused phrase in many business settings, but focus for a moment on the actual meaning. A lever multiplies the force you apply to it, and that multiplier depends on where you place the fulcrum. As you mature as a data practitioner, you'l

The LO Admin team is very excited to announce our very first cohort of Locally Optimistic Fellows. Fellow contribute to a one-year commitment of helping support the growing community and events. We are proud to have a group of active community members as

From 2019-2022, I was the data product manager of the business intelligence team at Unite, a sizeable European B2B procurement platform, where I guided our transformation from a "service team" to a "product team." We went from implementing long lists of d

This is part 2 of a series on the skills that enable data practitioners to develop consistently high impact and success. I hope that it helps individual contributors understand how to build the skills they need to drive results, and helps data managers pr