1. How did you get into the technology field?
I majored in Business with a concentration on Finance and decided to add on Computer Science. Having a background that blended different functions brought me into the technology field but has also allowed me to thrive in a discipline that requires both strong functional and technical skills.
2. What’s your favorite part of Community?
Contributing to the Discussions. Having worked with Strategy for 20-years, it is always rewarding to be able to share the knowledge and solve problems for others. I can see new and interesting things that I may not have thought of, or seen in my customer engagements, but I can find an additional challenge in the day and try to help find a creative solution. An added bonus, is that it is also great to be recognized as a Strategy Community Master for those contributions, and be part of a collective that helps improve the Strategy Community as a whole.
3. What’s your favorite topic to write about?
I am very passionate about data and analytics, as well as helping our clients succeed. Many times the difference between sustained success and mediocrity is about process, best practices, and understanding the value (and complexity) of data. The technology and tools are only part of the equation, but understanding that data is as much art as it is science, is a fundamental principle to go from treating analytics as a technical implementation to a core competency of an organization. So any topic, that I can use to help evangelize from my experience is an interesting topic.
4. Name one feature you would like to add to Community.
I would very much like to see a Solutions Marketplace similar to Atlassian, Informatica, Talend, and other applications. I believe there are a lot of different types of solutions that could be created and supported by the Strategy ecosystem that go beyond Visualizations, and Connectors that would benefit other customers. Having a central place to showcase, provide product information, support, and licensing for the solutions would be invaluable to the Strategy platform as a whole.
5. Why Strategy (as a product)?
Strategy is a cohesive platform that can help support enterprise analytics applications with a wide variety of users. The flexibility of being able to easily create core reports and dashboards supporting thousands of users, to allowing analysts to evaluate data from non-core Attributes provides a great ROI and makes it easy to justify TCO.
