My Favourite Tipples from a Data Science Enthusiast
Jinfo Blog

By Natasha Chowdory

Abstract

My Favourite Tipples are shared by Natasha Chowdory, an assistant librarian in a specialist technical library at Microsoft. Natasha shares some of her go-to resources in the field of personal development and big data.

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I've now been working at Microsoft for four years and in that time I've developed my own niche of topics that I deal with exclusively: personal development resources and data science/big data related resources. 

These two areas are very different but they're both in big demand at the moment. Users either want to learn how to manipulate data or how to get better at dealing with people or tricky situations. This ties in really well with multiple recent reports across organisations that suggest that while people have the skills needed to do their job, when it comes to soft skills they're lacking. 

Here are My Favourite Tipples that are currently helping me through:

• Forbes: Definitely one to check at least a few times a week. It covers everything that's happening across all business (whether it's tech, media or pharma) and it also does great feature stories with business leaders that make for interesting reading. This one is really relevant to my role.

• The Muse: I check this website every day. Whether it's new ideas on how to manage your time, better interview skills, or book recommendations - this site has it all. It's constantly updated and I share a lot of the articles across the organisation - often to a great reception. 

• Bernard Marr: This guy! We have all of his books in our library and I follow him on LinkedIn. I receive a newsletter he curates weekly. Anything you need to know about data science, he knows it. There are lots of case studies and his style is really accessible.

• Seth Godin is an excellent writer. Again we have all of his books on marketing, all exceptional reads and then I subscribed to his blog. Anything you want to know about marketing - this is where I go first. He usually posts something every day and it's normally relevant to me when talking to sales/marketing guys. 

• TechCrunch: I wasn't keen on TechCrunch to begin with but I've come around. It's now my go-to in the morning when I have a cup of tea. If I want to know what's going on in the world of tech, this is where I go. It's slightly better in terms of reporting style than Wired and The Verge and I like that it differentiates by region as opposed to company.

An article in Jinfo which I found particularly interesting: 

• "Creating a Meaningful Dialogue to Develop Value Expertise". I saw this and had to read it! I wrote my MSc dissertation on demonstrating value and I always like to see what other people have done. It's so hard for information services to try to explain a concept that is so intangible. It's nice to know that my dissertation said the same things - mainly gathering as many usage statistics as possible and developing relationships with the C-suite. Given the regard for libraries and information services in society at the moment, information professionals have to work so much harder to demonstrate how we contribute to organisations.

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