Maggie Miller and I were chatting about the reasons for enjoying the Analytics 2014 conference in Las Vegas and I made a comment she thought was peculiar. I said that I liked the conference because I could talk about complicated things. She asked me to explain what I meant by that. I will do my best in this post to explain.
I learned how to talk about complicated concepts in graduate school. I imagine many of you learned this skill in graduate school as well. I will never forget the first time I gave a seminar. WHAT A DISASTER!! I still recall my dissertation advisor saying, “Yeah that sucked.” So what happened? Why was my talk a disaster and how did I fix this? Aside from adjustment to the structure of an economics seminar (a free for all), the single biggest change I made was that I learned to talk to my graduate school colleagues about my research. I realized that I had a collection of people in my inner circle who all were smarter than me. It provided me an opportunity to put my ideas to the test. And that is what I did. At each opportunity I talked about my “identification strategy” and potential “endogeneity” issues. And, guess what? The next seminar was a success and I’ve never looked back.
So how does this relate to Analytics 2014? Selling your analytic models isn’t about the quality of your estimates. It isn’t about the complexity of your models. It is entirely determined by your ability to explain your models to other people. Sometimes it is to people who know more statistics than you. Sometimes it is to smart people who don’t know statistics. Acquiring these skills is entirely the result of practice. And in my three years of attending conferences as part of SAS, I have found no better place to talk about complicated models with sophisticated modelers and smart people who don’t have as much statistical experience.
The Analytics conference gives us the opportunity to start a conversation about a complicated econometric or statistical model with people who know more than we do. We can start our conversation without extensive background on the assumptions of the model. The time with SAS employees at the exhibitor booths allow for interaction with developers of models who know the math but perhaps not the applications. These interactions allow us all to be more comfortable talking about complicated statistical models.
So, when Maggie asked me to explain what I meant, perhaps I was reflecting on what I learned early in my graduate school career about presenting complicated material. Practice helps. While it will never be easy to present complicated material, the Analytics Conference Series events provide an additional opportunity to stand and confidently talk about your work in analytics. We hope to see you next year in Las Vegas at Analytics 2015.
