157: How She Became a Data Analyst Through Blogging (Megan Bowers)

[00:00:00] Avery Smith: Most people try to break into the data world by sending out thousands of resumes, but my guest, Megan Bowers, took a completely different path. She started writing online, not because she had it all figured out, but because she didn't. She blogged her way through learning data and shared everything she was learning in public, and then something wild happened.

[00:00:21] Avery Smith: Her posts were being seen by millions of people. She started to even make money from her content. And eventually those blog posts caught the attention of the right people and landed her job and then her next job. Now Megan's worked as a senior data analyst for Stanley Black and Decker, and does data content management and data journalism at Alteryx.

[00:00:41] Avery Smith: She's the host of the Alter Everything podcast from Alteryx. And in this episode we will unpack her whole story of how she went from absolute beginner to senior data analyst and how she used the power of sharing her learning online. To land those roles. Let's get into the episode, Megan, you studied industrial [00:01:00] engineering in college and then after doing some internships and kind of like learning about the data analytics world, you're like, okay, I want to get into data analytics.

[00:01:09] Avery Smith: I wanna become like a data analyst or some similar role, but. As you were trying to like go through that process, you were like, crap, I have to stand out somehow in the job market or, or maybe actually better, I don't even know why you started blogging on Medium. Why did you start blogging on Medium?

[00:01:23] Megan Bowers: Yeah, so when I kind of decided I wanted to pursue more of the data analytics route, I thought I wanted to get a little bit more of those technical skills, some more coding knowledge, things like that.

[00:01:35] Megan Bowers: So I did a. Data Science Bootcamp that was kind of self-guided. And as I was going through that, one of the recommendations was you should start blogging about your experience, or you should make videos or do whatever. And so I tried the blogging thing on Medium and kind of fell back in love with writing a little bit.

[00:01:55] Megan Bowers: I loved writing going through. High school and such and then kind of didn't [00:02:00] do it for a while. And so that was how I got started writing more analytics v blogs. I was writing about what I was learning, kind of data science concepts for beginners, things I wish I knew three months ago, things like that.

[00:02:12] Megan Bowers: And it was also during COD, so it kind of became my little covid hobby obsession where there wasn't much else to do. And I was looking at all the analytics of the blogs about analytics, and I got really into it.

[00:02:26] Avery Smith: So wa was the purpose just like, I'm gonna try this out slash it's, it's something to do? Or was it more like, Hey, like this is kind of, I, this might be helpful to someone who's, you know, maybe three months behind me?

[00:02:38] Megan Bowers: Yeah, I think when I just initially started, I was just like this, I. Seems like a fun way to really make sure that I understand and know these concepts that I'm learning. 'cause like being able to teach it to others is like the final step showing that you've learned something. And then as I went along and got positive feedback, then I thought, oh, these can [00:03:00] blogs like this can be helpful to others in my position starting out in a data science bootcamp.

[00:03:05] Megan Bowers: And it was very encouraging. To hear from people and feel like I could support and share my experiences and learnings and be able to kind of help other people along that journey. For sure.

[00:03:17] Avery Smith: Uh, they say like, the best way to actually learn is to teach. So it makes a lot of sense that like, you know, by creating these blogs, you were actually like cementing what you had been learning.

[00:03:26] Avery Smith: So I, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I also think, um, you're being a, a, a little bit humble, which you are a very humble person by saying some of the feedback you received. I'm gonna, I'm gonna open up your medium here. Wow. Your second article got like 236. I don't know what they call them on medium, I'll call them likes, but claps basically.

[00:03:43] Avery Smith: And then like your fourth one got 853. Like you are always like, I mean, this one almost got a thousand claps. This one almost got a thousand claps. So like your articles were really well received. So I think that's one a testament to you as a writer. But can you talk about like how that kind of maybe encouraged you to like, oh, [00:04:00] I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep writing.

[00:04:01] Megan Bowers: Yeah. I think like seeing that. Feedback and response. It made me feel like, oh, I think there might be kind of a gap here just on this site or on this publication for more of the beginner content and like data science in plain words. And it got me excited to like keep going, explore new topics. I did a few articles on like explaining data science to a five-year-old.

