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| Dan Meyer and the author |
We’ve
all heard it in the news quite recently: the top most in-demand jobs for the
next couple of years had been named—ANALYSTS. Be it system analysts, financial
analysts or business analysts. Unfortunately, the needs for market demand and
supply projections of entry level or fresh graduates aren’t in sync with the
number of available positions everyday.
I had
been fortunate when I was invited to attend a workshop/seminar on Analytics
Training Workshop by Daniel Meyer held recently at the Vista Center, Worldwide
Corporate Center, Mandaluyong City. Mr. Dan Meyer had a Master’s Degree in
Education and has spent fifteen years with Wells Fargo. How he had found his
way to the Philippines had actually been some kind of sheer serendipity.
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| Bloggers who attended the Analytics seminar |
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| Dan Meyer |
Back in
the US, Mr. Meyer had always been in deep connection with the Filipino
community as he hailed from Vallejo, California where 30% of which are
Filipinos. His brother even married a Filipina. He liked Filipino foods. His
kismet had brought him to our shores some years ago when his company, Wells
Fargo had sent him to the country as an analyst. He felt the initial connection
or natural affinity with the people that had somehow motivated him to do some
big decisions merely based on leap of faith.
It was
indeed a life-changing decision as Mr. Meyer uprooted his family in the US to
start a new life in a foreign land. “Opportunity knocks only once in a
lifetime. I was successful and accomplished with lots of things but I wasn’t
satisfied,” Meyer recalls. “I knew I had to do something to fill in that void.
All the data was telling me to come to the Philippines to share my knowledge
and help more people to learn the tools to help with data gathering. I saw the
need for what I do—BPO, training analytics etc.—I feel the need to empower and
motivate people to improve their decision making and other stuff,” adds Meyer.
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| Businessmen and participants who attended the seminar |
He spends a couple of time
reading online keeping abreast of what’s going on as well as get updates on the
latest innovation. Mr. Meyer had a knack for connecting with people across
multiple audiences and likes to help them unlock what they need in order to
succeed.
Since
I’m not really good in numbers, I honestly don’t know much about analytics (I
know a little about Google Analytics) so you could just imagine the overload of
information I had received during the said talk. Here I am sharing with you
some of the basic things I have learned out of that seminar. But there’s
actually more important stuff about analytics, which you can learn when you
attend any of his upcoming seminars.
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| Bloggers at work during the activity |
There
are two types of analysts discussed during the seminar: Business Analysts is
the one who has to know how to make an efficient business strategy while a
Financial analyst does all the financial planning and teaching people how to
invest properly.
During
the seminar, Mr. Meyer had taught us how to find data:
1. One must identify your data—assess what you
need/parameters.
2.
Inventory
your data—figure out where to get whatever it is that you need while keeping an
inventory of your data sets, which you can use for current and future analysis.
3.
Integrate
your data—in cases where you have more than one source of data, you’ll need to
combine or integrate the data.
There are three things that influence your
decision:
1.
Private
Company Databases and Sources
2.
Public
Databases and Sources
3.
The
Internet
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A
successful analyst must know where and how to find data.
Databases and Warehouses:
1.
Proprietary
Databases
-Data used for analysis,
which is kept in databases that are built and maintained by an internal IT
team. They may use heavily personalized commercial software.
2. Off the Shelf Databases—Most data is housed in
a commercial database solution like Oracle, MS Access etc. where IT team often
work in partnership with database manufacturer.
3. External Databases-happens when
the company does not have its own database.
INTERNET
RESEARCH:
1. Wikipedia—Editable free online content
encyclopedia.
2.
Google
Search—fastest and easiest
3.
Government
Databases—Collection of figures, information by government agency, authority of
national and local government.
There have been a couple of group activities
throughout the seminar and I’d say although I am not so much into analytics,
I’d have to say that I have enjoyed the said experience and have more or less
had a grasp of how it affects our lives and how to properly use it.
At the
end of Dan Meyer’s Analytics training, one will be able to say that he or she
has stronger understanding of types of data analysts use. Basic internet
research skills, ability to find pertinent data, how to sift through data
points to find ones that can drive decision making, how a team of analysts
working with similar methods and that can come up with different conclusions.
By simply attending a DMAI seminar by Mr. Dan
Meyers, you’re sure to be getting what you’ve paid for plus more: you’ll learn
his techniques as well as the tricks, understand what analytics is all about,
plus gain more friends and future business partners as you mingle and interact
with your fellow participants, and most of all, it promises to be fun (it’s not
your boring type of talks, I assure you!).
Purple Plum Fairy thanks Janese Halaboso, Mr.
Dan Meyers and Ms. Myra Sandico for the invite.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated for this post.
Opinions expressed are 100% my own.
