Alter Everything

MaddieJ · ‎04-09-2019

We're joined by Linora D'Souza, Senior Director at Hilton, for a chat about risk-taking and the future of careers in analytics for the iPhone generation.

Panelists

Christine Bonthius - @ChristineB, LinkedIn
Linora D'souza - LinkedIn

Topics

Community Picks

Linora
- AnitaB.org

Christine
- Analytics as an Equalizer thread on the Women of Analytics Alteryx Community
- Brain Pickings

Transcript

Episode Transcription

CHRISTINE: 00:13	Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Christine Bonthius and I'll be your host. We're joined by Linora D'Souza, Senior Director at Hilton for a chat about risk taking and the future of careers and analytics for the iPhone generation. Let's get started.
CHRISTINE: 00:44	Welcome, Linora. Thank you for coming onto the program. How are you today?
LINORA: 00:47	I'm doing well. And it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
CHRISTINE: 00:51	Yeah. Would you go ahead and share with our listeners a little bit about yourself? Just a brief introduction.
LINORA: 00:56	Sure. My name is Linora D'Souza. I'm a Senior Director at Hilton. I work in the data and analytics organization that Hilton has set up in the past year in 2018, late 2017 and 2018. So we still consider ourselves new. And I've been in IT, straddling business and IT for some time now. So I'm very, very excited to talk to you guys about it.
CHRISTINE: 01:25	Yeah. No, I was looking at your-- as I do with a lot of our guests, I'm very interested in their backgrounds and so I spend some time on the internet looking at LinkedIn and I just want to get a sense of kind of your career progression here. Can you just maybe go through some of the highlights of your career?
LINORA: 01:44	Sure. It's a very interesting journey. I will call my career a journey through the different experiences I've had. Interestingly, my studies were in business and finance, but my first job was as a Java developer. And I couldn't ask for a better start because it really taught me something very core about how to use technology to achieve business results. And from there, I transitioned into very data-centric projects. So I've worked at many companies along the way doing IT, be it requirements, analysis that gave me a very, very good understanding how businesses work, how to do business process. But I never really left my technical abilities behind. In fact, they were enabling me to get into the next steps. Some of my career, like I said, Java developer, data analyst, most recently was privacy professional. And now I am doing data governance and strategy in the data analytics function. And something that has been very, very foundational throughout has been how technology and business expertise mixed. So all my career highlights, be it being on great projects, implementing new systems, achieving revenue goals, [having?] a very interesting mix of the two.
CHRISTINE: 03:22	But the first thing that popped out to me, actually, about your LinkedIn profile was the very first sentence, which says, people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. And I was wondering why you felt like that sentence deserved to be on your page? What's its significance or what's its impact for you?
LINORA: 03:43	Well, you have to believe in something to achieve it. If you don't believe in it, if you don't have a core belief of knowing you can do it, you will never take the risk, right? A lot of risk takers inherently have a very deeply held belief that they can do it. I've always in my life believed in taking educated risk. And I'll use educated as an adjective here because don't take blind risk. You don't want to jump right down a cliff where there's nothing to cushion you. But you have to be crazy enough to take the risk. Because if you don't take the risk, you don't know whether you'll be able to do it or not, right?
CHRISTINE: 04:32	Absolutely. No, I think that's a really interesting thing that you just said. Because I think there's this just innate fear of failure in general. Nobody wants to necessarily fail, right? But I think some of the biggest successes that have come out of people have been people who have failed and sometimes have failed massively.
LINORA: 04:54	Yeah. Yeah. You're right.
CHRISTINE: 04:56	And one of the things I thought was interesting to learn about you before this call was I was told that one of your interests is learning about or thinking about how to enable specifically this iPhone generation. And one of the things that came out in that text that I was reading was something about you want to create learning opportunities for people to fail. And I want to know what that experience-- how is that experience valuable for people?
LINORA: 05:30	Being able to fail and being okay with failing signifies that you feel safe in your environment, right? Once you feel safe, you feel empowered to try new things. And that's where it comes from. What I mean by enabling the iPhone generation, we talk about, in my role in the D&A function, because we're looking at tomorrow, we're looking at day after tomorrow. We are looking at the future. What does that hold? Yes, at Hilton, we want to give the best experience to our customers who walk in the door. But what do we need to do that? We need employees who can think like our customers of tomorrow, of day after, of the next years, right? And who are these employees?
LINORA: 06:21	I have two kids. They probably will be at some point hopefully. And you think how they interact with technology. What do they expect? I am amazed because their expectations from technology, I couldn't even imagine 20 years back that this is how kids will be expecting technology to enable them. I joke that my sons, when they were toddlers, they thought everything worked with touch. And I had to show them how to flip the switch up and down. Because that wrapped their mind around I can touch something and stuff pops up on the screen, so why doesn't the light come on when I touch it? So those are the things.
LINORA: 07:04	And that got me thinking, if we're building all these systems to help us understand data, analyze data, get insights, we're building it now, how do we build it so that we are prepared for tomorrow? Right? And because we move really fast. That's a fact of life now. Everything moves faster. Technology has made it easier to do things, but has also raised expectations. How do we manage that?
CHRISTINE: 07:34	I was going to ask. What do you think are the expectations in terms of these workers of tomorrow? Let's call them this iPhone generation. Your sons, for example. What will their expectations be?
LINORA: 07:44	Their expectations will be to come in and to be able to work easily, faster, to get what they need faster. I remember when I first started in my career, to use a system, we had to go for a week's training, there were user manuals we had to refer to. And what I mean by iPhone generation, the iPad generation, if you have bought one, I know most people have, you will see, there is no user manual. There's a little fold in sheet, maybe three folds, that tells you how to switch it on and off and how to charge. And after that, it's your journey with that device. You discover how it works for you. How to make it work for you, right?And that's what I mean preparing for tomorrow's employees. We need to get the right systems, easy to use systems so they expect to hit the ground running and we have to enable them to hit the ground running.
CHRISTINE: 08:38	I think what you hit on is really interesting in terms of-- it's something I think about quite a bit. Especially in my role where I design e-learning. I design online training materials for users. And something that's really hard to walk the line between or something that's difficult to navigate sometimes is how much freedom do I give you in terms of there are three buttons that you can pick. And it is your journey. It's your learning journey. I think that's a really-- it's a really difficult experience to create for people. And I think about that. When I was reading about you some more too, I came to understand that you are very interested also in data literacy. And so in your current role, thinking about data governance, security, but also thinking about responsibility in terms of data collection and data consumption, is that something that you think about in terms of freedom of the journey with those types of things?
LINORA: 09:41	Yes, absolutely.
CHRISTINE: 09:42	Does that question make sense?