[00:04:28] Megan Bowers: Of this interview question that was similar to that and it was an a fun challenge to, to build out. So I think seeing that gap and I, I think the need for that kind of beginner data science, data analytics content really helped me keep going. And yeah, it was fun and I was building an audience as well as.

[00:04:48] Megan Bowers: You know, cementing my learning like we talked about, and then kind of started building a brand by accident a little bit.

[00:04:54] Avery Smith: Very, very cool. So you were cementing your learning, you were helping other people, which is, you know, [00:05:00] two gifts in of itself. So let's talk about, uh, what else you might have gotten by posting on, on Medium.

[00:05:06] Avery Smith: Uh, one of the things that's, that's cool about medium. Is they have a, a partnership program where basically you can get paid some money based off of how much, how much time people spend reading your article. Basically, not dissimilar to how YouTube pays its content creators, so like I'm assuming, making a little bit of money from this.

[00:05:23] Avery Smith: What else did you have that maybe happened from this whole process?

[00:05:26] Megan Bowers: Yeah, I did monetize the articles, so that was. Fun to check in and see the view time and get paid a little bit for the writing. And then what it really did was also it helped me build my brand by really launching, posting more actively on LinkedIn.

[00:05:44] Megan Bowers: So I had this content so I could post about it on LinkedIn. And just connect with new people there. I would get messages sometimes about certain articles. I had to take my email off of there, but it was like, oh, we can connect with this person. So that was, that was kind of fun. But the biggest [00:06:00] thing really that the articles led to, which I wasn't really expecting, was they helped me land my first job in data.

[00:06:06] Megan Bowers: So I had had all my medium profile that I was. Actively looking for a job in analytics, I think, or something like that. A manager at Staley Black and Decker was building out a new analytics team and came across some of my articles and he said he was really looking for that, like a person who is almost like a business analyst or a business scientist or someone who could speak the language of the business as well as.

[00:06:30] Megan Bowers: Do the data piece. And I think he saw that writing and communication skills in the article in combination with, obviously I'm talking about analytics and thought, oh, this person could be a good fit and reached out to me based on those, one of those articles that popular. So is how I ended up with a job there.

[00:06:46] Megan Bowers: Um, and that was really unexpected and really. Exciting. 'cause I was actively job searching. I was getting towards the end of my data bootcamp. And so to have kind of a direct lead like that was, was [00:07:00] huge for sure.

[00:07:01] Avery Smith: I mean, that's fantastic and congrats, um, because job searching really sucks and job hunting sucks and applying to job sucks.

[00:07:08] Avery Smith: So the fact that you were kind able to flip the job search on its head where you didn't really have to go out there and apply for jobs, jobs were kind of applying for you, and it all came from the, A little bit, well, a little bit. Okay. It's not like they were like breaking down the door like, Megan, come work for us.

[00:07:23] Avery Smith: No, but, but like at least someone did, right? Like at least one person did. And, and at the end of the day, you don't need 200 companies. Trying to hire you at once. You only really need one. Like you can only work for one company at a time. Uh, unless you're crazy and you try to work for two companies at once, which will be a subject for another podcast episode.

[00:07:41] Avery Smith: Not this one, but like at the end of the day like that ended up landing your job and helping you get in in the data field and. Now, once you're in, you're in. Right? Like now maybe you can walk us through a little bit about, so what, what was that role? What was that title? Um, and how long were you there? And then where, where has your career progressed from there?

[00:07:57] Megan Bowers: Yeah, totally. So I started out at [00:08:00] Stanley as a, the title was Global Solutions Analyst, but it was basically. Data analysts working a lot with Alteryx and Power BI for different reporting solutions, building dashboards, automating Excel processes that people were doing more manually. And while I was there I was promoted to senior data analyst and, and that role was a little more of, you know, included mentoring or helping with the newer team members on the analytics team.

[00:08:32] Megan Bowers: And yeah, a lot of Alteryx use, which is I. Where I work now. It was a cool position, a lot of opportunity to work out different use cases, did some stuff with supply chain department or uh, HR department, so kind of working as that center of excellence function. And I was at Stanley for about two years and then someone, a manager at Alteryx reached out, uh, again because of the blogs.

