HARMONY PLEASE
Engineers Shouldn’t Write ETL: A Guide to Building a High Functioning Data Science Department
Here's one suggestion for fixing the sometimes hairy relationships between data scientists and engineers: optimize for autonomy, not technical efficiency. - Stitchfix

GOOD INTENTIONS
The Trials and Tribulations of Data Visualization for Good
This observation from Jake Porway, Executive Director of Datakind, is particularly compelling: "Data visualization is incredibly good for allowing one to ask questions, not answer them." - Markets for Good

FAKE IT
A Practical Guide to Anonymizing Datasets with Python & Faker
Sometimes you just want to show off an analysis or chart you built for your company... without revealing your company's data. Now you can. - District Data Labs

CAC TALK
CAC Payback Period: The Most Misunderstood SaaS Metric
If you're calculating customer acquisition cost payback period for a SasS product, keep these two things is mind: payback metrics are about risk, not return, and that most SaaS products operate on an annual model, not monthly. - Kellblog

DO YOU READ ME?
Moneyball for Book Publishers: A Detailed Look at How We Read
Publishers are now using reader behavior data collected from e-readers to inform decisions about advertising budgets and marketing tactics. Obviously, the impact of reading analytics presents concerns for authors and readers alike. - The New York Times

People are talking about: Merrick Garland

Last week President Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland to serve on the Supreme Court. Whether or not the Senate will confirm Garland is up in the air, but in the meantime, here's what data journalists are saying:

• The Senate that confirmed Merrick Garland 19 years ago doesn’t look much like today’s Senate (The Washington Post)
• A Supreme Court With Merrick Garland Would Be the Most Liberal in Decades (The Upshot)
  

What's goin' on at Mode

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