LINORA: 09:44	It does. And the reason it makes sense is because there's so many aspects to it, right? We generate data. I'm a consumer in this world, as well as an employee, and at times, a guest at Hilton. I'm all of those. And I care about my data. What has changed in the market is our customers, every consumer, expects you to protect their data now. There are laws for it. And that is why at Hilton, we have actually taken the step to do things right. Yes, we want to enable our employees to do all these great things. But in the right way. We respect our customers' relationship with us. Therefore, it is very important for us that we protect our customers' data, we secure it. It is a commitment to protect our customers. It's not only about physical safety. It's about the safety of the data. It goes hand in hand in today's world.
LINORA: 10:45	So that is why I am data governance and strategy. So it's very interesting because I will push for be innovative, think about it. But to enable that, I have to make sure the foundation, the guardrails around that are there, right? So nobody just goes off the cliff. And that's what I mean. Giving them the opportunity to take the risk, but it's a very educated risk. The foundations are in place. And that's part of my role, my team's role as governance.
CHRISTINE: 11:20	Do you think that-- well let me think about this question for a second before I ask it. So I'm thinking between this iPhone generation and then what you just said. And one of the things I was reading about, I've been doing a little bit of reading about this iPhone generation. As a millennial, they're fascinating to me. Because I didn't have any smart device until I was in my early to mid twenties. And these people, these young adults now have grown up with this technology all the time. And it's just been something that they-- it's innate to them practically at this point. But what's also innate to them is this value, I think, of privacy. They've grown up with social media, they've grown up with having this idea of having their data-- and in all facets. Whether they're using apps or whether they're browsing online. But I feel like they're very aware that everything they do or everything they click could be used as a data point. And I'm wondering if that mentality has factored into your strategy at all in terms of building for the future or building architecture for the future.
LINORA: 12:19	Yes. It has to because when we talk about specifically data and analytics, right? We talk about data coming from different sources. And anybody in the data space will tell you now the challenge is not computing or storage. That has been very well democratized. Costs are pretty relatively affordable. It's the volume and it's the number of sources that have exponentially grown. It's huge. And by that, you also get to connect a lot more dots. How do you do that in the right way while being respectful of your customers? Knowing that all the data has generated and that's why you have in the EU, laws like GDP are coming up where how you can use the data and all of that. People are getting more and more aware.
LINORA: 13:17	So in data and analytics also, there is an awareness about how to do these things right, and also consent, and privacy circles. There is a huge conversation about how to collect consent. How to use it to make sure that we're doing the right thing what our customers expect us to do with their data. All of that factors in. The children that are generating this data, there are laws governing children's data and all-- and we take all of that into consideration. Part of that foundation for data and analytics is making the right data available at the right time for the right thing. And that is where once we do that, our team members are going to be very, very happy to work and do all this innovative and analytics. That we can get the best insights that help us give the best service possible to our customers. To get there, like I said, it's a journey, right? We have to make sure we do the right thing. We have to first-- so we have to see what's coming in, make sure it's protected, all of that. Get the right foundation in place so we can do the analytics that gives us the insights to serve our customers better.
CHRISTINE: 14:34	I wonder, I have two questions, kind of at this point. And I'll pose them both now. You can choose whichever one you want to answer first or not answer. My first question is thinking about data security, especially when it comes to, like you were saying, respecting your customers. Does anything keep you up at night in terms of anything that might compromise that respect from your customers? And my second question is-- it's kind of a different topic now that I think about it. But when we think about this data literacy kind of giving people this freedom and this journey on this analytics foundation is what are the gaps that you currently see in terms of employee preparation for engaging in this world of analytics where the stakes can be pretty high?
LINORA: 15:22	Yeah, so for the first part of your question, I'm not really sure how to answer that because I don't think in this context I could give you a really full answer.
CHRISTINE: 15:37	And that's okay.
LINORA: 15:38	Yeah. So but for the second one with how do we make sure-- correct me if I'm wrong here. How I'm phrasing your question is how do we enable our employees to do their jobs, right?
CHRISTINE: 15:54	That's core. Yeah.
LINORA: 15:56	Yeah. Yeah. So what we do is we make sure that we understand firstly what they need to do. It's very critical. And secondly once we understand that, we have to make sure they have the right tools, and methods, and mechanisms in place to do their jobs effectively. Because at the end of the day, job satisfaction is key. We want our team members to be happy. We want them to be very satisfied doing the jobs that they're doing.
LINORA: 16:32	So how do we do that? Specifically in data and analytics, we basically empower them to do self-service, discovery of data, right? Analytics, tools like Alteryx, very intuitive. A lot of our team members have easily picked up the tool because it's so easy to use. Those are the kinds of things we're looking for. And you mentioned I-- and I talk about data literacy a lot. I do. To be self-sufficient in data and analytics, you have to be data literate. By that, what I mean is you have to go and be able to discover data, understand it, and find ways to use it. And data literacy is also about sharing your knowledge. How do we make it easy to share the knowledge a person develops over time by doing the job they're doing? Because it's about the collective team and sharing that information.
CHRISTINE: 17:35	Have you found or have you seen a really effective way to teach data literacy?
LINORA: 17:44	I will say yes, but I will not take the word teach. I will use the word promote because teaching signifies there is more formal thing. I look at it as more organic, more cultural, more behavioral aspect to data literacy than really a classroom thing. It's a way of thinking. It's a way of approaching any problem. Thinking outside the box. Let me see how else I can do this. And it is really a way of thinking that we are promoting is how can I do this, how can I try, and when do I stop trying and ask for help? Right?
LINORA: 18:33	And in data and analytics, there's been studies that the life cycle, the turnover on analysts and data and all is, I think, around three years. Knowing that across the industry, what we want to do is disrupt that. We want to make this very exciting for our people. We want our people to get the data that they need, understand it better, collaborate with other team members when they have questions, or they can help somebody. And they can help the team as a whole learn more. So it is a very organic approach, I would say.
CHRISTINE: 19:26	I really like that you called that out because that's something I feel like I wrestle with a lot too is how do you teach somebody to think differently? And a lot of the times, it's unteachable. It's unteachable. But it is, like you were saying, it is coachable and it can be practiced, I think. So yeah, I just I think about that a lot in the training context of things is how prescriptive really do I need to be with teaching you the steps? Where what we really need to educate you with is how to train your brain to think about the steps differently or think about all the possibilities of ways you have to take the steps A, B, and C.
CHRISTINE: 20:10	So I'm glad that you called that out because it's true. It's not something that you can pick up a book and read a lot of these times. And I think some of the value with, especially in the analytics space in terms of careers, is sometimes what it takes isn't necessarily a formal training background in analytics. I take myself, for example. I'm a geographer. There's no rhyme or reason why I should've ended up where I did. But I think sometimes there's aptitude. And sometimes that's a really valuable asset in employees.