[00:08:55] Megan Bowers: So right back to that, that benefit of the blogs being, [00:09:00] um. Really huge for my career journey. So he had seen some blogs I had done while I was at Stanley about, more specifically Alteryx as a tool, Alteryx Tips. He had republished one or two of them on the Alteryx community and then they had a position open up for a data journalist.

[00:09:15] Megan Bowers: So I was really interested 'cause it was essentially the job I was doing on the side for fun with my blog, but that could be a full-time job. And I really loved the Alteryx product and so. Interviewed with them for that position. And, um, that's how I got to be at Alteryx.

[00:09:32] Avery Smith: And once again, like this is just, uh, like you didn't have to really go out and apply for jobs.

[00:09:38] Avery Smith: People were, were applying to, to Megan from, you know, doing, doing these blogs, which is absolutely awesome and makes life, uh, it's always easier when you're trying to land a job or I guess not even when you're trying to land a job. You always want a company to seek after you versus you chasing the companies.

[00:09:53] Avery Smith: It's just. Yeah, life. Life is easier that way.

[00:09:56] Megan Bowers: And I also, I think that it can be like any type of content [00:10:00] creation, like it doesn't have to be blogs, but if you're creating content. Via LinkedIn posts, via YouTube, different things, like whatever that is, that is a way for people to find you and reach out to you and see you as an expert in the field, not even just with written articles.

[00:10:17] Megan Bowers: So just wanted to add that in too.

[00:10:19] Avery Smith: A hundred percent. You know, in, in my bootcamp that I run, I have my students post a lot on LinkedIn and a lot of the things, a lot of the times they're like, well, why do I have to post on LinkedIn? I don't wanna post on LinkedIn. First off, I say you don't, you don't have to post on LinkedIn.

[00:10:31] Avery Smith: Uh, it's just one of many things that that can help you. Um, but two, they're often concerned with like, well, what do I write about? And, and also like, what do I write about that isn't already a available online? So maybe can you speak to like the idea of like, 'cause to me it seems like you were kind of just documenting what you were learning in an online public fashion.

[00:10:50] Avery Smith: Like you were almost taking notes. Through your blog? Uh, did I get that right or like, what, what were you posting about and how did you maybe overcome like the thought of, uh, why would [00:11:00] anyone wanna read this?

[00:11:01] Megan Bowers: Yeah. I think part of it was documenting what I was doing and the bootcamp, what I was learning, trying to extend it based on.

[00:11:09] Megan Bowers: You know, I'm looking at applying to jobs and looking at these interview questions, thinking, how would I answer that? Okay, well, if I have a good answer to that, maybe others would benefit from hearing that answer. Or I could start a conversation about it. You know, if I'm not sure on the answer. Yeah, a combination of repeating things I'm learning, maybe adding my 2 cents, starting a conversation.

[00:11:30] Megan Bowers: And then as you get farther along, I think, um. Like whatever role you're in or whatever you're doing, you do have something to share for people who are just a few steps behind you. You know, even if you're like in that kind of learning and transition phase, maybe you're towards the end and there's someone at the beginning and they need to know how to choose which bootcamp to do or uh, which tool to start with, and you can share your expertise.

[00:11:57] Avery Smith: Love that. Yeah. There's always someone who's. Think [00:12:00] about it, like sometimes you want only someone who's only one or two steps ahead because they're a lot closer and they remember, and they're able to describe, you know, the path a little bit more. Um, so

[00:12:09] Megan Bowers: Right.

[00:12:09] Avery Smith: I think, I think that makes a lot, a lot of sense.

[00:12:12] Avery Smith: Okay. So do you, do you recommend that like people, I. Go out there and, and blog on on Medium or like, uh, if someone's listening to this and they're like, oh, you know, I wanna document my learnings, what would be an action item for them?

[00:12:23] Megan Bowers: I would maybe start with LinkedIn if, just 'cause you can write smaller chunks if you're not super big on writing.

