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Permalink Reply by Nathan Och on May 17, 2011 at 8:09am

I guess I do not have any real horror stories, but one thing that I find to be quite frustrating and knocks me off the course is trying to communicate certain aspect of analytics to the audience. For me, my audience is usually COOs, CEOs, CFOs, and other business types that don't understand that analytics is a science. So, I find myself stuttering sometimes when trying to relay results because I have to back track and build a foundation before revealing the result. This can be daunting since business types want the answer quickly and no time wasting, but they want the answer in a way they understand. I have walked a fine line between time constraints and relaying the results correctly many times.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on May 20, 2011 at 1:09am

Nathan you are very right. i work for a bank and i have a similar audience and i have struggled at times bridging the gap between the work i have done and the way they understand what i do. I think am getting better with time and experience. My first professional presentation at a conference in london was a nervy one, half of my audience was made of professors in the analytical field and the 20 minutes i was there did seem like an hour. Another frustrating issue that also you just mentioned is when a business wants a figure or estimate even before you go through working on a given task and lastly when they want you tell them results they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Och on May 20, 2011 at 7:28am

There is a clear gap between a science like modeling/statistics and the business world. The clash seems to be between finding the best answer from our side and finding the fastest answer on their side...but the answer must make them money. It is definitely a true clash of science and business.

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