Learn more about Lorna's experience, from the time she applied to The Data School, to her career as a Data School Coach at The Information Lab. Lorna was part of Cohort 2 of The Data School London, which took place from December 2015 to April 2017.
Interviewed by Mel Niere | Edited by Lyon Abido, Lisa Hitch and Lorna Brown
Before The Data School
Q: What brought you to The Data School? What factors influenced your decision to apply and ultimately join The Data School?
I was doing my Master's Degree at the time, and I was doing sports biomechanics and performance analysis. My placement at the time introduced me to Tableau. I really liked Tableau because I could see the real-life implications of how being able to see and understand your data was used for gymnasts and coaches. I was coming to the end of my placement, and then, this Data School role got advertised. It definitely seemed too good to be true at the time, back in 2015. I was just applying for analytics roles and this role was on a website called the “Video Analyst” which was run by Rob Carroll who's now on the Irish team (Editor’s Note: The Information Lab - Ireland). They mentioned it would be a bit of sports analytics, but I've done a minimal amount of sports analytics throughout my time at The Information Lab. However, the role interested me just because I enjoyed using Tableau.
During The Data School
Q: What was your training experience like?
The training ran from the December of 2015 through to April of 2016. It was so long ago, it feels like such a blur, but that's because of how fast-paced the actual training was. Coming out of university it felt like things had just completely stepped up a rank. I went from not doing much in university to then going through this intensive period of training where it's just solid 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday to Friday, learning a variety of different tools.
We were mainly taught by Andy Kriebel in the earlier days, with a lot of support from the core team consultants. People like Andy Pick, Carl Allchin, and Emma Whyte pitched in on different topics that were taught. I think that the training period itself set me up to know what I wanted to do, but also helped me learn what I didn't want to do. For example, I never really wanted to be a project manager by the end of those four months. The way that I was taught just really connected with me, and I really enjoyed the whole learning experience.
Q: How did your placements at The Data School enhance your skills and knowledge?
Back in my day, we only did three placements. I was with a company called United Utilities, which was looking at water in the northwest of the UK. There I was looking at vulnerabilities in their system, so if there was a sewage problem, I’d analyze who needed extra support for the bills. That was a fun placement there. They were new to Tableau as well, so it was good to see how they were analyzing data. Then I went on to UBS, which is in the banking industry. I was working with Nick Bicknell, who was big in the Tableau and Alteryx community at the time. It was really nice to have a manager like him who really got what we were doing. It was really good to just get stuck into a company and constantly churn out report after report. My last placement was with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the car manufacturer. There were four of us that went to Jaguar Land Rover, someone from my cohort, and then two others from DS3 (the cohort after). We went there as a team of four. There we grew their graduate training program and their analytics team. In addition, we branched out and helped out with different areas of the business with their reporting. It's definitely been interesting to see JLR’s journey across the way because they have grown so much in Tableau.
Q: What support did you receive from The Data School?
The Data School was in its infancy back then, so we had a strong relationship with the core team. We had one-on-ones with the core team, and we slowly introduced pods (editor’s note: Pods are support and social groups meant to help individuals meet other consultants at The Data School outside of their cohort). It wasn’t until my second placement that we had pods because then we had more people to kind of intermingle. The support was really good. Andy Kriebel and Carl Allchin have been big cheerleaders of mine and constantly supported me throughout all of my questions, tantrums, and rants.
After The Data School
Q: How did The Data School and The Information Lab serve as a launchpad for your data analytics career?
I was coming to the end of my two-and-a-half-year contract with The Data School. The Data School is in London but I wanted to move back home, which was up north between Manchester and Liverpool. One of the main criteria for me was that I wanted to go back home for a bit and The Information Lab wasn't necessarily hiring for their core team as much as it has done over the past couple of years. I went to do Real Estate Agent Analytics for about nine months. They were turning off their old system and they wanted to transfer all of their stored procedures into Alteryx and build some Tableau dashboards.
I was coming out of this little bubble of training and placements at The Information Lab, so it was quite nice to see the real world. I was working with a very small team and a very small company. I think for me that was too small for me to go into straight away. I think I would have been better in a bit of a bigger team and a bit more of people to bounce ideas off of. I was still only 24, so still really young going into that first proper job after The Data School. The reason why I left that role was because it just didn't feel like it was the place that I wanted to be in. I enjoyed the Tableau-side of the role, and I enjoyed Alteryx, but the company itself wasn't the right fit for me.
