🎉My top reflections from a pandemic year
Hope you had a great start to the new year. Wishing you good health, happiness, and resilience in 2021!
I had a good break over the holidays watching movies, reading, and playing lots of board games with family & friends. I spent time reflecting on 2020 and making some big plans for this year.
In 2021, I look forward to bringing you a lot of new ideas and discussing how you can make the most of your data.
For this edition’s spotlight, I thought it would be fitting to share my biggest and most interesting posts from the past year. Read on and let me know what resonated with you.
This newsletter will take you about 5 minutes to read.
I. Spotlight: 🎉My top reflections from 2020
My focus is on the future of data science for business. I explore current industry challenges, upcoming trends, and envision how things would shape up in the future.
All of my work in 2020 was on this theme.
As a yearly summary, here are my top 3 featured items across 5 categories. I love to do some analysis as part of my year-end reflections. Here are links to the consolidated lists of my work across channels, along with some stats. 😃
A. Featured Articles✒️:
In the year spent indoors, I channeled my energy into writing. I wrote 14 articles, leveled up a few notches, and published in bigger outlets. Here are 3 of them:
Forbes: The 5 Roles that every Data Science team must hire -> Read
Enterprisers Project: How to Become a Better Storyteller: 3 key points -> Read
Entrepreneur: What you’re buying is NOT AI: How to tell fact from fiction -> Read
Here are all the 14 articles -> Listing
B. Featured Talks🎙️:
Thanks to COVID, my talks were canceled in March. Eventually, I made 16 virtual talks. Some selected ones:
Cites Rising Summit: Saving lives by applying AI to Satellite imagery -> Watch
APICS Boston: Applications of AI in Supply Chain Management -> Watch
Rutgers SC&I: Reality check - How Orgs get value from Data science -> Watch
Here are all of them, with the videos and slide decks. -> Listing
C. Featured Whiteboard Videos🎬:
I experimented with whiteboard videos and was pleasantly surprised by the response. We concluded the first season with 12 videos for ‘Data Executives’.
Gramener: How to Identify the ROI of your Data Science projects? -> Watch
Gramener: How to Promote a Culture of Data-driven Decisions? -> Watch
Gramener: Should Leaders care about their ML algorithm’s accuracy? -> Watch
A new season is coming out soon. Meanwhile, here are the 12 videos. -> Playlist
D. Featured Linkedin Posts📝:
I posted 5 days a week on Linkedin, through 2020. I love the community for its warmth, conversations, & engagement levels. Here’s a sample picking:
When should you hire your Data Science Specialists? -> Read
Increasing investments in analytics will NOT improve your decisions -> Read
When should you NOT invest in AI? -> Read
I listed all the posts, sorted by categories. -> All 274 posts & some fun analysis!
E. Featured Accolades🏆:
Gramener turned 10 years old! We were awarded for being among the Fastest 150 Companies in India, and the Fastest 50 in NJ, in terms of revenue growth.
I won the CSuite Award for the ‘Best Blog by a Business Leader’.
I was invited to be a contributing writer for Forbes and The Enterprisers Project.
And finally, I started this newsletter mid last year and published 13 editions. Thank you for your continued support and feedback over the past 6 months. 🙏
II. Industry Roundup:
1. DeepMind’s big losses, and the questions around running an AI lab
6 minutes | VentureBeat | Ben Dickson
DeepMind made a breakthrough with their AI system that solved the 50-year old protein-folding problem. However, the AI lab’s financials don’t look great. This article dives into reactions from its parent, Alphabet and what it means for its future.
2. Should you be data-driven or decision-driven?
8 minutes | MIT Sloan Management Review | Bart de Langhe, Stefano Puntoni
Companies often try to find a purpose for their data. This article’s authors advise you to find the data for a purpose. With interesting industry examples, they show how organizations falter when they take the former approach.
3. The fate of Boston Dynamics
6 minutes | BD TechTalks | Ben Dickson
You have seen their robots do cool backflips. Their maker, Boston Dynamics has changed ownership thrice in the past 10 years. Ben looks at SoftBank’s sale of Boston Dynamics to Hyundai and what we could expect.
III. From my Desk:
1. Article: 3 Ways Leaders fail their AI Projects
6 minutes | The Enterprisers Project
There are three common challenges AI initiatives run into. In this article I cover them and share case studies on how leaders have successfully tackled them.
2. Article: Why Covid Will Make AI Go Mainstream In 2021: Top 3 Trends
9 minutes | Forbes
The pandemic forced business to take up some key data initiatives in 2020. I explore how these will make AI go mainstream this year. I share projected trends across 3 areas: drug discovery, work from home, and edge computing.
3. Whiteboard video: How you can promote a Data Culture
4 minutes | Gramener Whiteboard Series
What’s the topmost roadblock for data science in an organization? Culture! In this video, I share 5 tips to start moving towards a culture of data-driven decisions.
How about some music and dance to begin the year? Would you mind if the friendly robots from Boston Dynamics join you too?! Check out their cool moves here.
Thank you for subscribing and reading the newsletter. I appreciate your attention,
Ganes.
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