Alter Everything Podcast

AlteryxMatt · ‎07-16-2024

Adoption and upskilling is the name of the game! We are joined by Cory Hubbard, Allison Russell, and Kelly Hoffman, all of whom are superstar upskillers at Gregory Welteroth Advertising. From starting an internal user group to holding office hours for others trying to learn the Alteryx platform, this episode will give you the tools you need to pass certifications and empower others around you!

Panelists

Cory Hubbard, VP of Strategic Analytics @ Gregory Welteroth Advertising - @Hub119, LinkedIn
Allison Russell, Data Analyst at Gregory Welteroth Advertising, @ARussell34, LinkedIn
Kelly Hoffman, Data Analyst at Gregory Welteroth Advertising, @kellyhoffman, LinkedIn
Megan Bowers, Sr. Content Manager @ Alteryx - @MeganBowers, LinkedIn

Topics

Ep 163 (YT thumb).png

Transcript

Episode Transcription

Ep 163 Alteryx Adoption and Upskilling at GWA

[00:00:00] Megan Dibble: Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Megan Bowers, and today I am talking with Cory Hubbard, Kelly Hoffman and Allison Russell from Gregory Will Roth Advertising. In this episode, we chat about how they have adopted Alteryx. How they grow their skills with the Maveryx community and their internal user group and their advice for tackling Alteryx certifications all the way up to the expert exam.

Let's get started.

Thank you all for joining the Alter Everything podcast today. Super excited to have you here. I'd love to just start off with some introductions to everyone. We'll start with Corey.

[00:00:42] Cory Hubbard: Hi, and thanks for having us, Megan. I'm Cory Hubbard. I'm the Vice President of Strategic Analytics at Gregory Wel Trth Advertising.

[00:00:50] Allison Russell: Awesome. Allison. Hi, I'm Allison. I am a data analyst for our analytics team here at Gregory Werth Advertising.

[00:00:58] Kelly Hoffman: And Kelly. Hi, I'm Kelly Hoffman. I'm also a data analyst here at GWA and we work directly under Corey.

[00:01:06] Megan Dibble: Great. Well, it's awesome to have you all on the show today. Love to just start off with. How are you using Alteryx at Gregory Walter Roth Advertising.

[00:01:16] Cory Hubbard: I'll jump in to start. We really use Alteryx across the board, across the company, though we're still not to where we could be. There's always areas to expand, always places to do more on our team directly. Alteryx is a huge part of what we leverage for analytics, process automation, building out new tool sets and capabilities for the rest of the company.

In some cases it's working directly with departments and client teams on developing solutions for their needs. In other cases, we build things out overall for the company and then deploy out rollout from here.

[00:01:50] Megan Dibble: I originally met all of you at Alteryx Inspire this year, and we chatted about how you've really upskilled your team with Alteryx.

I'm wondering, like for your team, what does upskilling look like and how do you find the time to do it?

[00:02:06] Kelly Hoffman: It really comes down to us making time for it. We do have a weekly a EG meeting that we set up on Thursdays that we go through some weekly challenge problems every week. So that's really nice. But then also most of our job is waiting for data.

So when we're waiting around for data or we're waiting for things from clients, we spend a lot of our time working through different trainings and different challenge problems basically.

[00:02:31] Megan Dibble: Very cool. So when you're doing the challenges, you're doing them together and seeing how each other solves them, or what does that look like?

[00:02:38] Kelly Hoffman: Yeah. We basically get in a room with all of our people at our company that have Alteryx and we all work through problems together and we bring up different possibilities, different solutions, which is really nice to see because. Everyone has a different way of solving things and it's really cool to see that even though all seven of us, I think there are, solve something differently, we can still get to the same solution.

[00:03:02] Cory Hubbard: So just to expand upon the reality is from a department leadership stance, what we really try to do is make sure that we have time to upskill this because Alteryx is such a huge part of what it is that we're doing. I need to make sure that everybody on the team is skilled in what they're doing right.

