This document provides tips and strategies for professional development, with a focus on communication skills. It discusses setting up a mailing list, recommended books, journals, and developing skills in written, spoken, visual and electronic communication. Specific tips are provided for managing email effectively, including aiming for inbox zero, using minimal responses, filters and deleting emails, and scheduling times to respond to batches of emails.
Higher-order organization of complex networksDavid Gleich
A talk I gave at the Park City Institute of Mathematics about our recent work on using motifs to analyze and cluster networks. This involves a higher-order cheeger inequality in terms of motifs.
Overview of how/why to reshape data in R from "wide" (spreadsheet-like) to "long" (database-like) and back.
Focuses on Hadley Wickham's reshape2 package and uses state population data from the 2010 U.S. Census. Also demonstrates use of dcast() to replace table(), etc. to generate crosstabs from a sample market research consumer survey.
Presented at the April 2011 meeting of the Greater Boston useR Group.
The SlideShare 101 is a quick start guide if you want to walk through the main features that the platform offers. This will keep getting updated as new features are launched.
The SlideShare 101 replaces the earlier "SlideShare Quick Tour".
Visual Communication (re-visited) for IABC HoustonKatie Laird
While actions certainly speak louder than words - so do visual!
This presentation takes a look at how to overcome the dreaded Powerpoint blah's and develop visual communication that will help empower you as a speaker and communicator.
Some things are best said when nothing is said at all. Hope these tools and ideas are helpful!
Your job depends on you making design decisions every day. I'm not talking about the kind of design that uses color theory, typography, or spacer gifs (joking).
Here are the kinds of things that have made me a better designer. I think they'll help you, too:
• Pencils before pixels will save you tons of time.
• Understanding how to start design projects where the end result isn't quite defined yet.
• How to nurture (or destroy) relationships with your clients and colleagues.
• How to think in extremes to help you know where the boundaries are.
• Sketching is an activity, not a just deliverable.
• Asking the right questions tease out the most important details.
• How do you know when you're asking the wrong questions?
• And lots more...
Higher-order organization of complex networksDavid Gleich
A talk I gave at the Park City Institute of Mathematics about our recent work on using motifs to analyze and cluster networks. This involves a higher-order cheeger inequality in terms of motifs.
Overview of how/why to reshape data in R from "wide" (spreadsheet-like) to "long" (database-like) and back.
Focuses on Hadley Wickham's reshape2 package and uses state population data from the 2010 U.S. Census. Also demonstrates use of dcast() to replace table(), etc. to generate crosstabs from a sample market research consumer survey.
Presented at the April 2011 meeting of the Greater Boston useR Group.
The SlideShare 101 is a quick start guide if you want to walk through the main features that the platform offers. This will keep getting updated as new features are launched.
The SlideShare 101 replaces the earlier "SlideShare Quick Tour".
Visual Communication (re-visited) for IABC HoustonKatie Laird
While actions certainly speak louder than words - so do visual!
This presentation takes a look at how to overcome the dreaded Powerpoint blah's and develop visual communication that will help empower you as a speaker and communicator.
Some things are best said when nothing is said at all. Hope these tools and ideas are helpful!
Your job depends on you making design decisions every day. I'm not talking about the kind of design that uses color theory, typography, or spacer gifs (joking).
Here are the kinds of things that have made me a better designer. I think they'll help you, too:
• Pencils before pixels will save you tons of time.
• Understanding how to start design projects where the end result isn't quite defined yet.
• How to nurture (or destroy) relationships with your clients and colleagues.
• How to think in extremes to help you know where the boundaries are.
• Sketching is an activity, not a just deliverable.
• Asking the right questions tease out the most important details.
• How do you know when you're asking the wrong questions?
• And lots more...
The little known secret to increasing your websites performance and results. Large companies have been using this technique for decades yet most medium and small companies don't even know it exists!
Analytics presentation for a local publisher which provides notes about why analytics does not stop after a report is developed and delivered to a client. Presentation given with help from John Wooden.
My presentation and slides originally planned for the DevLearn 2010 General Session. I connect the use and the history of the hash-tag on Twitter to Design Thinking principles as expressions of liberty, freedom and joy (Democracy) that are paramount to successful "social learning."
Real-Time Everything - the Era of Communication UbiquityRob Gonda
A focus universe research strategy; imagine using the entire internet as your focus group. Analyze every conversation, visualize trends, compare brands, learn insights, envisage it over time, and get real factual answers, not just amplified assumptions based on focus and control groups. Now add IPv6 to the picture, digital invasion, UGC/MGC user and machine generated content; we're not that from the day fridges tweet about food needs, tvs' about programs, subways and highways about traffic, clubs about nightlife, ... So now imagine adding that to the picture, a digital blueprint of society.
