Every once in a while, I pull back the curtain a bit to expose to others a little about our culture and values. I have never worked with a team that is so driven to read, share their knowledge, and continue to push each other, and themselves to grow. Our Slack channel is a gold mine of thoughtful selected skills, reading material, articles of interest, or anything that pushes our team harder. We do this for ourselves and because we feel like we can use this to help our clients.
In the past, I’ve written about the books that push us, what’s on our desk, and a few others. Today I get to write about those who have influenced us in some way to become who we are as individuals. These are people who may have sparked our enthusiasm or been at our side from day one of our career development. They may be very close to us or may not even know we exist. By sharing who these selfless leaders are – we hope we can give you a picture of who we are and, in some way, pay tribute to their contribution.
Patrick Callahan
Since I am well into my career – I would need pages to list out those who influenced me and continue to influence me today. Certainly, at the top of the list would be people like @Fran Shields who was patient enough to nurture my curiosity of the impact of Data and technology at Andersen Consulting in my early days, Tom Nagle who encouraged the need to read, write, and always question myself, and Elizabeth Haas Edersheim who wrote the biography “McKinsey’s Marvin Bower”: a roadmap to our growth as we go from start to global company. The dance with data that Hanse Rosling did on the TED stage will be one that I’ll never forget. Finally, @Randy Almond, from his days at Twitter and GNIP – who enabled me to travel the world, meet some of the brightest minds, and explore how data could change the lives of so many for the better.
Pat Strickler
Simo Ahava @SimoAhava - his blog taught me everything I know about GTM and helped me develop my skills as a technical marketer.
Lea Pica @LeaPica - I saw her speak a few times and we share the same philosophy on data visualization. It was refreshing to know there were other people in the industry that valued the art of presenting information.
Ben Kates
Tim Wilson @tgwilson - his talks/podcast are the reason I started using R to pull Google Analytics data and conduct analyses. Additionally, he brought to many people’s attention (or maybe just mine) that a fundamental drawback of aggregated web analytics data is its lack of true observations at the user/client level. Mark Edmonson @holomarked - how do you query Google APIs in R? You use all of the wonderful packages Mark has developed and made open source! Whether it’s querying unsampled data from Google Analytics to creating Google Compute Engine API functions that spin up VM’s in one click directly from R, Mark’s efforts have empowered many marketing technologists.
Eugene Olkhov
Hadley Wickham @hadleywickham. He's built out so many essential packages in R that we use daily - and his work ethic is just amazing and inspiring. R would not be the same without him.
Bob Dawes
Melinda Godwin. My first supervisor that taught a young, naive, cocky 22 year old about the importance of a professional presence.
Jeff Headley
Hans Rosling is one of the best communicators of data and its power to transform the world. His speaking appearances & videos are legendary. His book “Factfulness - Ten Reasons Why We’re Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think” should be required reading for every human on the planet. He challenges me to think for myself. Carl Sagan stepped into my life as a young boy. Watching his groundbreaking show Cosmos (based on his book of the same name) opened my eyes to the infinite wonders of the hidden worlds all around us. His ability to translate complex, technical concepts into an understandable & compelling narrative is second to none. He challenges me to broaden my view and draw inspiration from reality. My father’s contributions to my development are too numerous to detail. But the most recognizable to me are: hard work is its own reward, kindness is a super power, and life is too short for complaining.
Aru Deshmuck
Two people inspire me: Firstly, Bill Gates because he’s putting his money to solve global issues that impact all human beings in the world. He isn’t biased into “small thinking”, he thinks in broad, impactful and practical ways. (better toilets!). I am inspired to learn what he and the organization is stepping up to work on and makes me want to participate. He looks for the positives in both the work that CAN be done and the work that HAS been done. Over all he provides bright light for the future for the world.
Secondly would be my mom. She is pretty much the most amazing role model anyone could ask for, She is smart, a problem solver with a positive attitude, and generous and open minded to all people. She believes that challenges are to be met and not complained about. She is also tough as titanium with an incredible generosity and heart that inspires me to be “more like my mom”.
Darren Mahoney
I’ve been incredibly lucky in life to have had so many great people to influence me both professionally and personally. To name just a few:
Professional. Thought leaders to me: Avinash Kaushik, digital marketing evangelist extraordinaire - someone I followed from his days at Intuit. I always look forward to reading his work. Edward Tufte - visualization expert. (Thanks Walter Van Geffen for passing me one of his books many years ago.) Professor Peter Fader - Customer Lifetime Value. Just a better way to look at things. Push beyond the "easy to get metrics", and get to what really matters. Daniel Pink - understanding Motivation - Autonomy, mastery, purpose - so useful. Thanks to John Owens for introducing me to this book! I’ve had strong leaders influence my career. John was and is one of the best. Shout out to many others: Todd Sandler, Michael Alston, Kristin Pierce Fitch, Karen Silverstein, Gina Campanella, Kellyn Kenny
Personal - my lacrosse coaches along the way taught me more life lessons than I can list and did a pretty solid job on the lacrosse part too. From my time at the University of Virginia Dom Starsia, Mike Murphy, Mark Van Ardsdale and Chris Colbeck. From my time @ Mahopac High School - Ted Georgalas, Joe Horace. I try to pass along some of their wisdom to the next generation of players as I coach lacrosse each week. And of course my incredible parents Mike & Janet Mahoney, two teachers who drilled into me the importance of critical thinking, loving what you do, and what really matters in life. Thank you!
CompassRed is a full-service data agency that specializes in providing data strategy for clients across multiple industries.