[00:12:31] Megan Bowers: If you have a writing background and you love. I would say either go to Medium or maybe start a newsletter. But again, like having some audience on LinkedIn would help you, um, be able to say, Hey, here's my newsletter. Um, or, Hey, here's the content I'm building, I think too, yeah, it just depends on what people already have started, but if you have like a portfolio website already, you could add a tab for a blog and kind of own your own blog, which can be really beneficial as [00:13:00] well.

[00:13:00] Megan Bowers: But. The Medium platform is nice to just jump in and get started if you kind of don't have any, anything set up yet and it's really easy to write, write your first article.

[00:13:09] Avery Smith: Yeah. One thing that Medium has that a lot of platforms don't have, uh, built in is it kinda already has a built in audience a lot of the time.

[00:13:16] Avery Smith: Like there's already readers there, which like you said, as pros and cons, uh. You don't necessarily have as much control maybe, but you do have a little bit more access to to mm-hmm. Viewership, right, right off the start. Well, one thing like I think you did an amazing job. You know, basically at the end of the day when you're trying to land a job, you have to stand out 'cause there's 99 other people very similar to you.

[00:13:39] Avery Smith: So how do you stand out and, you know, you convince a hiring manager or recruiter to, to hire you. And in your case, you had. Provided them, Hey, I'm very technical and I'm very good at communicating. Here's my blogs as evidence. And they, you know, took those blogs and they're like, wow, this is great. We wanna, you know, we want Megan on our team.

[00:13:54] Avery Smith: You know, you are the, the, the co-host of the podcast alter everything, uh, which is a podcast from [00:14:00] Alteryx. Um, and this is kind of your, your new, one of the responsibilities in your new role. So you have the opportunity to talk to a lot of people in the, the data world. What are some things that you've seen people do to stand out to hiring managers, to recruiters or just to people in general to say, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm a great data analyst.

[00:14:16] Avery Smith: I have, I have cool ideas. What are some things that people, you know, you've seen some people do to stand out?

[00:14:21] Megan Bowers: Yeah, I think a big one is. Leveraging and advertising your domain expertise. So this is, this is something that worked to my favor too in the Stanley situation where they're a big manufacturing company and I had that degree in industrial engineering and some.

[00:14:39] Megan Bowers: Manufacturing internships, so it's like, you know, took some supply chain classes. So it's like I had some of that domain knowledge to know what the data meant, and I think that that's been big for a lot of guests on our show coming on moving into data, you know, maybe they start out in finance. They're asked to help with this ERP [00:15:00] transition.

[00:15:00] Megan Bowers: It becomes more of a data project than they realize, but they're really good at it because they understand what the data means and can, uh, help with the project more and in different ways than like a pure analyst who. Doesn't know about finance could, and whether that's, yeah, finance or supply chain or hr.

[00:15:20] Megan Bowers: I think we've had people from all of those divisions and more kind of make their way into data by starting with some sort of project that they were given or that they asked to take on and their current rule that involve data. And then, you know, as they're upskilling and learning some more data. Skills or tools, they are already kind of a step ahead because they have that domain knowledge.

[00:15:45] Megan Bowers: So that's probably like the biggest way I've seen people differentiate. We've had conversations on the show about certifications or project work or things like that, and I think that those can be really great to supplement a [00:16:00] resume if you are transitioning career wise. At Alteryx, we have pre-certification tests for our, for our platform, and that's something that a lot of people find value in and um, kind of gives employers a baseline of okay, they know Alteryx, if they're core or advanced certified.

[00:16:18] Megan Bowers: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is taking on those projects in the field you're in currently, wherever it's possible.

[00:16:24] Avery Smith: That's very cool. Uh, I love that idea because a lot of times when people are pivoting, they often think that they're, you know, they say, I have no experience in data analytics. You know, uh, and they're, they're worried about it, and they almost wear it as like, uh, a badge of shame.

[00:16:39] Avery Smith: But what it, what it comes down to what you just said is like, no, your past experience is actually kind of your superpower. It's what separates you mm-hmm. And allows you to, to stand out from everyone else. It's like if you were to apply, let's just say. The person listening to this was to apply to a manufacturing job.

[00:16:55] Avery Smith: You know, you kinda have a manufacturing degree, um, and that, that [00:17:00] might put you a step ahead of the listener or maybe the listener, you know, maybe they have a, a degree or maybe they're a warehouse worker and like they might be able to understand warehouse operations better than you and me. Um, and so that's what allows them.

