News and articles of note

See this selection of articles covering to most important topics in analytics at the moment.

  • The Governance Gap: Why your Analytics Team Needs More Than Technical Talent When we talk about the analytics talent gap, we typically mean technical skills. Data engineering. Machine learning. Statistical modelling. These matter, and they're in short supply. But there's another capability gap that's harder to see: the ability to translate technical decisions into ethical, commercial, and regulatory risk. The ability to sit across the table from a data science team and ask the questions that don't appear in the model documentation. Whose data is in this training set? Who isn't represented? What happens when the model fails? Who's accountable? These aren't technical questions. They're governance questions. And they require a different kind of skill: the ability to read the room, probe assumptions, and hold complexity without defaulting to "the engineers will sort it out." We need analytics professionals who can do both. Technical depth and governance fluency. The sector is starting to recognise this, but capability development hasn't caught up.
  • Don't Delete Your Training Data What's actually happening to analytics roles, and why the conversation your team needs to have is the one nobody's having.
  • Value of analytics professionals in an AI age The analytics professionals who will thrive aren't those who compete with AI at tasks it does well. They're the ones who do the work AI cannot: building trust with colleagues, mapping the invisible networks that determine how decisions really get made, and translating between the language of data and the messy reality of business operations. Here’s to many more years of curiosity, storytelling, and turning data into impact.
  • Data Privacy in a Reconfigured Digital World: Trust, Choice, and Leadership Over the past decade, the digital landscape has transformed more than just technology - it has reshaped how we interact, connect, and trust. Interpersonal relationships, business models, and even government engagement now operate in ecosystems powered by data. This shift has reconfigured the dynamics between people and organisations, creating both unprecedented opportunities and profound responsibilities.
  • Why a Career in Data & Analytics Has Been So Rewarding After 23 years, I can confidently say that Data & Analytics has given me intellectual challenge, creative expression, meaningful impact, and the opportunity to work with incredible people. If you’re early in your career and considering this field - or even contemplating a pivot - I can’t recommend it highly enough. Here’s to many more years of curiosity, storytelling, and turning data into impact.
  • Building a Data Strategy That Drives Real Value: Why Foundations Matter More Than Tools The organisations that create genuine value from data are those that treat strategy seriously. They invest time understanding where they are. They build diverse teams with the right mix of skills and perspectives. They secure genuine executive commitment to data-driven decision-making. And they develop the operational discipline to sustain analytics as a competitive advantage rather than a temporary initiative.
  • Less Juggling, More Judgement: A Framework for managing your pipeline Where the rubber hits the road for Data and AI professionals, is how to cut through the busyness of the everyday to drive clarity on work priorities. Here is a framework for achieving cut-through on pipeline management.
  • Beyond the Numbers: Diversity in Analytics Through a Migrant’s Eyes The future of analytics in Australia will be shaped by people from every corner of the world, each contributing a different insight, a different way of looking at data, and a shared belief in what evidence can achieve.. Analytics is not just about numbers or technology. It is about understanding people. And when people from different backgrounds come together to interpret data, our insights become richer, fairer, and far more meaningful. Diversity does not just make analytics stronger; it makes it human.
  • The Analytics Shift: Moving from Information to Intelligence The future of any viable organisation rests on its ability to see beyond the surface of its operations and into the predictive power of its data. Analytics provides the clarity required to solve customer problems at scale, optimise complex operations, and secure sustained investment from all stakeholders. It is the language of justification, the blueprint for operational efficiency, and the ultimate measure of organisational value in the digital age. Those who master the translation of data into wisdom will not just survive the current pace of change - they will fundamentally define the next era of business success.
  • Human Analyst vs. AI Analyst An honest, hands-on comparison of Tableau Public, Gemini + Colab, Julius AI, and Cursor for a real-world data analysis task.
  • Diversity and Analytics: Unlocking Deeper Patterns Diversity is no longer a corporate ideal; it is both a moral imperative and a performance enabler in analytics. In a world increasingly defined by data, the question is no longer whether we need diversity, but how consciously we embed it into every stage of insight generation.
  • Bridging the gap: Engaging the C-suite to position analytics as a value driver Analytics has the potential to be a strategic enabler – but realising the value of a data driven business requires engaging the C-suite and finance leaders to connect analytical insights with business outcomes.