Can You Help Me Contribute to Utopian Analysis Category?

There’s been several Steemians who’ve reached out about learning how to do analysis contribution for Utopian. I have spent some four hours split between a couple calls with one specifically, and yet I don’t feel we’ve made much progress. I don’t think it is so much about my willingness to help nor the other person’s eagerness to learn. I’ve been trying to figure out why teaching this subject is not an easy task and thought I’d document it here, maybe even take some thoughts from the #blockchainbi community.

What Traits, Knowledge, and Skills Are Required To Do Well?

Inquisitive

I would have used curious, but I'd not be accurately describing the trait required to do well as an analysts. It takes more than curiosity to learn and develop analytical skills. There would have otherwise been a lot more Steemians contributing to the analysis category if curiosity is enough. To differentiate between the two I will borrow this statement from differencebetween.info:

_{"Inquisitive is also considered as a synonym to curious. However, it is mainly concerned with the enquiry that is made in order to solve the curiosity. An enquiry is a part of the investigation in order to reach the answers. An inquisitive person is involved in reoccurring questions.}

_{"Curiosity can be defined as the eagerness to explore and investigate the unknown, whereas inquisitive can be particularly related with the intellectual curiosity or the curiosity marked by various enquiries."}

An inquisitive mind is required to get started in analytics, specifically in framing a problem, a puzzle, or simply a question one wish to resolve or answer. Taking a concrete example, in Internal vs. External Market Trends I wanted to establish whether statements saying it is almost always better to exchange Steem and Steem Dollar using exchanges. Someone curious would have tried both and see for himself/herself which is better, someone inquisitive will search for answers by asking multiple questions, gathering data, and putting them together in a structured way.

Data Collection

At a minimum, some basic knowledge in extracting data is required. This part is not as difficult as it seems. Before joining Steemit, I knew nothing about querying structured databases such as SQL. It took me about a week, spending an hour each day reading or watching videos related to SQL before being able to run a simple query.

Most of the contributors in the analysis category have either a programming background or a lengthy analytics background. This provides a clear advantage when it comes to understanding scripting languages, database management, and distributed storage. The good news is, I have neither a programming background, nor a lengthy analytics experience. I am exposed to analytics in my previous job, but I will rate it to be beginner level at best. I have a team of analysts who supplies any data I require to make decisions and hardly had a need to process data myself. This tells us that this can be learned, but don't get frustrated if you don't find it easy; I did not.

Here are some links to materials and sites that helped me learn SQL:

Learn SQL | Codecademy
SQL Tutorial - W3Schools
SQL for Beginners. Learn basics of SQL in 1 Hour - YouTube

I've been intending to learn how to extract data from APIs and will appreciate any pointer to materials I can use to start.

Data Processing

The most challenging case so far is someone who had zero knowledge about spreadsheets reached out to learn how to analyze for Utopian. While I have no claim in saying that my analytics skills to be more than beginner level, I have lengthy exposure to using Microsoft Excel, and while working with the CRM leg of IBM; to Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets.

At the very least, basic knowledge of using a spreadsheet is needed to clean, organize, calculate, and examine the data. For an analysis to be conclusive, thereby useful, the analyst needs to be able to play around with the data. This includes, but not limited to plotting the raw data in different ways, performing basic to advance calculations, identifying statistical patterns, and segmenting the results into groups. All these are functions that can be done in spreadsheets.

Communication Skills

Any reputable Steemian will be able to communicate the insights or findings in an analysis with words pretty well. Programmers and experienced analysts in fact often have to adjust the language to communicate the results effectively for non-technical readers.

The analyst however, need to be able to communicate findings visually. In fact this is included in the guideline in contributing to the analysis category. Here are the guidelines for the analysis category taken from utopian.io:

_{Valid submissions to this category must include data analysis generated for an Open Source project.}

• _{Submissions must include the reasons for the analysis performed and its results.}
• _{Submissions must include (when applicable) example scripts used for the generation of the results, or extensive information detailing how the data was gathered and analyzed.}
• _{Submissions must include visual representation of analysis result in the form of charts and tables.}
• _{Submissions including recurring analyses that are obviously script generated will lead to a lower vote.}
• _{If submissions include partial analysis, public links to the full analysis must be provided.}
• _{Submissions containing mainly data visualization without any conclusions or predictions based on the gathered data will be rejected.}
• _{Analyses of social and behavioural changes of a specific group involved in the project will be rejected.}

With this post I wish to explain why I may be thought of as unhelpful when it comes to this subject. Teaching how to do analysis is not easy, it is going to take a significant amount of time from the mentor and the mentee, some do teach this for a living, and the mentee have to be clear about his or her assessment of each of the skills involved in learning how to be an analyst.

I will try and make time to respond to those who reached out before this week ends. I was on a vacation with family, and I apologize for not being able to respond as quickly as usual.

Credits:

Office Paper Cover Photo Background - Pixabay
Th?nk Bulb Image - Pixabay
Programming Language w/ AI Robot Image - Pixabay
Spreadsheet on Laptop - Pixabay
Charts & Tables in Notebook - Pixabay
Pedestrian Crossing - Pixabay