Everyone loves a good conference, but there’s no denying that all day events tend to drag on a bit. You know the feeling. You’ve been sitting in the same position for several hours, your mind starts to wander, your legs get restless, your phone suddenly appears in your hand and you start texting or reading email. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.
That’s why we’ve been working extra hard to make sure the Data Summit SF is absolutely action packed and varied enough to entertain even the most concentration challenged among you.
To keep you entertained throughout the day, we’ve lined up a variety of quick 10-20 minute talks that will be fast paced, fun, exciting AND insightful. That’s right, you won’t find any hour-long lectures here! We’ve also built in plenty of break time for you to get up, stretch your legs, nibble on some tasty snacks and meet your fellow data punk.
Each and everyone of our speakers has been hand-chosen to be both informative and entertaining. They’ve put a lot of time and effort into handcrafting their talks and coming up with a catchy title. Cos who doesn’t love a catchy title, am I right?
So here’s the Lowdown on the Showdown on some of our favourite speakers:
“If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, Please Say Something: Increasing Honesty in Airbnb Reviews” – Dave Holtz, Data Scientist at Airbnb
In a 2013 New York Times column, Thomas Friedman claimed that “Airbnb’s real innovation is not online rentals. It’s ‘trust’.” Dave will be talking about the cool experiments conducted at Airbnb to improve the frequency and honesty of reviews, methods used to evaluate changes in the quality of subsequent reviews and the impact of these changes on other key business metrics.
“I Are Not A Robot: Bringing Humanity to Data” – Matt Ellsworth, Consultant at Ellthworthy.
Matt is a super successful entrepreneur, data enthusiast and professional comedian.
Enough said. You need to come to his talk. I have already heard the opening line . . .
It is all sorts of inappropriate.
“Data vs Donuts: Inspiring Healthy Behavior Change” – Eric Williams, Data Scientist at Omada Health
Eric is only pretty cool guy. Not only has he shot a laser at the moon from a telescope on a mountain while at UCSD with the APOLLO project, he also moved to Paris and travelled France with an Opera production of Mozart’s La Finta Giardiniera. Now he’s working with his fellow lobsters at Omada Health, embarking on the largest study of human creativity in history. They’re putting the ‘data scope’ in the hands of people to see their own data in context and to see patterns and insights that would otherwise be invisible. The core of this effort leverages mappr to convert multidimensional data about people into an interactive network visualization of those people connected by shared traits . . . the most exciting part? Mappr AND crowdflower are speaking too!
“Software is Eating the World, And You’re For Lunch” – Edd Dumbill, VP Strategy, Silicon Valley Data Science
Edd is talking big picture. Something has happened in Silicon Valley. Tech firms stopped just making software for industry to buy, and decided instead to use software to enter new markets. Companies such as Amazon, Uber, and Netflix have marched into mainstream industries, backed by data-driven learning machines. As Marc Andreessen famously said, “software is eating the world’. How do you keep on the winning side of this change? The secret is in how you view and exploit data and Edd’s going to guide you on the right path.
“Datafied Selfies: Pro-social vs. Narcissistic Behavior” – Andrew Fogg, Co-Founder of import.io
How many of you were horrified when ‘selfie’ was named the 2013 word of the year? Well, like it or not, the #selfie has become an integral part of everyday life and the release of the popular new app, Hyperlapse has intensified the social bonanza. Andrew will be diving deep into the world of social data, analysing what the data behind the selfie actually tells up about the our society, our culture and the future of the social generation. Get your iPhone at the ready: Snap it. Crop it. Filter it. Hashtag it. Like it.
“The Human Side of Business Analysis” – Alyson Murphy, Senior Data Analyst at Moz
Alyson is what we at import.io call a #DataBaller. The Ultimate Data Punk. She’ll be showing you how to create logical data change in the human environment of a business, with some swift advise on visualization techniques that work well for presenting data that proves a point.
“Super Secret Topic” – Eric Berlow, Founder of Vibrant Data, TED Fellow
We can’t lay all our cards on the table just yet. This highly classified topic has a grand reveal planned, so you will just have to wait until then!
We absolutely CANNOT WAIT to share all this and much more with you at Dogpatch Studios on October 30th. If you haven’t already, make sure you snap up a ticket ASAP! This event is for everyone who’s interested in data, so pass it on to your friends.
Up Next…
In our next post we’ll be covering some of the interactive workshops that will be taking place at the Summit. Alex Gimson (and his beard) will be giving you all the deets on the cool things you’ll be learning from import.io, Tableau. BigML, infogr.am and CrowdFlower.
……. I KNOW, we’re spoiling you 🙂