And it's this approach right from when a hire comes on. And if we can find somebody that has pre-existing experience with Alteryx. Great. Awesome. I would say most of the time that's not necessarily the case. I'm sure that will continue to change as we go, and I look forward to that. Um, but right now it's really that process of going through and okay, does somebody have critical thinking knowledge?

And I. Capabilities that I need. And then do they have some of the specific analytics and marketing background, what have you, right, to be able to attack these problems. And then Alteryx is just really, it's a tool set that brings their skill sets to the next level. So knowing that, that's why we make sure that we have make time for that.

So right straight ahead from onboarding, it's really Okay. Let's take time. Start working with interactive lessons and other things that are online on the community, get through that and start to to work through problems as they start to also learn what are the actual business problems that we're trying to tack.

Right? And then it's a combination where the two things come together and then on an ongoing basis, because we always want to continuously be learning and and iterating in how we do things and refining and getting better. That's where we have this Alteryx user group, our a UG meeting every week internally.

Where, not just on my team, but also our other Alteryx users across the company, they come into that as well. And as these two mentioned, that's where we will tackle challenge problems if nothing else is coming up or it's those other business related problems that somebody has, and it's just having that different outlook and different view into what's going on, that everybody working together really allows us all to, to get better in the process.

[00:05:03] Megan Dibble: That's really cool and something that came up at Inspire different people from different companies coming in and asking, I love Alteryx Designer. How do I get more people in my company to use it? Or how do I get people over the hump in terms of adopting the software, actually solving their business challenges with it?

So I love, first of all, that mix of doing the challenges, getting exposure to new tools, but then also. Obviously looking at the business problems together and the fact that you have an internal user group that meets weekly to have that office hour type thing. I think that's a really cool takeaway for listeners looking to increase the Alteryx culture almost in their organization.

I think that's really neat. And you all kind of touch on this a little bit with interactive lessons, with weekly challenges, but just in general, how has the Mavericks community played a role in your upskilling and in your journey?

[00:05:56] Cory Hubbard: Well, I'll get started with that and then I'll let the two of them speak further because the reality is when they started with Alteryx, there's a lot more available today than there was when I started back in, I think 2016, and the community was always a big part of that.

I onboarded Alteryx into the company, so there was absolutely no one here to teach me what was going on. It was myself and one of my colleagues at the time. So we were just going back and forth blazing our own trail when that happened. And for us it was then going into the community posting and looking, searching out solutions for what we were doing and working our way through.

And the reality is we actually benefited from right away, right after we first got our first Alteryx license. The two of us went to Inspire a couple months later. So we had hands-on training at Inspire, which really helped and really gave us a jumpstart. Um, but outside of that and where things have gotten since now, there's tons of these interactive lessons that are available in the community.

And as I mentioned before, that's really where I push people towards right outta the gate, whether they're a new hire or if there's someone else in the company that's just interested in learning what Alteryx can do and how they can use it. Because the reality is you can get into these interactive lessons and you don't even need designer installed.

Computer because you can go through it and see what's in there, how it works, and what you can do. So that's been fantastic. Obviously the weekly challenges that are out there, there's the learning paths that have been added since all of the certification paths and training materials that are now available for them as well.

Those are a huge help. So I'm. Happy for everybody who are especially new Alteryx users because now there is just a plethora of resources that are available and it seems like there'd be an attitude on a daily basis almost.

[00:07:43] Kelly Hoffman: Yeah. I would also add to that along with the weekly challenge problems, it's really nice to have a place to go and just ask questions and just search.

You can literally just search your question and it most likely has been answered and multiple people have. Come up with different solutions, which is very nice. So I don't always have to bother Corey when I have a question. I can go right onto the community and I'm sure I'm certain there's an answer somewhere there.

[00:08:11] Cory Hubbard: And if there isn't, somebody responds fairly quickly. Exactly. True. Which is awesome.

