Joseph Allen, a Research Associate at the UKDS, discusses why we use Twitter data for research. — When we try to analyse an individual we have access to a snapshot of who this person is. We could collect quantitative data on ages, sex, family details, salary and beyond. While these data points are valuable, they only capture a part of an individuals’ complicated history and limitless potential. …

The benefits and methods of synthetic data generation — Synthetic data is an upcoming technology in the data industry. There are many reasons to explore synthetic data, which I will go into shortly. Sometimes the most effective way to collect more data is to make it yourself. A computer program manufactures synthetic data. We no longer measure real-world events…

Set up your development environment for data — Python and R are the main tools in the world of data. Although they aren’t trivial to get started with, they should be. This post walks through my day 1 set up at the UK Data Service. We cover setting up any machine for Python, R and a plotting example…

“Sorry, I got too excited”, the recruiter blabbered. — In Manchester, we have a Community Slack which I recommend. It is a fantastic place of joyous discussion, job offers, pet projects, pets and beyond. It’s also a great place to find a job. One day on Slack I got a phone call from a recruiter who had sent me…

How do you make a product trusted enough to convert? — Recently some friends and I have been talking about starting a company together. We still aren’t sure what that looks like and our product changes every week. We are hitting some problems around trust, and how you make a product trusted enough to convert. …

People have asked me how to get started once I pick a topic. — I have been thinking about what blog post to write next. People have asked me how I bring myself to write a blog post. People have asked me how to get started once I pick a topic. …

A kata is a take-home task provided by a company. — A kata is a take-home task provided by a company as part of the interview process. In all sorts of roles, this is a common part of the process. In Front-End it may be building a website. In Data Science it may be something like “find three insights”. In Marketing…

Put the work in and Twitter will work for you. When we own a product it’s beneficial to build trust with a community. Users often check Twitter accounts to gauge the maturity of a product. …

My experience as an intern Web Developer in Manchester — This post is a written version of a talk I give. Slides here. If you would like me to give this talk contact me here. This is a sad story of how my first job in web development treated me, and what I learnt from it. …