7. Learn your tools
• Touch typing
• Text editor
• Command line
• Caffeine
• R
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
8. Mailing list
Sign up to R-help: https://stat.ethz.ch/
mailman/listinfo/r-help
Make sure to set up filters
Skim interesting subjects and read them
Don’t be afraid to post
(use a pseudonym if necessary)
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
9. Books
R in a nutshell, Joseph Adler.
http://amzn.com/059680170X
Data manipulation with R, Phil Spector.
http://amzn.com/0387747303
Software for Data Analysis: Programming
with R, John Chambers.
http://amzn.com/0387759352
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
10. Books
Regression Modeling Strategies, Frank Harrell.
http://amzn.com/0387952322
Mixed-Effects Models in S and S-PLUS, Jose
Pinheiro and Douglas Bates.
http://amzn.com/1441903178 and http://lme4.r-
forge.r-project.org/book/
Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/
Hierarchical Models, Andrew Gelman and
Jennifer Hill. http://amzn.com/052168689X
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
11. Journals
The R Journal,
http://journal.r-project.org/
The Journal of Statistical Software,
http://www.jstatsoft.org/
Statistical computing and graphics
newsletter, http://stat-computing.org/
newsletter/
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
13. Professional
development
The aspects of being a statistician, apart
from knowing statistics.
Principally communication: written,
spoken, visual and electronic.
Take every opportunity you can to
practice these skills.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
14. Visual Electronic
Written
Posters Email
Papers
Graphics Website
Vita/Resume
Blog
Bibliography
Reviews Code
Spoken
Oral exam Video
Teaching
Slidecast
Short talk
Long talk
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
15. Written
Particularly important if you want to be an
academic, or if you‘re PhD student, or want
to become one.
“Style: Toward Clarity and Grace” –
http://amzn.com/0226899152
Sign up for the thesis writing workshops
when they come around.
Develop a regular habit.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
16. My habit
• Roll out of bed at 7am
• Make tea
• Write for an hour
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
17. Spoken
Seize every opportunity to practice.
Make use of Tracy Volz - tmvolz@rice.edu.
She is a fantastic resource - if you had to
pay for her, you wouldn’t be able to afford
it.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
20. 1200
1000
800
value
600 unread
read
400
200
0
2007 2008 2009 2010
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21. 1.0
0.8
0.6
read/all
0.4
0.2
0.0
2007 2008 2009 2010
from
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
22. 350
300
250
value
200 direct
sent
150
100
50
2007 2008 2009 2010
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
23. 350
300
250
value
200 direct
sent
150
100
50
2007 2008 2009 2010
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
24. Inbox Zero
http://www.43folders.com/izero
Merlin Mann
There is no way you will ever be able to respond to — let alone read in
exquisite detail — every email you ever receive for the rest of your life. If
you take issue with this, just wait six months, because, believe me, we’re
all getting a lot more email (and other sundry demands on our attention)
every day. What seems like a doddle today is going to get progressively
more difficult — even insurmountable — unless you put a realistic system
in place now.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
25. Your time is priceless
(and wildly limited)
You need an agnostic system for
dealing with mail that isn’t based on
nonces, exceptions, and guilt.
[The] ultimate goal is for you to spend
less time playing with your email and
more time doing stuff.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
26. Key concepts
Regularly empty your inbox
Minimal response
Delete, delete, delete
Filters
Email dashes
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
27. Inbox Zero
Your inbox is not your to do list!
(or it shouldn’t be)
“The truth is that you probably can take the
average email inbox – even a relatively neglected
one – from full to zero in about 20 minutes. It
mostly depends on how much you really want to
be done with it. The dirty little secret, of course,
is that you don’t do it by responding to each of
those emails but by ruthlessly processing them.”
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
28. Response does not need to be
proportional to request
“In an environment where attention is the economic
equivalent of cash, you aren’t doing people any favors
by sending gothic novels. And taking your cues for
etiquette, propriety, and efficiency on a message-by-
message basis will quickly land you in a very bouncy
room with a fresh box of crayons.”
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
29. “Do you still need this?”
“I don’t know”
“Good idea. I’ll add it to my to do list.”
“Here’s a link that might be what you’re
looking for…”
[Delete]
http://www.43folders.com/2006/03/13/email-cheats
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
30. The nuclear holocaust of responses:
http://tinyurl.com/nfdlzh
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
31. Delete!
Most minimal response is none.
“Just remember that every email you
read, re-read, and re-re-re-re-re-read as it
sits in that big dumb pile is actually
incurring mental debt on your behalf.”
Be brutally honest - if you’re not going to
do anything with the email delete it now.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
32. Filters grey mail
“noisy, frequent, and non-urgent items
which can be dealt with all at a pass and
later.”
facebook, comments, university/
department memos, newsletters, mailing
lists
Good catch all: contains unsubscribe
http://www.43folders.com/2006/03/13/filters
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
34. Patricia Wallace, a techno-psychologist,
believes part of the allure of e-mail—
for adults as well as teens—is similar to
that of a slot machine. “You have
intermittent, variable reinforcement,”
she explains. You are not sure you are
going to get a reward every time or
how often you will, so you keep pulling
that handle.”
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
35. Email dashes
Don’t have your email open all day.
Schedule times when you respond to
emails.
You can tackle emails a lot faster when
you batch them up.
Lack self control (like me)? Try an internet
blocker: http://macfreedom.com/
http://www.43folders.com/2006/03/15/email-dash
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
36. More reading
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-
stone
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/habit-
fields/
Wednesday, 15 December 2010