Personal Development

Despite all the bruhaha that’s going on in Washington, entrepreneurs are reinventing how children are educated. Teachers and EdTech companies need to work together to create the products that will create permanent change in classrooms across the globe. Teachers need EdTech companies to build great products to serve their students more effectively. EdTech companies need teachers to buy into their creations so that they can find a successful home for their products. It needs to be a two-way street of communication and production. The authentic insight a teacher can provide, paired with the manpower and brainpower that a EdTech company can bring to the table, the world of education could be changed massively and for the better. ...

Last night the kids and I were across the street at another family’s house for dinner. Their kids are the same age as my daughter and son and often stay for dinner at our house. Last night after dinner we got to talking about the current state of education and how we can better educate our kids. Both the husband and wife have careers in the creative fields and are big supporters of STEM. ...

I have news. I’ve been mulling around the idea for this post for the last two years, ever since I joined RapidMiner. The journey at RapidMiner has been and continues to be fantastic. In those short two years I’ve worn many hats there, I started as a Pre-Sales Solutions Consultant, then moved to a Sales Engineer role, and now I’m Marketing Data Scientist. I’ve made the move from Sales to Marketing and my chips remain all in. ...

I think it was back in 2010 when I met up with an old high school classmate. Let’s call her “T,” and she was in between marketing jobs. I reached out to her because we had an opening for a CMO at my old engineering firm and thought she would be great for it. She had recently worked on some really cool NGO campaigns and I liked her forward thinking. I eventually convinced her to throw her hat in the ring for the CMO gig but that’s not the most important thing I learned from our get together. ...

Last week I shared a few thoughts around what it takes to be a Sales Engineer in a high tech startup. My last thought, around understanding value, begs for a full post on that subject. I hear the word “value” thrown around so often that I wonder if it has a real meaning anymore. Everyone says their new product or service provides value, but what does that mean? When I think about what true value means, I approach it from two distinct angles: time and money. No matter who you’re selling to, value will come down to a function of their time and/or money. That’s it. ...

If you asked me 2 years ago if I’d be working in Sales at a high tech startup, I’d say you were nuts! Fast forward to today and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Today I’m a Sales Engineer at an advanced analytic startup. What exactly is a Sales Engineer? Wikipedia defines it as a hybrid between Sales and Engineering, an interesting combination indeed. I live in a Goldilocks world of solving problems and selling the solution. This suits me just fine. Coming from the engineering world, solving problems is in my blood. Couple this with learned public speaking skills (i.e. Toastmasters), making presentations in a Sales environment makes me happy. I’m in my sweet spot. ...

The one thing that is as important as your product is your messaging about it. In some ways, messaging is more powerful because if no one knows how great your product is, you’re toast. To illustrate my point, let’s investigate the phrase “the medium is the message.” Originally coined by Marshall McLuhan, Marshall tells us the the medium (product) and message are one of the same. Your message becomes your product and your product becomes your message. Your success depends on your product (medium) and message saying the same thing at all times. ...

In today’s Advanced Analytic landscape we often hear about the mythical Data Scientist that can cure all our problems and unearth value hidden deep in our data. He/she needs to know Math and Statistics, be able to Hack, and have deep Domain knowledge about a given problem. Drew Conway famously put together a Venn Diagram to show you what I mean. Yet, I always found this Venn Diagram a bit lacking for the softer skills. Sure you need to know all those hard skills, but what about having the ability to effectively communicate your results? You have yet another language to learn young (or old) Data Scientist! ...

This past Friday I resigned from my position as a Civil Engineering Manager at SYSTRA, my employer of the last 6+ years. I did this because an opportunity of a lifetime knocked on my door, an opportunity that will give me a chance to pursue my passion in an exciting and growing field. In short, an opportunity to follow my dreams. I've accepted a position as a senior consultant at Rapidminer, in their Boston headquarters, and I couldn't be more excited about this. Not only will I be leveraging my engineering, predictive analytic, presentation/teaching and Rapidminer skills, but I will be empowering organizations to utilize and adopt Rapidminer in ways they've never dreamed of. ...

Since this blog is about using neural nets and AI, its only appropriate that I post about an awesome audio book I’m currently listening too. I like supplement my voracious appetite for books with audio books on occasion and have more space devoted to audio books on my 4 gig nano than I do with music. The current book I’m listening too, “Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain” by Sharon Begely is utterly fascinating. It’s not a how to book, rather its about current discoveries in field of neuroscience and discussions with the Dalai Lama about it. ...