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Tag Archives: Human side of statistics
Quote: The most challenging thing in the world…
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Quote: The combination of some data …
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“The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from some data.” John Tukey, as quoted in “Sunset Salvo.” The American Statistician 1986, 40(1), 72-76.
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PMean: Business essentials for starting an independent consulting practice
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I’m giving a talk on Wednesday, August 22, titled “Business essentials for starting an independent consulting practice.” Here are a few details about this talk. Continue reading
PMean: The Dark Side of Data Science
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I’m planning to give a talk on “The Dark Side of Data Science” and I’m hoping to get some interesting references and articles from my colleagues. Here is a first draft of my abstract, with a few references that I am already familiar with. Continue reading
Recommended: How to be more effective in your professional life
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This article starts with a nice anecdote about being dismissive about what someone else is saying ends up hurting you. It also provides a nice structure, POWER, for organizing consulting meetings. POWER stands for Prepare, Open, Work, End, and Reflect. This article was a basis for some of the content in an interesting webinar on consulting. Continue reading
PMean: What goes into a contract for a consultation
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Someone asked me about what sort of contract to use with a new client. This person did not need a very detailed contract, but said that a handshake would not suffice. Here’s what I suggested. Continue reading
PMean: What are we doing to justify all that time we’re budgeting?
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An email discussion about the appropriate percentage effort on research grants has produced a lot of interesting discussions. One person raised an interesting question. The typical data analysis, he claimed, might involve a few hours reviewing the input data set, a few hours conducting the analysis and a few hours preparing a statistical summary, but even after a generous estimate of the work at each of the time points, he could only come up with 22 hours of effort, which corresponds roughly with a 1% FTE. I wrote back describing some of the things that might occur before the data analysis that might add time to this effort. Continue reading
PMean: And the least important variable is…
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I heard a story a long time ago, and I don’t remember who told it to me and I’m probably getting all the details wrong, but I wanted to try to recreate the story from memory because it illustrates one of the perils of blind reliance on statistical models to identify “important” variables. Continue reading