The Data Stack Show - The PRQL: Have You Ever Been a Part of a Company That Has Done Analytics Really Well?

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

Eric and Kostas preview their upcoming conversation with Barry McCardel of Hex Technologies.

Welcome to the Data Stack Show prequel, where we talk about the show that we just recorded to give you a teaser for the upcoming episode. Costas, we just chatted with Barry from Hex. What a great conversation. Okay, here's how I'm going to tee this one up. So you have a long career, sort of both working, you know, as a, like you've started your own companies in the data space, actually, but you've been, you've been around the block, right? Have you ever done or been a part of a company who has done analytics like really, really well? Uh, no. But, but okay. Like what? It's of course, it's an unfair question. That's a very provocative question. And I don't know, like it's a, one of these questions that you expect to hear,

like from you know, like these people that they have this traditional shows on TV that get the politicians and they try to like, to get them into the position where they don't know, like how to avoid answering the question. Well, the problem is there's not any answer is self-incriminating. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think it's

really hard to define, first of all, what good analytics is, right? At the end, I mean, there's a very good point that Barry made, our guest, about like what's the value that data teams bring, right? And like he mentioned at some point about stuff like shared OKRs and all these things, that's a very important point actually, because I think that for data analytics to be successful outside

of like all the things that we are discussing all this time in this show around the technology and the innovation, at the end, it's really important like to figure out how we can build an organization that is data-driven. So it's not just the technology, it's also how people interact and how people communicate and how they work together and how they share responsibilities that are equally important as the technology to make data analytics successful at the end. And to be honest, I mean, maybe we should try in this show and bring more people to discuss about that stuff. Yeah.

Because I think it's an extremely interesting and important topic. I agree. I think it was definitely an unfair question, but I would say one thing we've learned in the show is that a great data team is actually a really good proxy for analytics being done really well. Sort of in whatever form that takes with whatever tech. And a couple other teasers, Costas, that I loved about this conversation. One, we talked about notebooks, actually. And Barry gave us a really good breakdown of what is a notebook, what's unique about it, and why are they even useful, which I think was really helpful. We don't talk a ton about Python on the show.

And so I think that was a really helpful breakdown. And then we also learned a lot of Hex users. It has like a really robust notebook functionality, but a lot of Hex users don't have any history of working in notebooks, which is really fascinating. And then of course, as you mentioned, we got sort of the founding story behind Hex, which is super interesting. So you're definitely going to want to listen to this one. Probably one of the best conversations we've had about analytics on the show to date. If you like the show, tell a friend about it. We love new listeners and we will catch you on the next one.