Becky Gandillon
Data strategist, storyteller, and mom
St. Louis, Missouri, United States
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Becky Gandillon is the Data Solutions Architect for Qventus, and she specializes in data storytelling, data strategy and visualization. She is a big Disney nerd that spends some of her free time analyzing and predicting crowd patterns at Disney World. She and her husband love travelling with their two daughters, and typically have three or four vacations planned in advance at any time.
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Your Developer Super-power: Data Storytelling
Data storytelling is the real-world skill of translating numbers and analyses into things normal humans can (and want to) understand. It’s a skill that’s hard to find and difficult to cultivate, because storytelling is an art and a science. If you think in Venn diagrams, imagine the circle of really excellent storytellers that make you want to pay attention, like Steven Spielberg or Walt Disney. Layer on top of that another circle of people – people that really get numbers. They organize their lives in spreadsheets and databases.
Now try to see the overlap of those two groups. The ones who think in numbers … and speak in stories. It’s a rare combination. Those are the data storytellers. You can think of them like the glue that holds together data and people that can actually do something with it. What if your organization doesn't have enough glue? How can employees today start down the path of storytelling and making those connections?
Why Developers Should Be More Like Imagineers
The goals of many developers are the same - learn and implement new technologies to better serve people. Any good Disney geek would tell you that those goals sound remarkably like the definition of an imagineer, a term that Disney coined but is now recognized more broadly as "a person who devises or implements a new or highly imaginative concept or technology". But is there really room for imagination when you're building and executing code? During this session, attendees will hear quotes and concepts from some of the most famous imagineers and learn how to apply those same ideas to their daily work.
Quiet Managing: The Antidote to Quiet Quitting
2022 was the year of "quiet quitting". Or was it? In this session we'll talk about quiet quitting and why it's likely just symptoms of underlying mismatched expectations between managers and developers. Then we'll go over some strategies for managing successful technical teams and employees. This "quiet managing" includes setting up your people for success, getting out of their way, and letting them deliver. Trust, autonomy and empathy are key!
Ordinary People Change the World: Being Tomorrow's Role Model Today
Women in tech today likely have a list of role models that they look up to and draw inspiration from: Katherine Johnson, Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper ... and many more. But as the world and the workplace changes and evolves, what are we doing today to ensure that we can be the role models for those that will follow in our footsteps? How can we inspire each other and the next generation? In this session, attendees will learn how to take intentional steps to encourage, mentor and sponsor other women in tech. An emphasis will be placed on easy, practical first steps that can help us all change our world.
Hacking Your Vacation: Using Data for Fun
Data can be powerful, meaningful, AND fun. Making data-driven decisions can level up your family vacation from awful to awesome. In this session, attendees will walk through a specific example showing how to analyze various data sources to avoid crowds, save money, and piece together a Disney World vacation that's more enjoyable for everyone.
Empowering the Unsung Heroes of Data Teams
The responsibilities of a "data engineer" often extend beyond coding, into the realm of essential (and undervalued) tasks referred to as "glue work." During this talk we'll all learn to recognize the critical glue work being done within our teams, or maybe even give a name to things we're already doing.
Delve with me into the telltale signs of doing glue work - from user interactions to onboarding new team members, keeping the team happy and working together well, and even managing the road map, glue work is the unseen force that ensures a team's success. Unfortunately, it almost always comes at a cost: potential stagnation in technical careers as individuals doing the glue work find themselves veering away from producing a bunch of code.
During the session, I'll shed light on the career-limiting impact of unacknowledged glue work and propose a paradigm shift. Let's discuss strategies to empower individuals engaged in glue work by recognizing and valuing their contribution. We need to acknowledge and reward the symbiotic relationship between technical prowess and interpersonal skills, and how exhibiting both should propel careers rather than impede them.
THAT Conference 2023
Building Bridges
DeveloperWeek 2023 Sessionize Event
CodeMash 2023 Sessionize Event
Global AI Developers Days Sessionize Event
Little Rock Tech Fest 2022 Sessionize Event
Current 2022: The Next Generation of Kafka Summit Sessionize Event
PASS Data Community Summit DEI Panel 2022 Sessionize Event
RLML 2022 - Real Life Machine Learning Conference Sessionize Event
dev up 2022 Sessionize Event
Stir Trek 2022 Sessionize Event
CodeMash 2022 Sessionize Event
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