LINORA: 20:46	Yeah. Couldn't agree more. And it's this trying to develop these natural strengths that is key to that. And at the end of the day, no man is an island. So we all like to be around people. We like to have that. And I remember when I started my career, it used to be that when a core member of the team left, there was this whole big knowledge gap. And what we want to do is by promoting data literacy, close that knowledge gap. And this is also about what I call-- I keep talking about sharing knowledge and all. So you reduce the risk by spreading the risk around. And that's where data literacy for an organization is so key. I don't mean data literacy for one person, I talk about data literacy for an organization. Because once you promote data literacy at an organization level, you actually lessen your risk of knowledge walking out the door.
CHRISTINE: 21:53	That's a really good point. That's a really good point. I'm taking notes. In case you can't hear my pencil scratching across the pad of paper. You mentioned your career. So I kind of want to take a little step back since we do want to kind of target some of the discussion for today around specifically women in analytics. And I want to talk to you a little bit more about your career progression. And one of the things I observed when I was taking a look again at your LinkedIn profile, since apparently internet research is my thing, is your career path seemed to have a lot of the right words and in the right order. When I looked at it, I was like, "Okay, this woman started out as a programmer and moved onto roles like principal, and then leader, and manager, and now senior director." It just it followed-- it looked almost to me it was like textbook. But I wonder if it felt that way to you.
LINORA: 22:56	No. I am laughing because you said textbook. I'm like, "Holy crap, that's not what I thought it was." No. And I joke a lot saying my career, at times, has been a very happy accident. I did not plan to be a data warehouse modeler.
CHRISTINE: 23:20	What did you plan to be?
LINORA: 23:22	That's a very good question, right? For me my plan was I need to enjoy my work. And that always drove me. And very early on, I knew what I excelled at and what I didn't. I remember during one interview I was asked what is the one thing that you hate doing? And I said, "I love developing things, I love building things. What I hate is the documentation related to it." And how ironic that I'm in data governance where I promote stewardship where documentation is key. But that's what I mean. A happy accident. But look at that. It's something that I did not excel at, but I am in a position, in a role that promotes that. I've taken what was my weakness and I've tried to strengthen it and in a very good way, it's become a little bit of a driver, right? Because I concentrated on how to develop that weakness became that.
LINORA: 24:26	But from career journey, my thing has been when an opportunity knocks, take it. Don't wait for the perfect time or what fits all your skills to a T. Take the opportunity. Take the risk. It'll work out. It does. That's how it has come across. And that's why I laughed when you said it was textbook because that's not how it seemed to be when I was doing it.
CHRISTINE: 24:59	I like that you called out that it seems like happy accidents. Opportunities come when they're supposed to come. And you're brave enough to take it. It works out. I mean, just take a look, today you're recording a podcast.
LINORA: 25:13	I know. Who would have guessed?
CHRISTINE: 25:16	I wonder, were there any challenges along the way? I know you alluded to you had to strengthen something that you thought as a weakness. But was there anything else along the way that made you think twice about the path that you were on?
LINORA: 25:29	Yes. And I don't think that changes ever. Because your life, your career is a continuous journey and it's a continuous learning experience. And I absolutely believe that if you're not open to learning every single time, you don't grow. That's my personal belief. And there are challenges. There are absolutely challenges. Sometimes I have been on projects where there's so many things that could go wrong. And I would go home at night and think, "Oh my god, how am I going to manage this? What if I fail? What if I do this? What if I do that?" What helped is talking to the people around me. Asking for help. Never be hesitant about asking for help. If you don't know, say you don't know. And open the door saying, "I will find out and get back to you," so that way you're not closing the door completely. You still opened the avenue for conversation, for discussion. I cannot emphasize enough about being able, allowing yourself to ask for help.
CHRISTINE: 26:48	I'm writing that down. It's true. It's a very vulnerable position to be in to ask for help. And I think I've said something similar myself before is that it's-- no one wants to look like they are failing or no one wants to look like they don't know what they're doing. But I think that vulnerability and being able to say, "I don't have all the answers," is a really important characteristic of even someone who I would call as a good leader. And especially looking at someone like you who is in a position of leadership. I admire that. I admire that you've been able to be able to do that.
LINORA: 27:33	And you always have something new to learn every single day. And I can attest to that because as a parent, I learn a new thing every single day. So honestly, being a mom was a very interesting experience. It was humbling. And I think the biggest lesson I learned and that I have applied all through my career is the patience. And it's how you take your experiences in your personal life and you apply them in your professional life because for me, what I learn every single minute of the day has an impact how I behave tomorrow. So I like to think about what did I do well today? What can I do well tomorrow, right? It's about looking at improving. It's looking at the positive. There have been times when you think, "Oh my god, the world is ending. I am so not good at this." You have those moments. That's natural. It's how you overcome those.
LINORA: 28:47	And for me, humor. I try to find humor in situations if I'm feeling really down or it's find your person that you can talk to as a listening board in your management and all. Be willing to go and ask for mentorship. You have lots of leaders around you. Never hesitate. If you want mentorship, just go and ask, but make it a two-way street. It's never a one-way. Don't always go and say, "I need this." Say, "I want to stay here. I want to do this. I would really appreciate if you could, in time to time, give me some guidance," kind of thing. So you're making it a two-way street.
CHRISTINE: 29:36	Have you had a mentor or have you served as a mentor to somebody else?
LINORA: 29:41	Yes, both. I have had some really, really great mentors in my journey as a professional. And I still keep in touch with them even though we've moved on from companies. And those are relationships that last. And even now, I do mentor the younger team members. And mentorship, there are formal mentorship programs, yes. But also, as the leader, I believe you don't have to have a formal mentorship program to mentor. As a leader, it is part of your role to be a mentor because that is our responsibility to grow and nurture our teams.
CHRISTINE: 30:25	I was going to ask a question. So I'm a fairly new manager myself. And so I would love to hear maybe some tips from you as to how to serve as this type of mentors for new employees, or helping employees grow their skills, and kind of help them on their journey. Do you have any tips for me?
LINORA: 30:53	Well, always be willing to listen and make the time. And when you make the time, be present. And this is a bad habit of mine. You have cellphones. Your cellphone pings. You have your laptop, email pings. So when you're making the time, make sure you switch that off and you really are there for that conversation. So time is key and that is something we all struggle with because yesterday when we were looking at preparing for today, you saw my calendar. It's pretty much blue. So it's making the time. Because by virtue of you making the time, it's an action that speaks for itself. And then being present in the conversation. I don't mean just being physically present by being there, by listening, by active listening. That is an action that speaks for itself and people value that.
CHRISTINE: 31:51	Yeah. No, definitely. I can think of some of the best supervisors, managers, mentors that I've had have been people who really I feel like they're listening to what I say. And that is a really important part, I think, of just being a person, right? Is feeling like you're being heard and acknowledged. I agree with that. Yeah. One of the questions I had for you, Linora, too, is did you ever feel-- maybe I can rephrase this if we need to. But did you ever feel like in your career that being a woman was a challenge?
