Introduction: As you maybe have seen, I added a few things to the bikeshare project. Just basic stuff for the start about the company and the data – to get a very basic overview. But it’s only very basic and needs more depth. That’s the next step right now.
The problem: Very often Data Analyst tend to dive directly into the data what is more or less a mistake. We have to take a step back! We are here to help a company to get “insights” out of their data. Find hidden patterns, make the data visible and answer questions asked by the client (as far as possible based on the data you can get). And in order to do that, we have to understand the business. So, first of all, we have to dive into the business. Start a research, ask the people of the company (a lot!), come up with questions about the market, the environment, the problems they faced over time, doing a SWOT-Analysis, etc..
In short: Communicate! Get informed! Get to know the business!
The approach: And because of that (very important) point I decided to take a step back to do a better research of the profile for capital bikeshare. The cirumstance that it’s not really possible to ask “them”, leads me to the internet as the source – in short: using Google a lot! (Maybe I could ask them via email but I have my doubts about that. Maybe it is an idea for later and worth a try). So, my skills using a search engine aren’t that bad (imo) but maybe a refresher is not a bad idea. And right at that moment freeCodeCamp.org came around with a short tutorial. Very nice!
So beeing reminded on the topic of advanced search techniques or operators is really a good thing. You can get so much more out of it by using these operators. Here is a list of them. Or check this one out. But check them out! In my opinion it’s a great idea to create a local cheat-sheet for yourself to have them ready to use (I will definitly do that within Notion!).
Another benefit by using them is, that it will improve your analytical skills! You have to apply more or less the same techniques and ways of thinking over and over again within the analytical process. It will always comes back and haunt you. So use and apply them from the very beginning.
But there is one specific topic in the tutorial, which is even more important. It’s the part about the critical thinking. Something that is often talked about but, very rarely, explained or elaborated on. Here, in this tutorial, you will see how to bring this into action. Just a few bullet points:
- Find several perspectives
- See when content was written and where it’s sourced from
- Dont trust everything on forums
- Be skeptical
- Search result rankings are not indicative of accuracy
- Verify with multiple sources when possible
- Always go after a personal bias
I want to put a highlight on the “lateral browsing / lateral reading” which basically means “Don’t read a single webpage but do research about this website. Add sources and check their credibility.”. You do not read a website top to bottom but you will open multiple tabs “around” that page doing research about it. I wasn’t aware of the term “lateral reading” but I am happy that I’ve found it because it’s a reminder to stay up-to-date about search techniques, self reflection and the so-called personal bias. The second highlight has to be put on the personal bias. Think about it. It’s important.
Conclusion: This post came into beeing due to the reflection about the steps in the analytical approach and how to improve the skills towards the work on the bikeshare project and in general. I’ve found more than initially expected: from the search operators to a very nice example for applied critical thinking. In times of advancing AI like chatGPT and to be able to critically questioning and evaluate the results of it, that is something really important!
And what to do now? Using the operators and trying to be as self reflective as possible (and find additional sources).