[00:17:13] Avery Smith: Maybe they're not as quite as experienced in analytics as you and me, but maybe they would get higher hired over us because No, they can actually, like you said earlier, speak the, the language of the business. And at the end of the day, we're only doing analytics, not for analytics sakes, it's not for fun, z it's not to, to get cool stats, it's to have, you know, impact in an organization.

[00:17:33] Avery Smith: So that domain experience, like you said, I really think, uh, that, that makes a, a lot of sense. Yeah. Any other thoughts there, or do we feel like we covered that?

[00:17:40] Megan Bowers: This might be a hot take, but I, I feel like the domain experience is sometimes much harder than the analytics, like when you're working on, when you're as a data analyst working on a project, it can be so time consuming and hard at the beginning, at the end of beginning and at the end, ideally mostly at the beginning to figure out what [00:18:00] does this mean?

[00:18:01] Megan Bowers: Like what are we really interested in here? What. Results, you know, will the business find useful? Or how should this be presented to help them? Oh, I need to understand their job. Like, there's just so much there. So I feel like that could be a differentiator. And if you're, you know, have a background in biology, looking at companies that are bioscience companies that are hiring for more analytics types physicians, I just feel like that's.

[00:18:27] Megan Bowers: A nice place to start if you have any sort of domain experience, like looking for companies where that is the domain the company's in, and then seeing if they have any more like slightly more data focused roles.

[00:18:40] Avery Smith: Makes a lot of sense. I, uh, talked to a hiring manager the other day. He works for renewable energy manufacturing company and he was telling me, he said, you know, I can teach someone what a p value is or how to do linear aggression, but he is like, if I have to teach them how that like.

[00:18:55] Avery Smith: Kinetics reactions and, uh, mechanism stuff. He is [00:19:00] like, that's a lot more effort. Like, so he's like, I'll hire someone that like, understands the domain and can do a little bit of the analytics versus someone who knows a lot about the analytics and nothing about the domain. So I like the hot take. I, I'm, I'm, I'm agreeing with you.

[00:19:13] Avery Smith: Uh, there, do you think that's kind of how you got your, your current role? So, I mean, I, I guess maybe not your current role, the one, 'cause right now, um, you do a lot of content. You're a content manager for Alteryx. But the first two years at, at Alteryx, you were a data journalist, which you kinda hinted at earlier.

[00:19:29] Avery Smith: Can you kind of explain what a data journalist is and, you know, maybe how your, your, your skillset uniquely set you up for that role?

[00:19:37] Megan Bowers: Yeah. Essentially what I was doing as a data journalist was. Managing our community blogs, and so it's a collection of blogs written by both our users and employees. So it's kind of managing the content calendar for that.

[00:19:53] Megan Bowers: Yes. As well as writing my own articles to fill any gaps that we had. And so it was that [00:20:00] combination of domain expertise. Like I had used Alteryx for my day job every day, so I had that experience to say. Oh, these tools are really powerful and we don't have an article about this use case, so I'm gonna write that and I'm gonna basically take things I was doing in my last job a little bit and, and write about them.

[00:20:22] Megan Bowers: And so there was, I. There was definitely that, that piece to it as well as editing and revealing other article submissions and, and publishing and then some more operational stuff. But yeah, I mean, if I think about it, I don't have an English degree. I know this is kinda the opposite of what your show is about, like pivoting.

[00:20:41] Megan Bowers: Getting away from analytics in a, in a, in a way, but I've just pivoted a lot and so I was able to jump into this field. You know, a lot of people think that I got a degree in journalism. I did not. I just did analytics, had the technical background, and then that was enough to be able to be. A good content manager [00:21:00] and, and learn along the way, some of, some more, you know, of the best practices of publishing and things like that.

[00:21:06] Megan Bowers: But, um, yeah, definitely started a little bit more just as an analyst writing for other analysts.