LINORA: 32:29	When I first started in my career, it was almost 20 years back. I was new to the US. And the make up of the teams was very different. And it's 20 years back, so it was different. What I've found is over the years, some of my strengths and weaknesses, I've had to balance them in some ways because as a society, there was a way we expected women to behave. Be it at work or at home. And those are societal. It's not for one company [inaudible]. It's just the general way it was expected how one behaves versus the other one behaves. Those are some of the challenges that I had faced.
LINORA: 33:15	Now, at Hilton, which is a very interesting is because I have been at Hilton for a year now. And Hilton takes it very, very seriously about diversity, equal opportunity. We just got selected as the number one employer in Forbes. And I'm extremely proud to be a part of Hilton. We have a lot of resources, a lot of programs to promote diversity, equality. And by diversity, I don't really mean men, women, and all that. It's across everything, right? And what I've found is at Hilton, it's very important for them to know that the team members are free. They feel they can be who they are. That, for me, speaks a lot about the type of team that I want to be a part of. And that's what I want to create, which makes it very easy because Hilton promotes that so that other team members coming out, other employees, prospective employees, they see it and they can-- when they walk in, they see a world that we are currently a part of. It's a very international team that we have. You walk in and we live our diversity.
CHRISTINE: 34:38	Specifically, maybe thinking about the Hilton initiative, was that something do you think that came from top down or almost was that more grassroots coming from employees felt like they wanted this or they needed this and so it was a response from leadership? Or was it something that leadership, do you think, recognized by themselves?
LINORA: 35:02	I'm not sure I can give you the best answer, but I do know it is our culture. We are a very inclusive culture. When we say we are one of the best places to work, it is true. And I worked in a lot of places and I must say, we do celebrate our team members. It is important at Hilton. We celebrate our team members.
CHRISTINE: 35:33	In your career, how have you seen the landscape of opportunity or expectations for women in analytics change?
LINORA: 35:42	Let me say, there is nothing stopping you but yourself. That's today. That is the change. Before, it was also about there weren't enough women in the technology space. 20 years back, there were not enough programmers. I'm not going to go into the statistics and whether true or false. But now, we acknowledge there are women and the opportunities are there. If they are not, there are ways to remedy that. And I think that's the change that people recognize. Yes, we have the resources. By that, I mean we have enough women when we need to hire for that. I must give kudos to our Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Dak. He was very, very disciplined or he wanted-- he emphasized that he wanted a very diverse team because it makes us richer in the ideas that we have. So and I mean, if I was new coming into the workforce today, I wouldn't even wonder if because I'm a woman, did I get this job? You got this job because you're qualified. That's the world we have now.
CHRISTINE: 36:59	I've heard another woman say something similar in that the change, which suddenly I'm really happy to hear, is that the change really has been most of the time you don't worry. Or you don't wonder if the reason you got an opportunity or didn't get an opportunity maybe was because you were a woman. And it feels like that's something that I've heard come out a couple of different times, which it is striking to me because-- I mean, I hope that is-- I really do. I hope that is the future and that no one ever has to wonder if an opportunity was given to them or not given to them based on whether they are male or female. So it's refreshing. It's refreshing to hear.
LINORA: 37:46	Yeah. It is. It is. And how proud can one be that we're living here and we're working in companies that actually make that true? That you get to be a part of the team because of who you are, right?
CHRISTINE: 38:00	Yeah. Yeah.
LINORA: 38:02	And if you have a very diverse team, it speaks for itself.
CHRISTINE: 38:06	I absolutely agree. I think it's something that isn't valued enough, in my opinion. It's not valued enough. And I think about that in terms of just watching teams work together and the results they can produce is the more people that you have from different backgrounds, from different just life experiences, the richer your interpretations of reality.
LINORA: 38:39	Yeah. Yeah. And that's why you need different ideas. You need the diversity because you're richer for it. Things that you wouldn't have seen because you have one perspective on the way things should be done. Somebody comes from a very diverse perspective and it's there. And all the more important from a professional perspective, Hilton is a multi-national company. We are in many, many geographies. We, day in and day out, we serve customers from different countries, different ethnicities, different religions. All of that. We need to have a very diverse team to be able to give the best service to our customers.
CHRISTINE: 39:22	Absolutely. Be able to speak to them, not just in terms of language, but in terms of what they-- where am I trying to go with this? Just be able to speak to them on their level and in a way that resonates with them.
LINORA: 39:38	Yeah.
CHRISTINE: 39:38	Absolutely.
LINORA: 39:39	We have to be relatable.
CHRISTINE: 39:43	So here we are at the end of our conversation and it's time for the end of this segment, which is always Community Picks. So, Linora, for this week, what would you like to have our listeners know about?
LINORA: 39:54	I would like our listeners to know about the Anita Borg Institute. They do a tremendous job of promoting women, not only from professionals, but from student life in the world of STEM. STEM is science, technology. The technical fields and math. We have these organizations like Anita Borg that do that. So if we participate, if each one of us does our bit in organizations such as these, I don't think we'll even need to ask the question about do you feel like you got this opportunity because you're a woman or not. I think that will be such a thing of the past.
CHRISTINE: 40:36	That's awesome. And I'm going to check that out because I feel like STEM education is something I am-- that's one of my underlying passions so I am very excited to check that out. I even actually never heard of that.
LINORA: 40:48	Oh, they're big. They're huge.
CHRISTINE: 40:49	Yeah. I'm excited.
LINORA: 40:50	Yeah. Yeah.
CHRISTINE: 40:54	So for this week, my picks are a new thread that's being started in terms of analytics as an equalizer. It's an initiative that the community team here at Alteryx is starting in terms of looking at a project that can help answer, help shed some light on how to achieve or how can we better understand gender equality in the workplace. And so right now there is a thread that is open on the community in the Women of Analytics group where we are actively looking for ideas, suggestions, or research questions, or approaches that we can use to help answer this question. So we invite you to submit your thoughts and responses there on that thread.
CHRISTINE: 41:43	And then I would say my community pick that's actually off the Alteryx community is it's a subscription that I've recently joined. And it is for a newsletter that is called Brain Pickings and it's written Maria Popova who, if you're looking for some really truly reflective writing on all sorts of topics, whether that is things like education, or friendship, or the role of creativity in technology. She writes about a lot of different things. And she puts out this weekly newsletter that is just beautiful. And you can find it and subscribe to it at brainpickings.org.
CHRISTINE: 42:24	So those are my picks. Again, thank you so much, Linora, for joining us for this podcast. I had a great time. I hope you did too. And I can't wait to keep looking on your LinkedIn profile to see how your career progresses.
LINORA: 42:38	No, thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
CHRISTINE: 42:40	Thank you for being here. We appreciate it.
S3: 42:52	Thanks for listening to Alter Everything. Go to community.alteryx.com/podcast for show notes, information about our guest, episodes, and more. If you've got feedback, Tweet us using the hashtag Alter Everything or drop us an email at podcast@alteryx.com. Catch you next time.

