Think Like A Data Scientist

Summary Think Like a Data Scientist presents a step-by-step approach to data science, combining analytic, programming, and business perspectives into easy-to-digest techniques and thought processes for solving real world data-centric problems. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the Technology Data collected from customers, scientific measurements, IoT sensors, and so on is valuable only if you understand it. Data scientists revel in the interesting and rewarding challenge of observing, exploring, analyzing, and interpreting this data. Getting started with data science means more than mastering analytic tools and techniques, however; the real magic happens when you begin to think like a data scientist. This book will get you there. About the Book Think Like a Data Scientist teaches you a step-by-step approach to solving real-world data-centric problems. By breaking down carefully crafted examples, you'll learn to combine analytic, programming, and business perspectives into a repeatable process for extracting real knowledge from data. As you read, you'll discover (or remember) valuable statistical techniques and explore powerful data science software. More importantly, you'll put this knowledge together using a structured process for data science. When you've finished, you'll have a strong foundation for a lifetime of data science learning and practice. What's Inside The data science process, step-by-step How to anticipate problems Dealing with uncertainty Best practices in software and scientific thinking About the Reader Readers need beginner programming skills and knowledge of basic statistics. About the Author Brian Godsey has worked in software, academia, finance, and defense and has launched several data-centric start-ups. Table of Contents PART 1 - PREPARING AND GATHERING DATA AND KNOWLEDGE Philosophies of data science Setting goals by asking good questions Data all around us: the virtual wilderness Data wrangling: from capture to domestication Data assessment: poking and prodding PART 2 - BUILDING A PRODUCT WITH SOFTWARE AND STATISTICS Developing a plan Statistics and modeling: concepts and foundations Software: statistics in action Supplementary software: bigger, faster, more efficient Plan execution: putting it all together PART 3 - FINISHING OFF THE PRODUCT AND WRAPPING UP Delivering a product After product delivery: problems and revisions Wrapping up: putting the project away

Integrate big data into business to drive competitive advantage and sustainable success Big Data MBA brings insight and expertise to leveraging big data in business so you can harness the power of analytics and gain a true business advantage. Based on a practical framework with supporting methodology and hands-on exercises, this book helps identify where and how big data can help you transform your business. You'll learn how to exploit new sources of customer, product, and operational data, coupled with advanced analytics and data science, to optimize key processes, uncover monetization opportunities, and create new sources of competitive differentiation. The discussion includes guidelines for operationalizing analytics, optimal organizational structure, and using analytic insights throughout your organization's user experience to customers and front-end employees alike. You'll learn to “think like a data scientist” as you build upon the decisions your business is trying to make, the hypotheses you need to test, and the predictions you need to produce. Business stakeholders no longer need to relinquish control of data and analytics to IT. In fact, they must champion the organization's data collection and analysis efforts. This book is a primer on the business approach to analytics, providing the practical understanding you need to convert data into opportunity. Understand where and how to leverage big data Integrate analytics into everyday operations Structure your organization to drive analytic insights Optimize processes, uncover opportunities, and stand out from the rest Help business stakeholders to “think like a data scientist” Understand appropriate business application of different analytic techniques If you want data to transform your business, you need to know how to put it to use. Big Data MBA shows you how to implement big data and analytics to make better decisions.

Data Scientists at Work is a collection of interviews with sixteen of the world's most influential and innovative data scientists from across the spectrum of this hot new profession. "Data scientist is the sexiest job in the 21st century," according to the Harvard Business Review. By 2018, the United States will experience a shortage of 190,000 skilled data scientists, according to a McKinsey report. Through incisive in-depth interviews, this book mines the what, how, and why of the practice of data science from the stories, ideas, shop talk, and forecasts of its preeminent practitioners across diverse industries: social network (Yann LeCun, Facebook); professional network (Daniel Tunkelang, LinkedIn); venture capital (Roger Ehrenberg, IA Ventures); enterprise cloud computing and neuroscience (Eric Jonas, formerly Salesforce.com); newspaper and media (Chris Wiggins, The New York Times); streaming television (Caitlin Smallwood, Netflix); music forecast (Victor Hu, Next Big Sound); strategic intelligence (Amy Heineike, Quid); environmental big data (André Karpištšenko, Planet OS); geospatial marketing intelligence (Jonathan Lenaghan, PlaceIQ); advertising (Claudia Perlich, Dstillery); fashion e-commerce (Anna Smith, Rent the Runway); specialty retail (Erin Shellman, Nordstrom); email marketing (John Foreman, MailChimp); predictive sales intelligence (Kira Radinsky, SalesPredict); and humanitarian nonprofit (Jake Porway, DataKind). The book features a stimulating foreword by Google's Director of Research, Peter Norvig. Each of these data scientists shares how he or she tailors the torrent-taming techniques of big data, data visualization, search, and statistics to specific jobs by dint of ingenuity, imagination, patience, and passion. Data Scientists at Work parts the curtain on the interviewees’ earliest data projects, how they became data scientists, their discoveries and surprises in working with data, their thoughts on the past, present, and future of the profession, their experiences of team collaboration within their organizations, and the insights they have gained as they get their hands dirty refining mountains of raw data into objects of commercial, scientific, and educational value for their organizations and clients.