Then I moved on to a company called Jisc, a current client of The Information Lab, which is in the higher education industry. So I was looking after university-based data about students in the UK and helping them with their data. Within that, they ran something called Analytics Labs, which is where I put my passion into teaching and helping people and projects. The Analytics Lab program brought in different people from different universities to form a team, and they came in to do a Dragon’s Den project to pitch ideas (Editor’s Note: Dragon’s Den is similar to Shark Tank in the USA). They had 12 days across 12 weeks to work on that individual project, and then they would pitch it back to the Jisc board. If a project got approved, we would then take that project back on with Tableau, and then develop it a little bit further so that it's a ready and sellable product. For me, that was a super fun experience. I was seeing lots of different people. I got to travel to some fancy universities in the UK. But then again, the reason why I was thinking of leaving that role was because the company was gonna go through a restructuring and everything felt uncertain as to what was going to happen post that restructuring.
I was looking for a new role. I was speaking to Carl and Andy as I always have done throughout my time and they asked if I had spoken to Tom, the founder of The Data School & The Information Lab. I was like “No, why would I speak to Tom? I left. I'm gonna just go and find a new role.” Then, during the Tableau Conference in 2019, I had a conversation with Tom where he offered me a role in the core team. I took a little bit of time to think about it because one of the reasons I left was because I wanted to move back home. I needed to make sure it was right for the home life situation and make sure I could travel. There was another role that I was eyeing up at the time, which was in the north but based in Manchester where I'd be in the office three days a week and at home two days a week. The Information Lab was more flexible in terms so that did play a part in my decision to come back, but also I missed The Information Lab. I know that sounds weird, but I missed the culture and that learning environment that had always been offered by The Information Lab. There are so many fantastic people in the company that you can just learn from and get inspired by. I think for me that is what ultimately drove me to come back to The Information Lab.
Q: Tell us about your current role and what you are doing now.
I came back to The Information Lab in 2020 after I got married and before the COVID lockdown happened. It was a very strange time to come back to The Information Lab but it set me on that journey of going back into consulting. During that time, I realized that I just wanted to teach. Whenever I was on a consultancy piece of work and I was teaching someone how to do something that's when that warm, fuzzy feeling came about. I wanted to do that a little bit more, so I reached out to the coaches Andy and Carl and said I wanted to do more teaching. Eventually, in 2022, I became a full-time coach and now have had six cohorts since then. It feels like it's gone so fast, but I enjoyed my whole time at The Information Lab. There are so many great people and I’m happy to be able to give back to where I came from. From being a part of Cohort 2 of The Data School and then now being able to affect someone else's journey and hopefully being that coach like Andy and Carl for someone is something that I strive for. Hopefully, I'm inspiring people to do that throughout The Data School training.
Q: You are a 4-time Tableau Visionary. Can you tell us more about your work in the Tableau Community?
I started as a Tableau Public Ambassador in 2019. I was doing Tableau Public community work during my spare time and then I just carried on with that. I became a Workout Wednesday co-lead and really engaged with the community and built that up. (Editor’s Note: Workout Wednesday (WoW) is a Tableau community project, learn more here.) When I left The Information Lab, I said I was going to prove a point that I should have been hired into the core team back then. I went out to prove a point by being a Tableau Ambassador and a Tableau Visionary. I managed to achieve that before they offered me a role back at The Information Lab. I became a Tableau Visionary in 2020, just before I rejoined The Information Lab. It's been quite nice to be that person who can be a leader, a teacher, and hopefully, be a master of the product. I'm still learning things daily with Tableau. Hopefully, I’ll become a Visionary this year, 2024, and that'll be my fifth year, then hopefully join the Tableau Hall of Fame after that.
Advice About The Data School
Q: What advice would you give to individuals considering applying to The Data School?
For people applying, the role is highly competitive, whether that's in the UK, Germany, the US, or Australia. We get so many applications in a month and that means that the coaches have a lot of phone screens to do in that time frame. My biggest advice to you is to make yourself different. If you're just going to be the same as someone else, it's going to be hard for us coaches to tell you apart from other people. I think you need to focus on the design, the story, and most importantly the analytics. If it looks good and feels good then it's gonna be a better presentation. Try and find that unique story and the analytics to go into that application.
Q: What advice would you give to individuals already in The Data School?
For those that are in The Data School right now: listen to your coaches! I’m joking. One of my biggest lessons throughout The Data School was time management and learning to ask for help. I always say to every cohort that they should make sure to ask for help. Don't just sit and struggle. There are a lot of people around you willing to help you and that's what makes this company so great. The culture is to ask for help early and pay it back. So, if somebody has helped you then either help somebody else when they get stuck or write a blog on it to explain how you've done something. That's the way that this community grows and how we get to share knowledge.
Q: Anything else you want to be included in this Alumni Spotlight Blog?
I want to give a shout-out to The Information Lab, the senior leadership, and the coaches because without them this whole thing wouldn't work. Without them taking a punt in the early days, I wouldn't be where I am now (Editor’s Note: “Taking a punt is a British expression for “taking a risk”). Especially without the support of Carl Allchin and Andy Kriebel, I certainly wouldn't be in my role right now. Big shout out to them, too.