CHRISTINE: 00:13 Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Christine Bonthius and I'll be your host. We're joined by Linora D'Souza, Senior Director at Hilton for a chat about risk taking and the future of careers and analytics for the iPhone generation. Let's get started. CHRISTINE: 00:44 Welcome, Linora. Thank you for coming onto the program. How are you today? LINORA: 00:47 I'm doing well. And it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. CHRISTINE: 00:51 Yeah. Would you go ahead and share with our listeners a little bit about yourself? Just a brief introduction. LINORA: 00:56 Sure. My name is Linora D'Souza. I'm a Senior Director at Hilton. I work in the data and analytics organization that Hilton has set up in the past year in 2018, late 2017 and 2018. So we still consider ourselves new. And I've been in IT, straddling business and IT for some time now. So I'm very, very excited to talk to you guys about it. CHRISTINE: 01:25 Yeah. No, I was looking at your-- as I do with a lot of our guests, I'm very interested in their backgrounds and so I spend some time on the internet looking at LinkedIn and I just want to get a sense of kind of your career progression here. Can you just maybe go through some of the highlights of your career? LINORA: 01:44 Sure. It's a very interesting journey. I will call my career a journey through the different experiences I've had. Interestingly, my studies were in business and finance, but my first job was as a Java developer. And I couldn't ask for a better start because it really taught me something very core about how to use technology to achieve business results. And from there, I transitioned into very data-centric projects. So I've worked at many companies along the way doing IT, be it requirements, analysis that gave me a very, very good understanding how businesses work, how to do business process. But I never really left my technical abilities behind. In fact, they were enabling me to get into the next steps. Some of my career, like I said, Java developer, data analyst, most recently was privacy professional. And now I am doing data governance and strategy in the data analytics function. And something that has been very, very foundational throughout has been how technology and business expertise mixed. So all my career highlights, be it being on great projects, implementing new systems, achieving revenue goals, [having?] a very interesting mix of the two. CHRISTINE: 03:22 But the first thing that popped out to me, actually, about your LinkedIn profile was the very first sentence, which says, people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. And I was wondering why you felt like that sentence deserved to be on your page? What's its significance or what's its impact for you? LINORA: 03:43 Well, you have to believe in something to achieve it. If you don't believe in it, if you don't have a core belief of knowing you can do it, you will never take the risk, right? A lot of risk takers inherently have a very deeply held belief that they can do it. I've always in my life believed in taking educated risk. And I'll use educated as an adjective here because don't take blind risk. You don't want to jump right down a cliff where there's nothing to cushion you. But you have to be crazy enough to take the risk. Because if you don't take the risk, you don't know whether you'll be able to do it or not, right? CHRISTINE: 04:32 Absolutely. No, I think that's a really interesting thing that you just said. Because I think there's this just innate fear of failure in general. Nobody wants to necessarily fail, right? But I think some of the biggest successes that have come out of people have been people who have failed and sometimes have failed massively. LINORA: 04:54 Yeah. Yeah. You're right. CHRISTINE: 04:56 And one of the things I thought was interesting to learn about you before this call was I was told that one of your interests is learning about or thinking about how to enable specifically this iPhone generation. And one of the things that came out in that text that I was reading was something about you want to create learning opportunities for people to fail. And I want to know what that experience-- how is that experience valuable for people? LINORA: 05:30 Being able to fail and being okay with failing signifies that you feel safe in your environment, right? Once you feel safe, you feel empowered to try new things. And that's where it comes from. What I mean by enabling the iPhone generation, we talk about, in my role in the D&A function, because we're looking at tomorrow, we're looking at day after tomorrow. We are looking at the future. What does that hold? Yes, at Hilton, we want to give the best experience to our customers who walk in the door. But what do we need to do that? We need employees who can think like our customers of tomorrow, of day after, of the next years, right? And who are these employees? LINORA: 06:21 I have two kids. They probably will be at some point hopefully. And you think how they interact with technology. What do they expect? I am amazed because their expectations from technology, I couldn't even imagine 20 years back that this is how kids will be expecting technology to enable them. I joke that my sons, when they were toddlers, they thought everything worked with touch. And I had to show them how to flip the switch up and down. Because that wrapped their mind around I can touch something and stuff pops up on the screen, so why doesn't the light come on when I touch it? So those are the things. LINORA: 07:04 And that got me thinking, if we're building all these systems to help us understand data, analyze data, get insights, we're building it now, how do we build it so that we are prepared for tomorrow? Right? And because we move really fast. That's a fact of life now. Everything moves faster. Technology has made it easier to do things, but has also raised expectations. How do we manage that? CHRISTINE: 07:34 I was going to ask. What do you think are the expectations in terms of these workers of tomorrow? Let's call them this iPhone generation. Your sons, for example. What will their expectations be? LINORA: 07:44 Their expectations will be to come in and to be able to work easily, faster, to get what they need faster. I remember when I first started in my career, to use a system, we had to go for a week's training, there were user manuals we had to refer to. And what I mean by iPhone generation, the iPad generation, if you have bought one, I know most people have, you will see, there is no user manual. There's a little fold in sheet, maybe three folds, that tells you how to switch it on and off and how to charge. And after that, it's your journey with that device. You discover how it works for you. How to make it work for you, right?And that's what I mean preparing for tomorrow's employees. We need to get the right systems, easy to use systems so they expect to hit the ground running and we have to enable them to hit the ground running. CHRISTINE: 08:38 I think what you hit on is really interesting in terms of-- it's something I think about quite a bit. Especially in my role where I design e-learning. I design online training materials for users. And something that's really hard to walk the line between or something that's difficult to navigate sometimes is how much freedom do I give you in terms of there are three buttons that you can pick. And it is your journey. It's your learning journey. I think that's a really-- it's a really difficult experience to create for people. And I think about that. When I was reading about you some more too, I came to understand that you are very interested also in data literacy. And so in your current role, thinking about data governance, security, but also thinking about responsibility in terms of data collection and data consumption, is that something that you think about in terms of freedom of the journey with those types of things? LINORA: 09:41 Yes, absolutely. CHRISTINE: 09:42 Does that question make sense? LINORA: 09:44 It does. And the reason it makes sense is because there's so many aspects to it, right? We generate data. I'm a consumer in this world, as well as an employee, and at times, a guest at Hilton. I'm all of those. And I care about my data. What has changed in the market is our customers, every consumer, expects you to protect their data now. There are laws for it. And that is why at Hilton, we have actually taken the step to do things right. Yes, we want to enable our employees to do all these great things. But in the right way. We respect our customers' relationship with us. Therefore, it is very important for us that we protect our customers' data, we secure it. It is a commitment to protect our customers. It's not