Every day is a school day
What happens when the one person who has all the knowledge on a certain process leaves your team? Panic? That “this is fine” meme (you all know the one)? Or take a breath and look for any opportunities to review …
How we work
Eating Cake and Cracking the Code
Lured by the promise of learning and cake, three of ECC's newest Analysts and Junior Analysts attended this year's Summer School at IADS, University of Essex.
Council tax and the cost-of-living crisis
Council tax is inherently ‘unsexy’. It doesn’t hit the headlines all too often, let alone national news. In the media it’s an oft-neglected, much-maligned thing. In fact, you’re probably already thinking of closing this blog. Why on Earth would I …
Navigating good data ethics
In an era where data, AI and machine learning dominate headlines, local government teams face a critical responsibility: how do we tap into the power of data and analytics whilst ensuring ethics and integrity remain central? Key to achieving this …
Human vs Machine
The Turing Test stipulates that if a machine can convince a human that it is human, then it is human (intelligent).
Does that mean that if a human can convince a machine that it is machine, it is machine (artificially intelligent)?
I put that to the test…
The Breakfast Club: Data Edition
Confused? Let me explain, here in Data and Analytics, we have our own Breakfast Club. Exactly like the one from the movie. Well, not exactly. We’re not forced to attend on a Saturday, we’re not told to sit in silence, …
University Challenge 2023: Financial Literacy of Young People
It's time for our annual blog about the University Challenge project! For those of you not familiar with the calendar event of the year that is the University Challenge, it’s when we have the pleasure of working alongside students at …
Celebrating our data success
What do Loreen, Ben Whishaw and Essex County Council’s Data and Analytics team have in common? That’s right, they’ve all won something big in the last week. While Loreen was delighting the world (probably) with her winning song at Eurovision, …
The Pursuit of Knowledge
“Knowledge is having the right answers Intelligence is asking the right questions Wisdom is knowing when to ask the right questions” Professor Richard Feynman (American Physicist) The Pursuit of Knowledge was the title of the session we delivered …
Open Data: You have to see it for yourself
I often wish I had the ability to recall information about Essex at will. Like Neo, instantly learning how to do kung-fu while plugged into The Matrix. While it might not allow you to dodge bullets, Essex Open Data (found …