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Latest Read: 97 Things Every Data Engineer Should Know

97 Things Every Data Engineer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts. Edited by Tobias Macey, host of the popular Data Engineering Podcast.

97 Things Every Data Engineer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts by Tobias Macey

This book presents 97 concise and useful tips for cleaning, prepping, wrangling, storing, processing, and ingesting data. Data engineers, data architects, data team managers, data scientists, machine learning engineers, and software engineers will benefit from the wisdom and first hand experiences of their peers.

The Data Engineer is a rather new role. However, the management of data has been well known for over a generation. Data engineers tune data for use in analytics and machine learning. Today AI, Data Lakes, Predictive Analytics, and Data Science all roll up into the modern Data Engineer. This is a series of high level insights from various professionals. They work at Twitter, Google, Stitch Fix, Microsoft, Capital One, and LinkedIn.

Readers who seek insights will certainly find this a good reference. Since the topics range widely there is a good probability you will need to keep this reference within reach. It is refreshing to see contributions crossings areas that will be new to most readers.

Admittedly, the chapter on Data Security for Data Engineers by Katharine Jarmul from Thoughtworks is certainly a must read. In addition, Privacy Is Your Problem by Stephen Bailey must be on your list. The variety of topics is also appealing, so be ready to gain insights. Their shared postings have good ideas, warnings, and best practices all melting together.

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Latest Read: Reinventing Jobs

Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work by Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau.

Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work by Ravin Jesuthasan, and John W. Boudreau

John Boudreau is Professor Emeritus of Management and Organization and a Senior Research Scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California. He holds a Masters and PhD from Purdue University in Industrial Administration.

Ravin is Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services at Mercer. Previously he was a Managing Director at Willis Towers Watson. He holds an MBA from Western Michigan University and is a Part-time Lecturer at Caltech’s Executive Education Program.

So, the drumbeats of AI have certainly peaked within 2023. Today ChatGPT is just 13 months old. And while the company is showing its age the impact upon society and business is now at a crossroads.

Accordingly for all the hype of Generative AI, organizations simply do not know how to deploy AI solutions. There are failed AI deployments within 2023. While much of the attention has certainly been to the lack of security and privacy within ChatGPT, the most important aspect for any organizations is confronting AI’s digital disruption including the impact upon employees.

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Latest Read: Customer Data and Privacy

Customer Data and Privacy: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review. HBR is providing a good series of article addressing how your data is collected and the impact upon your privacy.

Customer Data and Privacy: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review by Harvard Business Review, Timothy Morey, Andrew Burt, Christine Moorman, Thomas C. Redman

For some, this may be rather jarring. Nevertheless, how did Facebook generate $116 Billion in revenue in 2022? Accordingly the sale of ads on Facebook is…. you. Yes, in fact you are what Facebook is selling.

It would also be fair to understand the role of Machine Learning coupled with Data Science that created this revenue stream. Facebook is collecting every ‘Like’ you make, every photo uploaded is scanned with facial recognition and every article posted is data mined.

Add this all up and Facebook is literally sitting on overwhelmingly vast amounts of user data. To their credit, Facebook has become the champion of mining profits from all the data they have about you.

Yet are these companies also building trust with you? They know everything about you, and when combined with ‘free’ apps, the tracking continues. We are aware of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Yet for everyone not living in California, there is a real lack of regulation. This allows companies to remain in control of you.

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Latest Read: The New Normal in IT

The New Normal in IT: How the Global Pandemic Changed Information Technology Forever by Gregory S. Smith. Gregory is CIO for the American Kidney Fund and previously served in the same role for Pew Charitable Trusts and the World Wildlife Fund.

The New Normal in IT: How the Global Pandemic Changed Information Technology Forever by Gregory S. Smith

He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a former adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. The New Normal in IT is part of Wiley’s CIO Series.

The pandemic certainly changed everything. The information technology industry was no exception. The downstream impacts placed tremendous pressure on IT teams to maintain service delivery as the world went home and Zoom entered our lexicon.

Reflecting upon this move away from the office, how have IT leaders communicated the change necessary now and moving forward? Change is indeed hard.

We all witnessed the fundamental shift regarding remote work. From optional to mandatory over the next 18 months. How many organizations scrambled like mad to secure and deploy to every employee a laptop?

Can you recall the immediate infrastructure upgrades stood up in weeks versus months? IT faced many critical challenges starting in March 2020. Yet, our IT infrastructure teams kept delivering in those early weeks in order to keep their organization alive and employees functioning.

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Latest Read: HBR’s 10 Must Reads on AI, Analytics, and the New Machine Age

HBR’s 10 Must Reads on AI, Analytics, and the New Machine Age by Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Review has selected 10 articles focusing on intelligence machines and why your strategy cannot ignore their impact.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on AI, Analytics, and the New Machine Age

Published in January 2019 these article certainly provide insights to the new machine age. Each article is presented with three ideas: Problem, Causes, and Solutions.

This very new class of intelligent machines are indeed revolutionizing business through data. Sensors now embedded can gather and transmit data. So, data analytics and machine learning are uniting to provide organizations powerful, data driven insights not possible even ten years ago. The cornerstone of these technologies is miniaturization and supply chain manufacturing costs.

When Organizations and smart machines are correctly brought together, teams will being hiring, not firing. The data outcomes will release new levels of productivity in a much shorter timespan. organizational Leaders will see the big idea new machines provide. As a result, leadership must rethink strategy, managing people, and introducing new services.
The downstream impact: Drone deployments will need retooling of current services into the cloud via mobile apps. Just wait until drones mature and move into commercial spaces. This is a far cry from perceived military only use for drones.

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