only about physical safety. It's about the safety of the data. It goes hand in hand in today's world. LINORA: 10:45 So that is why I am data governance and strategy. So it's very interesting because I will push for be innovative, think about it. But to enable that, I have to make sure the foundation, the guardrails around that are there, right? So nobody just goes off the cliff. And that's what I mean. Giving them the opportunity to take the risk, but it's a very educated risk. The foundations are in place. And that's part of my role, my team's role as governance. CHRISTINE: 11:20 Do you think that-- well let me think about this question for a second before I ask it. So I'm thinking between this iPhone generation and then what you just said. And one of the things I was reading about, I've been doing a little bit of reading about this iPhone generation. As a millennial, they're fascinating to me. Because I didn't have any smart device until I was in my early to mid twenties. And these people, these young adults now have grown up with this technology all the time. And it's just been something that they-- it's innate to them practically at this point. But what's also innate to them is this value, I think, of privacy. They've grown up with social media, they've grown up with having this idea of having their data-- and in all facets. Whether they're using apps or whether they're browsing online. But I feel like they're very aware that everything they do or everything they click could be used as a data point. And I'm wondering if that mentality has factored into your strategy at all in terms of building for the future or building architecture for the future. LINORA: 12:19 Yes. It has to because when we talk about specifically data and analytics, right? We talk about data coming from different sources. And anybody in the data space will tell you now the challenge is not computing or storage. That has been very well democratized. Costs are pretty relatively affordable. It's the volume and it's the number of sources that have exponentially grown. It's huge. And by that, you also get to connect a lot more dots. How do you do that in the right way while being respectful of your customers? Knowing that all the data has generated and that's why you have in the EU, laws like GDP are coming up where how you can use the data and all of that. People are getting more and more aware. LINORA: 13:17 So in data and analytics also, there is an awareness about how to do these things right, and also consent, and privacy circles. There is a huge conversation about how to collect consent. How to use it to make sure that we're doing the right thing what our customers expect us to do with their data. All of that factors in. The children that are generating this data, there are laws governing children's data and all-- and we take all of that into consideration. Part of that foundation for data and analytics is making the right data available at the right time for the right thing. And that is where once we do that, our team members are going to be very, very happy to work and do all this innovative and analytics. That we can get the best insights that help us give the best service possible to our customers. To get there, like I said, it's a journey, right? We have to make sure we do the right thing. We have to first-- so we have to see what's coming in, make sure it's protected, all of that. Get the right foundation in place so we can do the analytics that gives us the insights to serve our customers better. CHRISTINE: 14:34 I wonder, I have two questions, kind of at this point. And I'll pose them both now. You can choose whichever one you want to answer first or not answer. My first question is thinking about data security, especially when it comes to, like you were saying, respecting your customers. Does anything keep you up at night in terms of anything that might compromise that respect from your customers? And my second question is-- it's kind of a different topic now that I think about it. But when we think about this data literacy kind of giving people this freedom and this journey on this analytics foundation is what are the gaps that you currently see in terms of employee preparation for engaging in this world of analytics where the stakes can be pretty high? LINORA: 15:22 Yeah, so for the first part of your question, I'm not really sure how to answer that because I don't think in this context I could give you a really full answer. CHRISTINE: 15:37 And that's okay. LINORA: 15:38 Yeah. So but for the second one with how do we make sure-- correct me if I'm wrong here. How I'm phrasing your question is how do we enable our employees to do their jobs, right? CHRISTINE: 15:54 That's core. Yeah. LINORA: 15:56 Yeah. Yeah. So what we do is we make sure that we understand firstly what they need to do. It's very critical. And secondly once we understand that, we have to make sure they have the right tools, and methods, and mechanisms in place to do their jobs effectively. Because at the end of the day, job satisfaction is key. We want our team members to be happy. We want them to be very satisfied doing the jobs that they're doing. LINORA: 16:32 So how do we do that? Specifically in data and analytics, we basically empower them to do self-service, discovery of data, right? Analytics, tools like Alteryx, very intuitive. A lot of our team members have easily picked up the tool because it's so easy to use. Those are the kinds of things we're looking for. And you mentioned I-- and I talk about data literacy a lot. I do. To be self-sufficient in data and analytics, you have to be data literate. By that, what I mean is you have to go and be able to discover data, understand it, and find ways to use it. And data literacy is also about sharing your knowledge. How do we make it easy to share the knowledge a person develops over time by doing the job they're doing? Because it's about the collective team and sharing that information. CHRISTINE: 17:35 Have you found or have you seen a really effective way to teach data literacy? LINORA: 17:44 I will say yes, but I will not take the word teach. I will use the word promote because teaching signifies there is more formal thing. I look at it as more organic, more cultural, more behavioral aspect to data literacy than really a classroom thing. It's a way of thinking. It's a way of approaching any problem. Thinking outside the box. Let me see how else I can do this. And it is really a way of thinking that we are promoting is how can I do this, how can I try, and when do I stop trying and ask for help? Right? LINORA: 18:33 And in data and analytics, there's been studies that the life cycle, the turnover on analysts and data and all is, I think, around three years. Knowing that across the industry, what we want to do is disrupt that. We want to make this very exciting for our people. We want our people to get the data that they need, understand it better, collaborate with other team members when they have questions, or they can help somebody. And they can help the team as a whole learn more. So it is a very organic approach, I would say. CHRISTINE: 19:26 I really like that you called that out because that's something I feel like I wrestle with a lot too is how do you teach somebody to think differently? And a lot of the times, it's unteachable. It's unteachable. But it is, like you were saying, it is coachable and it can be practiced, I think. So yeah, I just I think about that a lot in the training context of things is how prescriptive really do I need to be with teaching you the steps? Where what we really need to educate you with is how to train your brain to think about the steps differently or think about all the possibilities of ways you have to take the steps A, B, and C. CHRISTINE: 20:10 So I'm glad that you called that out because it's true. It's not something that you can pick up a book and read a lot of these times. And I think some of the value with, especially in the analytics space in terms of careers, is sometimes what it takes isn't necessarily a formal training background in analytics. I take myself, for example. I'm a geographer. There's no rhyme or reason why I should've ended up where I did. But I think sometimes there's aptitude. And sometimes that's a really valuable asset in employees. LINORA: 20:46 Yeah. Couldn't agree more. And it's this trying to develop these natural strengths that is key to that. And at the end of the day, no man is an island. So we all like to be around people. We like to have that. And I remember when I started my career, it used to be that when a core member of the team left, there was this whole big knowledge gap. And what we want to do is by promoting data literacy, close that knowledge gap. And this is also