Rethinking Proximity
Remote work has been awesome for knowledge workers over the past year. It’s going to get even better, as long as we optimize for time and relationship over spatial proximity.
data analysis
Scenario Planning, with Data, on Steroids
In Great By Choice, Jim Collins teaches us that there is no new normal… there is always just uncertainty and change. Predicting the future is hard. The best leaders and organizations, as such, plan for multiple futures and hedge accordingly. They plan probabilistically. One tool that can assist in scenario planning is Monte Carlo simulation. … [Read more…]
Back of the Envelope Machine Learning
A demo for thinking about how to use ML to steer decision making.
Second Guessing the Optimized Answer
One approach to problem-solving is to use a program to find the optimized solution. This applies broadly. For example, your problem might be finding the lowest cost location to build a distribution center (DC), finding the right people to add to your team/company, or determining how to get to the local Target. When systems create … [Read more…]
Building a Forecasting Framework for Supply Chain with R
It’s hard to beat the value-add of a good forecast in supply chain. Supply chains are long – thousands of miles with dozens of participants. Without a decent forecast you’ll end up with an abundance of waste in some way, shape, or form. We forecast for manufacturing products, securing transportation capacity, obtaining & using warehouse … [Read more…]
Hands-On Supply Chain with Machine Learning
I recently finished the third course in MIT’s Supply Chain MicroMasters program, Supply Chain Design, hosted on their EdX platform. I scored an 86% on the final exam with an overall grade of ‘B’ for the class (which I expect will end up being average). Considering time constraints with work (especially working in supply chain … [Read more…]
Notes: Setting Up OSRM & Using OSM Filter for Machine Learning
When working on my project to find the optimal running route given a starting/ending location and mileage, I needed to build a routing engine so I could make numerous calls without hitting an API limit. Below is my note os how I set that up OSRM on MacBook with python.To figure out the distance between … [Read more…]
Finding My Passion Mining Browser History and Emails
I regularly listen to get-rich-entrepreneurship podcasts. They make me feel good and get me excited about innovating. Last week, I was listening to James Altucher’s podcast episode #177 with Ramit Sethi. At one point Ramit (totally paraphrasing) says your passion doesn’t fall down from the sky one day… it’s always with you and you need … [Read more…]
Text-Mining Politeness in Emails
Who is the most polite person you work with and how do you quantify that answer?For me, it’s a female colleague who works in the West Coast Finance department. Her emails to me are chock full of appreciative words such as…The occurrence of phrases such as ‘thanks’, ‘thank you’, and ‘please’ in her emails to … [Read more…]
Continuously Collecting API Data with Python and Digital Ocean
A few months ago, I wanted to collect minutely Uber surge price data over the course of a week between Penn Station, NY. and Union Square, NY. I wrote a python script to call Uber’s API every minute and record the response to a text file (as basic as it gets). Then, I tried to … [Read more…]