analyzing-the-analyzers

CHAPTER 6Final ThoughtsAfter considering themselves and their careers in the framework wehave suggested here, Binita, Chao, Dmitri, and Rebecca all made somechanges. Binita learned some clearer ways of talking about the diversityof people on her team and will help HR to more clearly defineroles, at least until she leaves to strike out on her own. Chao sees thevalue in specializing more and will be signing up for some massiveopen online courses (MOOCs) to deepen his Statistics skills. He hopesto complement his existing visualization skillset with some work intime-series modeling. Dmitri, conversely, sees some benefit in diversifyinga bit and will start to read more about data visualization technologyand about how to sell data projects to managers. Rebecca hasidentified some process and organizational changes in her companythat would help her be more effective and will start chatting withmanagers about how those might happen.Others benefited from this framework too. That CEO who was lookingfor a “god” got his expectations in line with reality and is now lookingto build a small, diverse data science team. And the firm that confusedBinita’s Data Businessperson skills with those of a Data Developer hasa newfound appreciation for the variety of people in this field and thevariety of talents that they bring to the table.We hope that our work can be valuable to the community broadly, butwe realize that this article is just one step forward. Our suggestednames for the variety of data scientist are just suggestions. Additionalsurvey research could help clarify the natural categories more clearly,and we look forward to data illustrating how the field is changing overtime, as new educational and career paths emerge.27