Don't let a fear of numbers hold you back. Today's business environment brings with it an onslaught of data. Now more than ever, managers must know how to tease insight from data--to understand where the numbers come from, make sense of them, and use them to inform tough decisions. How do you get started? Whether you're working with data experts or running your own tests, you'll find answers in the HBR Guide to Data Analytics Basics for Managers. This book describes three key steps in the data analysis process, so you can get the information you need, study the data, and communicate your findings to others. You'll learn how to: Identify the metrics you need to measure Run experiments and A/B tests Ask the right questions of your data experts Understand statistical terms and concepts Create effective charts and visualizations Avoid common mistakes

"Turn yourself into a Data Head. You'll become a more valuable employee and make your organization more successful." Thomas H. Davenport, Research Fellow, Author of Competing on Analytics, Big Data @ Work, and The AI Advantage You've heard the hype around data—now get the facts. In Becoming a Data Head: How to Think, Speak, and Understand Data Science, Statistics, and Machine Learning, award-winning data scientists Alex Gutman and Jordan Goldmeier pull back the curtain on data science and give you the language and tools necessary to talk and think critically about it. You'll learn how to: Think statistically and understand the role variation plays in your life and decision making Speak intelligently and ask the right questions about the statistics and results you encounter in the workplace Understand what's really going on with machine learning, text analytics, deep learning, and artificial intelligence Avoid common pitfalls when working with and interpreting data Becoming a Data Head is a complete guide for data science in the workplace: covering everything from the personalities you’ll work with to the math behind the algorithms. The authors have spent years in data trenches and sought to create a fun, approachable, and eminently readable book. Anyone can become a Data Head—an active participant in data science, statistics, and machine learning. Whether you're a business professional, engineer, executive, or aspiring data scientist, this book is for you.

Summary You are going to need more than technical knowledge to succeed as a data scientist. Build a Career in Data Science teaches you what school leaves out, from how to land your first job to the lifecycle of a data science project, and even how to become a manager. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. About the technology What are the keys to a data scientist’s long-term success? Blending your technical know-how with the right “soft skills” turns out to be a central ingredient of a rewarding career. About the book Build a Career in Data Science is your guide to landing your first data science job and developing into a valued senior employee. By following clear and simple instructions, you’ll learn to craft an amazing resume and ace your interviews. In this demanding, rapidly changing field, it can be challenging to keep projects on track, adapt to company needs, and manage tricky stakeholders. You’ll love the insights on how to handle expectations, deal with failures, and plan your career path in the stories from seasoned data scientists included in the book. What's inside Creating a portfolio of data science projects Assessing and negotiating an offer Leaving gracefully and moving up the ladder Interviews with professional data scientists About the reader For readers who want to begin or advance a data science career. About the author Emily Robinson is a data scientist at Warby Parker. Jacqueline Nolis is a data science consultant and mentor. Table of Contents: PART 1 - GETTING STARTED WITH DATA SCIENCE 1. What is data science? 2. Data science companies 3. Getting the skills 4. Building a portfolio PART 2 - FINDING YOUR DATA SCIENCE JOB 5. The search: Identifying the right job for you 6. The application: Résumés and cover letters 7. The interview: What to expect and how to handle it 8. The offer: Knowing what to accept PART 3 - SETTLING INTO DATA SCIENCE 9. The first months on the job 10. Making an effective analysis 11. Deploying a model into production 12. Working with stakeholders PART 4 - GROWING IN YOUR DATA SCIENCE ROLE 13. When your data science project fails 14. Joining the data science community 15. Leaving your job gracefully 16. Moving up the ladder

Now that people are aware that data can make the difference in an election or a business model, data science as an occupation is gaining ground. But how can you get started working in a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary field that’s so clouded in hype? This insightful book, based on Columbia University’s Introduction to Data Science class, tells you what you need to know. In many of these chapter-long lectures, data scientists from companies such as Google, Microsoft, and eBay share new algorithms, methods, and models by presenting case studies and the code they use. If you’re familiar with linear algebra, probability, and statistics, and have programming experience, this book is an ideal introduction to data science. Topics include: Statistical inference, exploratory data analysis, and the data science process Algorithms Spam filters, Naive Bayes, and data wrangling Logistic regression Financial modeling Recommendation engines and causality Data visualization Social networks and data journalism Data engineering, MapReduce, Pregel, and Hadoop Doing Data Science is collaboration between course instructor Rachel Schutt, Senior VP of Data Science at News Corp, and data science consultant Cathy O’Neil, a senior data scientist at Johnson Research Labs, who attended and blogged about the course.

Written by renowned data science experts Foster Provost and Tom Fawcett, Data Science for Business introduces the fundamental principles of data science, and walks you through the "data-analytic thinking" necessary for extracting useful knowledge and business value from the data you collect. This guide also helps you understand the many data-mining techniques in use today. Based on an MBA course Provost has taught at New York University over the past ten years, Data Science for Business provides examples of real-world business problems to illustrate these principles. You’ll not only learn how to improve communication between business stakeholders and data scientists, but also how participate intelligently in your company’s data science projects. You’ll also discover how to think data-analytically, and fully appreciate how data science methods can support business decision-making. Understand how data science fits in your organization—and how you can use it for competitive advantage Treat data as a business asset that requires careful investment if you’re to gain real value Approach business problems data-analytically, using the data-mining process to gather good data in the most appropriate way Learn general concepts for actually extracting knowledge from data Apply data science principles when interviewing data science job candidates

Every day you answer questions-dozens, even hundreds of them. How do you find the answers to questions? How can you be sure your answers are correct? Scientists use questions to learn about things. Scientists have developed a way of helping make sure they answer questions correctly. It is called the scientific method. The scientific method can help you find answers to many of the questions you are curious about. What kind of food does your dog like best? Is your sister more likely to help you with your homework if you say please? Can throwing a dead snake over a tree branch make it rain? The scientific method can help you answer these questions and many others. Stephen Kramer's invitation to think like a scientist, illustrated by Felicia Bond's humorous and appealing pictures, will receive enthusiastic response from young readers, scientist and nonscientist alike.