Thinking empathetically & using your initiative

We were joined by Wayne Jones, Principal Data Scientist at Shell. Wayne has been using R since its first inception and is passionate about open source solutions!

During the hangout with Wayne, he brought up the point of thinking empathetically when communicating. Here are a few other tips shared among the group:

1. If you spot someone who you think is really good at communicating and you’re impressed by them – buddy up. Tell them you like the way they did that, can you give me a few tips and hints?
2. With data science, you can focus on a very small area sometimes and get obsessed by the details. Step back, step back, and step back some more so that when you’re presenting a problem you give the bigger picture and narrow into the data science details.
3. If you think more empathetically, this will also go a long way. Instead of thinking about it from a data science standpoint, put yourself in the customers or client’s shoes. With more empathy, you make yourself a better consultant.
4. Try using your team meetings (scrum meetings for example) to practice presenting in front of people, even something for 5 minutes where you need to learn to be succinct about it.
5. Think about when you were a child and bringing something in for show and tell. When they get to bring something they really care about, they are thinking more about the toy that they brought in rather than presenting.
6. There are lots of R meetup groups that are always looking for volunteers to speak at events! Lots of opportunities to practice there!
7. Learn about everyone else’s role so that you can talk their language – “BE RELEVANT” to your teams