[00:21:11] Avery Smith: It, it makes sense. I, I do think that like, although maybe what you do on a day-to-day basis is a a million percent analytics space, like. If you, if you gave that job to someone else who doesn't understand analytics, I don't think they do nearly as good of a job that you do because it's, yeah, it's, it's a lot of work to, to even know what, once again, what all the data terms, you know, mean.

[00:21:31] Avery Smith: Like, what does ETL mean? Yeah. Uh, you know, what does cleaning data actually look like, and, and stuff like, like that. So I'll give you some credit there. And, and despite the English degree, you are a great writer. How did, how did you become a great writer by the way?

[00:21:43] Megan Bowers: Oh, thank you. Um, I mean, I think reading is a big part of it.

[00:21:47] Megan Bowers: Mm-hmm. Like really immersing yourself in reading a lot of good writing. Sometimes you just have to get your thoughts out there and then ruthlessly edit them down. I try to be as concise as possible. I did feel [00:22:00] like, especially starting out, if I was writing about something I was interested in or passionate about, sometimes the article would just write itself and the articles that took an hour to write got the most popular because I was like really excited about them or really passionate or um, or whatnot.

[00:22:16] Megan Bowers: So.

[00:22:17] Avery Smith: Well, that's, uh, that is not bode well for my, um, newsletter that's coming out tomorrow. It took me like three hours to write and, uh, I'm like, it's not good still. So, uh, but if you guys want that, that newsletter, you guys can subscribe. Data crew jumps do.com/subscribe and you guys can get it in your inbox, but I have not a good writer, so I'll, I'll start, I'll have to read more of yours.

[00:22:36] Megan Bowers: No, I think an encouragement for anybody who. Maybe is looking at that blank LinkedIn post or an empty blog, like feeling like they're trying to force content. Like go immerse yourself, go consume a bunch of content. Go listen to podcasts about tech news or new innovations, or see how other people are using it to like spark ideas or.

[00:22:58] Megan Bowers: Find out about new things that [00:23:00] you're interested in, that you can research more and, and post about, or technologies you can try out. Like I think that like eventually everybody kinda reaches the end of their content well inside themselves and you have to go like. You have to go learn about new things and always be, yeah, having interesting conversations and talking to people.

[00:23:20] Megan Bowers: And then it's like, oh, you know, Srin people asked me about this. Maybe this is something I should write about. You know, things can kind of come up a little bit more organically.

[00:23:27] Avery Smith: Great advice. Um, I think, uh, there's a book called Steal Like an Artist by Austin Cleon. It's based off of a quote from Pablo Picasso that I think is all art is theft.

[00:23:39] Avery Smith: And I think, I think content is a form of art. I honestly think data, especially like data projects, can be a form of art as well. So I think that was something to be said. Getting inspiration from other people. Speaking, speaking of data projects that people can get, uh, inspiration from. I wanna talk about a cool project that you talked about on Medium that [00:24:00] uses Alteryx, which is the company you work for for now.

[00:24:02] Avery Smith: And it was a personal project. So one of the things I'm a big fan of is I think building projects is like the best way you can possibly learn, and I think specifically doing on projects. On stuff you're actually passionate about. I think that's the best option, uh, that you can do. So you used Alteryx for your wedding.

[00:24:16] Avery Smith: I'd love to hear about how you used it for your wedding and then maybe, maybe before you start you can give like a one or two sentence summary. You know, there's people who are listening, they've heard me talk about sql, they've heard me talk about Tableau. They've heard me talk about talk about Excel, but maybe they're not familiar with Alteryx.

[00:24:29] Avery Smith: Maybe you could give like a one to two sentence explanation of what Alteryx is and then how you used it. For your wedding?

[00:24:35] Megan Bowers: Sure. Yeah. So Alteryx is a platform that has a lot of analytics capabilities and advanced analytics. The product I used specifically was Alteryx Designer, and so the main feature of that is just that you can drag and drop tools.

[00:24:50] Megan Bowers: So instead of typing out a SQL query and doing order by and select these columns and do all that, it's um, no coding. So [00:25:00] you're dragging and dropping a select tool and a sort tool. And, um, a join tool to piece your data together. Um, so anything that you could do in sql, you could do in Alteryx. Plus, there's a lot more options for importing from any type of source, exporting to any type of source.

