It will come as no great surprise that here at Jumping Rivers, we are huge advocates for learning data skills. There are many benefits to learning at least some basic data skills, even if you don’t work explicitly with data.

We all benefit from some form of data science every day, even if we don’t realise it – the weather forecast is based on analysis of the weather patterns in the atmosphere and what that has resulted in previously; the placement of road safety equipment (speed cameras, SLOW signs, etc) is based on analysis of previous accidents; online advertising is based on you as a user – how else would they do this without analysis of your data to find out what to show you?

Whether you want to start from scratch, or improve your skills, Jumping Rivers has a training course for you.

Benefits

These are some of the places that we encounter data science in our day to day lives, but how can learning some data skills yourself benefit you in your career?

Informed decision making

Having at least some basic data skills allows you to make more informed decisions, and more quickly – if you can analyse the data yourself, you don’t need to have lengthy back-and-forths with someone else, while you try to explain what you need, and they try to match that – you can just do exactly what you want, straight away.

Relevant marketing

Being able to analyse the outcomes of marketing decisions is an incredibly valuable asset for any company. You want to spend your time and money on things that work – if you, as a person in marketing, can analyse the results of your marketing campaigns, you can make real time decisions based on your desired outcomes.

Problem solving

One of the main skills we gain from data exploration is problem solving – data science consists of solving a whole bunch of problems one after the other, except at the end, instead of having a complete picture, you’ll have a deeper knowledge of your business and client needs!

It’s everywhere

Data science is being utilised by everyone – it doesn’t matter what industry you’re interested in joining, if you have data skills, someone will be looking for someone like you to take charge of and make sense of their data!

Where to start

If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you’re thinking “yes, I want to do that!” – in which case your next question might well be “so, what now?”. That’s where Jumping Rivers comes in! If you’d like to learn more about how we can help start your data journey, get in touch.

Our Introduction to R and Introduction to Python courses are a great starting point!

Want to create a dashboard in a hurry? See Introduction to and Data Exploration with Tableau. Interested in programming? Then some of our more advanced R and Python courses might be for you! We also have courses on version control with Git for Me and Data visualisation with ggplot2.

Take a look at our upcoming public courses, or contact us to discuss tailored training for your team, both on-site and online.

For updates and revisions to this article, see the original post