University of Washington published the syllabus and recorded lectures from their public course a few years ago. As I’ve been working on learning some of the basics of Machine Learning in R I’ve been thinking about this UofW course a lot.
The first step is to define BS so we can identify it and call it out:
“Bullshit involves language, statistical figures, data graphics, and other forms of presentation intended to persuade by impressing and overwhelming a reader or listener, with a blatant disregard for truth and logical coherence.”
Whenever I learn something new it seems there is an important balance between understanding domain specific terminology and starting a round of buzz word bingo. In my job and in business more generally it seems the two constants are 1)Change and 2) BS.
My success as a business analyst and consultant is directly related to my ability to poke holes in proposals, to see the root cause of issues and to translate from English into English.
Years ago I was on a conference call in a meeting room in the Midwest with a polycom with a client. We were listening to our technical lead explain a file transfer protocol. I could read the lack of understanding on meeting attendees faces so I paused to repeat back what the Solution Architect said — from that point forward I was mistaken for a technical subject matter expert.
Surely my regional accent and in person delivery helped get the points across, but also trying to summarize and simply helped too. Repeating something slower and louder tends to make the speaker seem dumb, not help the listener. Finding a relatable analogy or using more colloquial language is often a better communication approach.
What ML and AI can now enable is so impressive, but being able to drive adoption via understanding of those technologies seems like it pays as well or better than the technical skills in the data/computer science field.
My suggestion is, don’t just learn to code, learn it well enough to explain it to a layman.
“If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Albert Einstein
Carragee Consulting 
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