[00:25:15] Megan Bowers: So, yeah, that's my quick intro to Alteryx, but. What I used it for was essentially going through the wedding planning process. We had one major data source, which was our guest list. Uh, it turns out we had multiple systems that needed that in different formats. And so there was the formatting of, okay, we wanna print this guest list and these addresses on envelopes.

[00:25:39] Megan Bowers: And then there was also the formatting of an RSVP system so people can go in RSVP, yes or no to the wedding. And so I basically just used Alteryx to. Take the the data that we had in a spreadsheet and manipulate it and format it in really different ways for both of those systems so that I [00:26:00] wasn't doing any sort of manual data entry because I can't do that anymore.

[00:26:04] Megan Bowers: I just can't. Like knowing Alteryx, knowing what I can use it for. You know, even for people doing stuff in Excel, like they can probably relate to that. Like the idea of manually typing in data when you do have some, uh, spreadsheet data source sounds terrible. And so that was basically what I used it for.

[00:26:20] Megan Bowers: Um, also, I might have used it to. Can I do some double checking on, you know, when you're getting up in the numbers of guests, you don't wanna forget anybody. And making sure that, like, reconciling kind of some, some data sets and searching for people and stuff, like, it was a fun little use case and I posted about it on LinkedIn and then a lot of people shared their personal use cases with Alteryx, which was really fun as well see.

[00:26:43] Avery Smith: Oh wow, really interesting. Was there one like other personal use case that stood out? 'cause I thought the, the wedding thing was, was really unique and cool.

[00:26:50] Megan Bowers: Yeah, there were several, a big one. I think multiple, multiple people chimed in on was using Alteryx to figure out where they want to [00:27:00] move. So there's tons of data on a city, on like all the suburbs, the walkability, the school, you know, if you look on Zillow, you'll see all these data points.

[00:27:09] Megan Bowers: And I assume they found data sets and they said, you know, I wanna almost be like an optimization model of what's the best place for me. And there's also like geolocation, geospatial analysis available in Alteryx. So even plotting that heard from several people that use it to figure out how to move. I think several or not how to move, but the best place for them was to maybe move or look at houses, uh, in a new city.

[00:27:33] Megan Bowers: And then several people had some really interesting one-off kind of web scraping or API usage just in their personal lives, whether it was like. The cupcake place down the street and getting their flavors or, um, I think someone talked about a pet grooming schedule. I don't know they got really hyper-specific, but kind of reminds me of like, a lot of people now are talking about like vibe coding and using AI to create these [00:28:00] hyper-specific apps or whatever for just your use case.

[00:28:03] Megan Bowers: But that's essentially what, what people were doing in Alteryx for fun.

[00:28:07] Avery Smith: Very cool, uh, very powerful tool. Well, this, this has been awesome. Uh, I'm excited to learn more about Alteryx, myself, and also the listeners. Um, we can do that by, you know, checking out your podcast, alter everything, uh, available wherever podcasts are available.

[00:28:21] Avery Smith: And, uh, I'm actually gonna be on there pretty soon as, as a guest. I think we decided that this comes out first. So, uh, in the future you'll, you'll hear me, uh, on Al Alter everything. What else can people kind of hear on the Alter Everything podcast?

[00:28:33] Megan Bowers: Yeah, so we have a fun mix of thought leaders in the data space coming on to talk about, you know, hot topics like having you on to talk about data careers, having on a bunch of different experts as well as we hear from people who are using Alteryx, getting value out of it, like ways that they've changed their processes, changed their business, unlocked new use cases, or maybe changed their own career with Alteryx.

[00:28:59] Megan Bowers: So. It's kind of a [00:29:00] mix of general data episodes as well as ones where you can hear more from our like community members, our super users, uh, things like that.

[00:29:08] Avery Smith: Awesome. We'll have a link to it in the show notes down below. We'll also have a link to, uh, Megan's LinkedIn as well as from Medium. Go check out some of her articles.

[00:29:16] Avery Smith: We didn't have time to cover some of the fun ones there as well, so be able to, uh, check that out. Megan, thanks so much for coming on the show.

[00:29:23] Megan Bowers: Yeah, thanks for having me, Avery.