about what I call-- I keep talking about sharing knowledge and all. So you reduce the risk by spreading the risk around. And that's where data literacy for an organization is so key. I don't mean data literacy for one person, I talk about data literacy for an organization. Because once you promote data literacy at an organization level, you actually lessen your risk of knowledge walking out the door. CHRISTINE: 21:53 That's a really good point. That's a really good point. I'm taking notes. In case you can't hear my pencil scratching across the pad of paper. You mentioned your career. So I kind of want to take a little step back since we do want to kind of target some of the discussion for today around specifically women in analytics. And I want to talk to you a little bit more about your career progression. And one of the things I observed when I was taking a look again at your LinkedIn profile, since apparently internet research is my thing, is your career path seemed to have a lot of the right words and in the right order. When I looked at it, I was like, "Okay, this woman started out as a programmer and moved onto roles like principal, and then leader, and manager, and now senior director." It just it followed-- it looked almost to me it was like textbook. But I wonder if it felt that way to you. LINORA: 22:56 No. I am laughing because you said textbook. I'm like, "Holy crap, that's not what I thought it was." No. And I joke a lot saying my career, at times, has been a very happy accident. I did not plan to be a data warehouse modeler. CHRISTINE: 23:20 What did you plan to be? LINORA: 23:22 That's a very good question, right? For me my plan was I need to enjoy my work. And that always drove me. And very early on, I knew what I excelled at and what I didn't. I remember during one interview I was asked what is the one thing that you hate doing? And I said, "I love developing things, I love building things. What I hate is the documentation related to it." And how ironic that I'm in data governance where I promote stewardship where documentation is key. But that's what I mean. A happy accident. But look at that. It's something that I did not excel at, but I am in a position, in a role that promotes that. I've taken what was my weakness and I've tried to strengthen it and in a very good way, it's become a little bit of a driver, right? Because I concentrated on how to develop that weakness became that. LINORA: 24:26 But from career journey, my thing has been when an opportunity knocks, take it. Don't wait for the perfect time or what fits all your skills to a T. Take the opportunity. Take the risk. It'll work out. It does. That's how it has come across. And that's why I laughed when you said it was textbook because that's not how it seemed to be when I was doing it. CHRISTINE: 24:59 I like that you called out that it seems like happy accidents. Opportunities come when they're supposed to come. And you're brave enough to take it. It works out. I mean, just take a look, today you're recording a podcast. LINORA: 25:13 I know. Who would have guessed? CHRISTINE: 25:16 I wonder, were there any challenges along the way? I know you alluded to you had to strengthen something that you thought as a weakness. But was there anything else along the way that made you think twice about the path that you were on? LINORA: 25:29 Yes. And I don't think that changes ever. Because your life, your career is a continuous journey and it's a continuous learning experience. And I absolutely believe that if you're not open to learning every single time, you don't grow. That's my personal belief. And there are challenges. There are absolutely challenges. Sometimes I have been on projects where there's so many things that could go wrong. And I would go home at night and think, "Oh my god, how am I going to manage this? What if I fail? What if I do this? What if I do that?" What helped is talking to the people around me. Asking for help. Never be hesitant about asking for help. If you don't know, say you don't know. And open the door saying, "I will find out and get back to you," so that way you're not closing the door completely. You still opened the avenue for conversation, for discussion. I cannot emphasize enough about being able, allowing yourself to ask for help. CHRISTINE: 26:48 I'm writing that down. It's true. It's a very vulnerable position to be in to ask for help. And I think I've said something similar myself before is that it's-- no one wants to look like they are failing or no one wants to look like they don't know what they're doing. But I think that vulnerability and being able to say, "I don't have all the answers," is a really important characteristic of even someone who I would call as a good leader. And especially looking at someone like you who is in a position of leadership. I admire that. I admire that you've been able to be able to do that. LINORA: 27:33 And you always have something new to learn every single day. And I can attest to that because as a parent, I learn a new thing every single day. So honestly, being a mom was a very interesting experience. It was humbling. And I think the biggest lesson I learned and that I have applied all through my career is the patience. And it's how you take your experiences in your personal life and you apply them in your professional life because for me, what I learn every single minute of the day has an impact how I behave tomorrow. So I like to think about what did I do well today? What can I do well tomorrow, right? It's about looking at improving. It's looking at the positive. There have been times when you think, "Oh my god, the world is ending. I am so not good at this." You have those moments. That's natural. It's how you overcome those. LINORA: 28:47 And for me, humor. I try to find humor in situations if I'm feeling really down or it's find your person that you can talk to as a listening board in your management and all. Be willing to go and ask for mentorship. You have lots of leaders around you. Never hesitate. If you want mentorship, just go and ask, but make it a two-way street. It's never a one-way. Don't always go and say, "I need this." Say, "I want to stay here. I want to do this. I would really appreciate if you could, in time to time, give me some guidance," kind of thing. So you're making it a two-way street. CHRISTINE: 29:36 Have you had a mentor or have you served as a mentor to somebody else? LINORA: 29:41 Yes, both. I have had some really, really great mentors in my journey as a professional. And I still keep in touch with them even though we've moved on from companies. And those are relationships that last. And even now, I do mentor the younger team members. And mentorship, there are formal mentorship programs, yes. But also, as the leader, I believe you don't have to have a formal mentorship program to mentor. As a leader, it is part of your role to be a mentor because that is our responsibility to grow and nurture our teams. CHRISTINE: 30:25 I was going to ask a question. So I'm a fairly new manager myself. And so I would love to hear maybe some tips from you as to how to serve as this type of mentors for new employees, or helping employees grow their skills, and kind of help them on their journey. Do you have any tips for me? LINORA: 30:53 Well, always be willing to listen and make the time. And when you make the time, be present. And this is a bad habit of mine. You have cellphones. Your cellphone pings. You have your laptop, email pings. So when you're making the time, make sure you switch that off and you really are there for that conversation. So time is key and that is something we all struggle with because yesterday when we were looking at preparing for today, you saw my calendar. It's pretty much blue. So it's making the time. Because by virtue of you making the time, it's an action that speaks for itself. And then being present in the conversation. I don't mean just being physically present by being there, by listening, by active listening. That is an action that speaks for itself and people value that. CHRISTINE: 31:51 Yeah. No, definitely. I can think of some of the best supervisors, managers, mentors that I've had have been people who really I feel like they're listening to what I say. And that is a really important part, I think, of just being a person, right? Is feeling like you're being heard and acknowledged. I agree with that. Yeah. One of the questions I had for you, Linora, too, is did you ever feel-- maybe I can rephrase this if we need to. But did you ever feel like in your career that being a woman was a challenge? LINORA: 32:29 When I first started in my career, it was almost 20 years back. I was new to the US. And the make up of the teams was very different. And it's 20 years