ktbbunnies
New Member
know what u mean, although it's picked up a bit recently so feeling like i am actually doing something for a change... felt bad when i used to be on the net all day lol
I like big spreadsheets and I cannot lie
- Thread starter ChrisFilter
- Start date
know what u mean, although it's picked up a bit recently so feeling like i am actually doing something for a change... felt bad when i used to be on the net all day lol
HeroineSheep
Where was I again?
I love spreadsheets. When I feel stressed at work I start another one.There were 22 new ones at last count. 
(I kind of cheat and use it more for tracking and information flow than formulae)
Maybe chat to Bob - he is an economics guru and could tell you all interesting places to go with it...
(I kind of cheat and use it more for tracking and information flow than formulae)
Maybe chat to Bob - he is an economics guru and could tell you all interesting places to go with it...
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Basically, you are an internet piss-artist then?
ChrisFilter
Like a boss.
I'm not entirely specialised on the internet. I'm more of a general piss artist
I do do real stuff as well. I came up with the initial blueprint, products and pricing for the complete '2.0' revision of one company (£10m turnover). It lead to month on month losses of over £100k turn into month on month profits of over £100k.
That's the problem, I miss doing stuff like that. I like to think I'm quite talented, hence feeling unfulfilled at present.
ChrisFilter
Like a boss.
Interesting. Seems to relate to what I mentioned in my previous post, which I loved. Collecting 6 years of data, financial and operational, putting it all into a fuck off spreadsheet and working out exactly how much we should be charging per minute for our services. It took about two weeks, and I loved every minute of it. Really enjoyed taking it to the boardroom and showing our operations and finances, in detail, all on one spreadsheet when previously no-one really had a clue what was going on.
We use Netsuite now, which pretty much has live Business Intelligence reporting built-in.
How would you recommend approaching that industry? Any worthwhile training or qualifications? I imagine I'd be unlikely to be hired based on my current cv.
ChrisFilter
Like a boss.
I have no advice to offer, in fact one module of economics in my OU course has put me off for life but just wanted to say your current job sounds aces.
Yeah, and it is, but it's frustrating. I think of it like GCSEs vs Uni. GCSEs, when my homework was marked every day, I kicked arse. I enjoyed it, learnt loads. Uni, where it was all left down to me, I fucked up entirely.
Pingu
Credo
pah.. lightweight data marts
edws is where the big data is at.
billions of rows
throw in some OLAP and you have (data) geek heaven
Pingu
Credo
not money for old rope sadly, most of the development stuff these days is being shipped out to india...
however it is a very interesting and quickly developing field.
BI is shaping companys futires and is moving from historical reporting into predictive stuff quite quickly.
some interesting new technolgies starting to appear too that can turn smp environments into mpp ones without changing the database layer that is already in place... (e.g. a single oracle node is currently querying approx 48 Tb of live data in under 5 mins - something that a couple of years ago would be unthinkkable. - thanks to some wizzy bit of emerging technology)
data is still just data but.. information is king, if youcan turn data into information then you are onto a winner
Mr Retro
Beware hedgehogs
I'm not talking about development. Fuck that, DB development is dead. More how to approach a proper BI model and how to present proper info at various levels of a company.
Rushing now but I'll post back soon and I wil PM you some info CF
any time chris, be more than happy to babble about such things. i'll say one thing though, there's beauty in economics in the same way as there is with pure maths or philosophy - only difference is there are also some practical implications. its a longer route to a job where you look at scenarios using spreadsheets (and also more advanced stuff than you can do with excel) and work out what might happen next, but ultimately its a more satisfying route because in developing your logic and analysis skills you also learn about the world and have to make up your own mind about how it ticks
p.s. anyone that thinks they are good with spreadsheets but doesn't know how to use offset(match()) is deluded. </ throwing down the gauntlet>
Yetman
Cheesecar Fucksquad #1
Pingu
Credo
db development is very much alive (sadly just mainly sunning itself in mumbai or islamabad for a bit). there have been some big changes in database usage over the past year and some big changes are ahead too.
BI is where its at though, but to do good BI you need good data. We are starting to see smaller (still big though) companys looking at their database arcitecture and realising that its not up to the job of delivering accurate and timely BI.
as I said in my Pm to chris.. The skill is being able to turn data into information. crack this and you can make a big difference
Mr Retro
Beware hedgehogs
Thats what I mean though, it's gone to these places and I don't believe it's a viable career option outside them any more. Also packages like ERwin are getting better and better
Depends what you mean by DB Development too I suppose. Things like designing ETL's and Data Quality experts are still big areas..
Ya and a good model. I also think it has to be a bespoke system tailored to suit your company, it means more money at the start but much better returns than using something like SAP
