Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 04/02/2025Me buying best-in-breed tools for specific use cases: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me doing quarterly access reviews for all my best-in-breed tools for specific use cases: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck. 291
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 01/01/2025AI is the source of many of your blessings and curses tbh 020
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 31/12/2024This is an evolution of the :pizza-cry: emoji I could not have predicted 120
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 15/12/2024Being positive is an extremely underrated form of career impact 150
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 14/12/2024did @leoebfolsom.bsky.social just get his data dad joke wings? 150
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 10/12/2024Hourly pricing is definitely a trend in high end salons. Tends to be much higher margin and more sustainable for the professionals too, so you can feel good about supporting those businesses if you can afford the rates 020
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 08/12/2024I'm starting to think that WBRs are the heir to the OKRs cargo cult 110
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 04/12/2024Hey that sounds like a great slogan or substack name 010
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 04/12/2024Basically, value is created by being right, but it's also created by folks understanding and adopting what you've created 180
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 04/12/2024Another way I've been describing this recently has been by cribbing from this post impactpricing.com/blog/value-i...impactpricing.comValue Is Created TwiceDiscover how examples like AI and Peloton demonstrate the importance of making value clear in the buyer's mind 180
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 26/11/2024I recently learned about the Karpman drama triangle from a @lethain.com post, and I feel like data folks often fall into the victim role en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman...en.wikipedia.orgKarpman drama triangle - Wikipedia 050
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 25/11/2024I like the push to smoothing, but 12-month rolling windows is A LOT of smoothing 010
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024For sure. You need a lot of patience and pain tolerance to stick with this career 000
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024One time I was buying clams from the fish counter, and a guy came up to me, said "Those animals wanted to LIVE", and then immediately ran away. It felt especially aggressive for something that didn't have a central nervous system 110
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024My stupid term for this is "data visceralization" 040
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024Berkeley Bowl is the only grocery store where I've seen someone aggressively shove someone else to grab the discounted produce first 110
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024He helped fix a bunch of cursed Stripe stuff, so as far as I am concerned he can be an honorary engineer if he wants to be 120
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024My controller writes python scripts, should we be celebrating or seeking help? 160
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024We didn't get there by demanding that senpai notice us, we got there by trying stuff and seeing what worked. It's obviously easier to get things done when you have official endorsement, but what I'm ultimately trying to say is that sometimes you have to EARN an endorsement 130
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024Don't get me wrong: this took a long time, required me to be persistent, and was overall very annoying to do. But it did work with enough time. VPs and even the c-suite cared about what my team was doing eventually. 110
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024We worked together to generate tangible results, and then used those to convince other folks, including people higher on the org chart, that we were on to something. We then used that to start building momentum and buy-in 110
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024The way I did it was by starting small. I worked with folks at lower levels who were interested in collaborating, such as engineering managers, PMs, TPMs, etc. 110
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024I suspect I may not be able convince you, but I HAVE managed to drive impact as you define it without official VP buy-in, including at a publicly traded company with 8000 employees. 100
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 21/11/2024Perhaps you've worked at much more rigid and hierarchical companies than I have, but I just don't agree that the only way for people to have impact is if a VP says they get resources to do it. 100
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024You might need to intentionally get the VP or directors' attention once it's done, but it's hard to imagine a reasonable person getting mad about you helping drive revenue or save on costs if that's more important than what you would have otherwise been doing 100
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Lots of people below those levels do things that drive incremental revenue or cost savings, especially in the way I described earlier in the thread, where you're on a team that did this even if your literal actions didn't drive the impact. 100
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Do those really only exist when VPs and directors are involved, though? 100
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024That's probably the right way to think about it. Analytics is a career path in its own right, but sticking with it requires a very particular and rare personality type 010
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024If I think about why, it's probably that these people have a much better sense of what the numbers represent 030
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Although I never intend to, I find that I hire a lot of people who did something else before data. Lots of ops folks and performance marketers in particular 160
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Much to my surprise, I've definitely been posting like it is 040
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Is there any better evidence of this than the fact that everyone thinks AI will replace every function except theirs? 170
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024The more I learn about common career paths in other disciplines (especially marketing!) the more I realize that all disciplines are underestimated and needlessly disrespected by people who don't do them 5161
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024By "impactful projects", what do you mean? Visibility and impact are related, but director/VP advocacy feels very visibility oriented to me 100
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024It probably helps that the capital D decisions I make tend to be about company-internal things, but it's still very easy for me to see myself as a data professional, even if I'm starting to be some other things too. 010
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024This is definitely something that's on my mind in the context of my own career. As I increasingly take on more data-adjacent things as a part of my remit, am I still a data professional? 120
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Direction 2: To somewhat expand on @matsonj.bsky.social 's comment here, it's useful to think of analytics careers as a road to anywhere. If every job is a data job right now, why can't analytics be a stepping stone to every other job? bsky.app/profile/mats... 360
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024It's at least important in the way that engineering decisions are important, which may be slightly different than the what your original question intended. 120
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024In those cases, the actual literal scope of decision making tends to be around the implementation of something data-related. But when that data-related thing directly triggers product, marketing or sales related actions, making a decision about it is pretty important! 130
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Direction 1: This is potentially an annoying question, but what counts as "making a decision"? Implicitly, I think you mean something that customers will see, but my team makes plenty of decisions that impact customers on a regular basis 140
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Oh man, I could go in so many directions on this one. But I'll stick with two 130
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 19/11/2024I think a pasta with too much sauce might technically be a ramen 1201
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 19/11/2024Sauce should only ever be mindfully and respectfully waded into 150
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 19/11/2024And yes, I recognize this is putting a lot of work on the Data team. Perhaps it's even putting all of the responsibility on the Data team's hands. It's tough, but you know what? No one else is fixing our situation for us. If we want better, we need to drive the change for ourselves 110
Katie Bauer @imightbemary.bsky.social · 19/11/2024To be clear, these activities won't change your executive team and they won't transform your company culture from the bottom-up. But they can make YOUR immediate situation better. Saying you can't improve anything about your situation just because you can't fix the entire company is silly 100
