Shooting for the Moon
As year one of the Essex Centre for Data Analytics (ecda) draws to a close, I find myself pausing to reflect on the past 12 months. Earlier in July, ecda published a video that highlighted some of our successes from …
ECDA
Three heads are better than one (unless you are shopping for hats)
Because of my role-slash-job-title everyone wants to talk to me about their data work. ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL the time… And it’s not just people in my team (the excellent Analytics & Data Science team), it is other teams at Essex County Council, …
Be Part of the Equation
Sowing the seeds: how we have grown, nurtured talent and built capacity for future success When we launched ecda one year ago, I never dreamt it would result in establishing so many new relationships, our partners now feel like an …
Clustering for understanding
Drowning in data and need to find a means of reducing it in a meaningful way?! It's a familiar feeling! We have thousands of data sets that tell us something about all the communities in Essex - but we can’t …
Get your rhythm back with RAP
“Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment,” so says philanthropist Tony Robbins! In analytics there are certain tasks that are regularly repeated – processing raw data, running specific analyses, updating …
A synergy of skills
Skills and training connect people, data, and action at ecda. The interaction between policy makers, data analysts, and academics helps to identify the areas where we need to share data and work together to produce insight that contributes to service …
Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships
I’m partial to a board game, my prowess at Cluedo is well known among my nearest and dearest. I think analytics is a bit like a detective game - stitching together the clues, refining the key lines of questioning, ruling …
Confessions of a Data & Analytics Manager
Over the course of the lockdown, I have seen a lot of people posting on MySpace and Bebo (other social media platforms are available, but if it was good enough for 2006 it’s good enough for me) about how they …
Telling Ella's story with impact
Back in, what feels like, the distant past when we could all go out to the pub and the news wasn’t exclusively about Coronavirus I entered an NHS data visualisation competition. Now obviously the NHS has a fair bit going …
Realising the value of data to shield our most vulnerable
Never has data been more in need. Over the past three weeks we have been working tirelessly to identify the needs of our residents, react to the needs of our organisations and support partners as we all work together to …