Scaling Data Analytics in a Growing Business: From Spreadsheets to Big Data

This month we are delighted to welcome Andrew Jones for a talk on scaling data analytics in parallel with business growth. We are also introducing a new venue thanks to the gracious hospitality of CCG Analytics Solutions & Services at Rocky Point!

Agenda:
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6:30
Networking with sandwiches and light refreshments provided by Salesforce by way of JP Antona (our last speaker). Thanks JP!

7:00 (or when it feels right)
Brief welcome and introductions
TBDSG Announcements, routine groveling for speakers, etc.

7:15
Presentation by Andrew Jones
(we may take a break partway through and move on to advanced topics for the diehards)

9:30 (at the latest):
Adjorn (to Whisky Joe's???)

Presentation Details:
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Collecting data for your company is simple and occurs organically as you work through the day-to-day operations of the business. Databases fill up with user and transaction data, web analytics software tracks site performance, and customer review data creates a rich dataset of raw text data. Collecting this information is great but you need to take it a step further if you want to achieve your goals of gaining insight from your data. If you want to reap the rewards of being a data-driven organization, you need a data analytics group. Start simple and small, and bolt on more ambitious capabilities over time.

In this talk, Andrew will describe the formation and growth of a fictional company's data analytics team and their infrastructure. This journey will start in the early days as a technical founder tries to bootstrap analytics capabilities given their limited knowledge of database systems and will conclude with a productive data organization with multiple teams working on ingesting, analyzing, and building products with seemingly endless amounts of data. Going from point A to point B isn't as simple as flipping a switch. We will illustrate systems evolution as the data, team, and organization's maturity expand.

About our speaker:
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Andrew is a Senior Site Reliability Engineer at Grubhub supporting the organization’s big data platform. His day-to-day work has him designing and building the infrastructure that allows Grubhub to handle huge volumes of data. In previous stops, he has built data systems from the ground up giving him the experience of growing pains that come with high-growth startups. When not wrangling Python and fixing the servers he's broken, you'll most likely find Andrew at a nearby USF event supporting his alma mater.