back, so it was different. What I've found is over the years, some of my strengths and weaknesses, I've had to balance them in some ways because as a society, there was a way we expected women to behave. Be it at work or at home. And those are societal. It's not for one company [inaudible]. It's just the general way it was expected how one behaves versus the other one behaves. Those are some of the challenges that I had faced. LINORA: 33:15 Now, at Hilton, which is a very interesting is because I have been at Hilton for a year now. And Hilton takes it very, very seriously about diversity, equal opportunity. We just got selected as the number one employer in Forbes. And I'm extremely proud to be a part of Hilton. We have a lot of resources, a lot of programs to promote diversity, equality. And by diversity, I don't really mean men, women, and all that. It's across everything, right? And what I've found is at Hilton, it's very important for them to know that the team members are free. They feel they can be who they are. That, for me, speaks a lot about the type of team that I want to be a part of. And that's what I want to create, which makes it very easy because Hilton promotes that so that other team members coming out, other employees, prospective employees, they see it and they can-- when they walk in, they see a world that we are currently a part of. It's a very international team that we have. You walk in and we live our diversity. CHRISTINE: 34:38 Specifically, maybe thinking about the Hilton initiative, was that something do you think that came from top down or almost was that more grassroots coming from employees felt like they wanted this or they needed this and so it was a response from leadership? Or was it something that leadership, do you think, recognized by themselves? LINORA: 35:02 I'm not sure I can give you the best answer, but I do know it is our culture. We are a very inclusive culture. When we say we are one of the best places to work, it is true. And I worked in a lot of places and I must say, we do celebrate our team members. It is important at Hilton. We celebrate our team members. CHRISTINE: 35:33 In your career, how have you seen the landscape of opportunity or expectations for women in analytics change? LINORA: 35:42 Let me say, there is nothing stopping you but yourself. That's today. That is the change. Before, it was also about there weren't enough women in the technology space. 20 years back, there were not enough programmers. I'm not going to go into the statistics and whether true or false. But now, we acknowledge there are women and the opportunities are there. If they are not, there are ways to remedy that. And I think that's the change that people recognize. Yes, we have the resources. By that, I mean we have enough women when we need to hire for that. I must give kudos to our Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Dak. He was very, very disciplined or he wanted-- he emphasized that he wanted a very diverse team because it makes us richer in the ideas that we have. So and I mean, if I was new coming into the workforce today, I wouldn't even wonder if because I'm a woman, did I get this job? You got this job because you're qualified. That's the world we have now. CHRISTINE: 36:59 I've heard another woman say something similar in that the change, which suddenly I'm really happy to hear, is that the change really has been most of the time you don't worry. Or you don't wonder if the reason you got an opportunity or didn't get an opportunity maybe was because you were a woman. And it feels like that's something that I've heard come out a couple of different times, which it is striking to me because-- I mean, I hope that is-- I really do. I hope that is the future and that no one ever has to wonder if an opportunity was given to them or not given to them based on whether they are male or female. So it's refreshing. It's refreshing to hear. LINORA: 37:46 Yeah. It is. It is. And how proud can one be that we're living here and we're working in companies that actually make that true? That you get to be a part of the team because of who you are, right? CHRISTINE: 38:00 Yeah. Yeah. LINORA: 38:02 And if you have a very diverse team, it speaks for itself. CHRISTINE: 38:06 I absolutely agree. I think it's something that isn't valued enough, in my opinion. It's not valued enough. And I think about that in terms of just watching teams work together and the results they can produce is the more people that you have from different backgrounds, from different just life experiences, the richer your interpretations of reality. LINORA: 38:39 Yeah. Yeah. And that's why you need different ideas. You need the diversity because you're richer for it. Things that you wouldn't have seen because you have one perspective on the way things should be done. Somebody comes from a very diverse perspective and it's there. And all the more important from a professional perspective, Hilton is a multi-national company. We are in many, many geographies. We, day in and day out, we serve customers from different countries, different ethnicities, different religions. All of that. We need to have a very diverse team to be able to give the best service to our customers. CHRISTINE: 39:22 Absolutely. Be able to speak to them, not just in terms of language, but in terms of what they-- where am I trying to go with this? Just be able to speak to them on their level and in a way that resonates with them. LINORA: 39:38 Yeah. CHRISTINE: 39:38 Absolutely. LINORA: 39:39 We have to be relatable. CHRISTINE: 39:43 So here we are at the end of our conversation and it's time for the end of this segment, which is always Community Picks. So, Linora, for this week, what would you like to have our listeners know about? LINORA: 39:54 I would like our listeners to know about the Anita Borg Institute. They do a tremendous job of promoting women, not only from professionals, but from student life in the world of STEM. STEM is science, technology. The technical fields and math. We have these organizations like Anita Borg that do that. So if we participate, if each one of us does our bit in organizations such as these, I don't think we'll even need to ask the question about do you feel like you got this opportunity because you're a woman or not. I think that will be such a thing of the past. CHRISTINE: 40:36 That's awesome. And I'm going to check that out because I feel like STEM education is something I am-- that's one of my underlying passions so I am very excited to check that out. I even actually never heard of that. LINORA: 40:48 Oh, they're big. They're huge. CHRISTINE: 40:49 Yeah. I'm excited. LINORA: 40:50 Yeah. Yeah. CHRISTINE: 40:54 So for this week, my picks are a new thread that's being started in terms of analytics as an equalizer. It's an initiative that the community team here at Alteryx is starting in terms of looking at a project that can help answer, help shed some light on how to achieve or how can we better understand gender equality in the workplace. And so right now there is a thread that is open on the community in the Women of Analytics group where we are actively looking for ideas, suggestions, or research questions, or approaches that we can use to help answer this question. So we invite you to submit your thoughts and responses there on that thread. CHRISTINE: 41:43 And then I would say my community pick that's actually off the Alteryx community is it's a subscription that I've recently joined. And it is for a newsletter that is called Brain Pickings and it's written Maria Popova who, if you're looking for some really truly reflective writing on all sorts of topics, whether that is things like education, or friendship, or the role of creativity in technology. She writes about a lot of different things. And she puts out this weekly newsletter that is just beautiful. And you can find it and subscribe to it at brainpickings.org. CHRISTINE: 42:24 So those are my picks. Again, thank you so much, Linora, for joining us for this podcast. I had a great time. I hope you did too. And I can't wait to keep looking on your LinkedIn profile to see how your career progresses. LINORA: 42:38 No, thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. CHRISTINE: 42:40 Thank you for being here. We appreciate it. S3: 42:52 Thanks for listening to Alter Everything. Go to community.alteryx.com/podcast for show notes, information about our guest, episodes, and more. If you've got feedback, Tweet us using the hashtag Alter Everything or drop us an email at podcast@alteryx.com. Catch you next time.

This episode of Alter Everything was produced by Maddie Johannsen (@MaddieJ).

Alter Everything

Episode Guide

30: No (wo)man is an island

Panelists

Topics

Community Picks

Transcript