[00:08:16] Megan Dibble: Speed of the responses in the discussion forums. I love it so much. I think you mentioned certifications, Corey earlier, and I noticed you have your certification pin on your jacket right now. Love that. So one thing we talked about at Inspire was just that you're expert certified and Allison and Kelly, that you all just had your first attempt at that exam at Inspire.

So wondering what your advice is for listeners who want to try the expert exam.

[00:08:47] Allison Russell: I think the irony of the certification process is that the first exam was probably actually the hardest in my opinion, and then they've actually gotten easier as the more exposure that we've had. So I can speak to this. I know Kelly probably feels the same way, that the expert exam was not actually as difficult as we were expecting.

The situation though, I feel that we have that opinion is because of how much training and practice that we did prepare. We use Alteryx and a lot of tool pallets every single day at work. And so getting that much exposure to get to all the different categories and then also just the continued education on our end.

The training process to each certification has actually felt easier and easier as we've gone on. But yes, attempted the expert exam. Have some stuff to practice.

[00:09:39] Megan Dibble: Yeah. That's awesome. I love that you feel like it's gotten easier because you work so much with the software every day, and obviously you guys do so many challenges that expose you to different tools.

Kelly, did you have any additional advice for people looking to attempt it or any observations from your first attempt?

[00:09:56] Kelly Hoffman: One thing I would say is don't let the price intimidate you, because I think we saw that it had a price associated with it as well, and that kind of intimidated us and made us a little.

More nervous to take it. And like she said, we both went into it and it was not as bad as we anticipated at all. And then I would also say, if you do take it and you fail, don't let that determine your worth or your knowledge on the topic. Because I know we both know how to do all the things that are on that exam and we're very fluent in the program.

It's just sometimes exams. Make you a little nervous Sometimes you go in and you just flake a little bit. Get a little nervous when you're in the exam and. You keep the watching the clock, there's a bunch of different things that go into the exam, but I know that although we did not pass, it does not determine that wey are not experts.

[00:10:50] Megan Dibble: And it's weird going into that timed exam situation so many years after being out of school. It's like throwback. It's a whole different skill set in some way. So you're practicing the content, you're also practicing your test taking skills. Exactly. Which is helpful as you're taking the core, the advance, you're practicing both of those things.

So. And Corey, what are your takeaways from having taken it and passed? What would you say to people who wanna try it?

[00:11:16] Cory Hubbard: Absolutely. So I think the couple notes that I would add, first and foremost, even before the expert exam, the core exam. The advanced exam, those ones are free to take now. It used to be you had to wait longer.

Now you can take those on a weekly basis. So those are things that I would say absolutely as people are going through that jump in, it's part of the learning process, taking the actual test. And I'll take that a step further to the expert exam in that, I'll say even when I took it, and I did pass it the first time, but when I went to go take it, when I went in there, it was to even see how it was structured and how it would go because it is completely different than the other two exams before that.

So I've been working with Alteryx for years now, so I was comfortable in the subject matter of what was gonna be covered, but I had no idea how the actual test itself was actually gonna be structured. So part of it was I'm just gonna go in there, see what's happening, and learn that and well, you know, as these too ing, it's not as scary as you think.

It's just one, you see a price tag to begin with normally, which can deter you a little bit. 'cause you want to make sure, alright, I'm not gonna just give this the old college try, I wanna make sure I'm prepared for this. But then the other half of it too is. If people are going to inspire. And at that time period, if you have the opportunity that at least the last few years, it's a great opportunity to take that expert exam because Alteryx has waived the cost if you take it at the conference.

So that's how I went and did it. And so be because of that, I was like, okay, it's free. Why not? Let's just, let's see what happens. And it, so it turned out pretty well for me. A big thing is just going in and trying it and seeing what it's gonna be like. Use it. Just like I mentioned with the other two exams.

It's a learning experience and if nothing else, you come out of it. Understanding one, how the test is gonna be structured and also where are you confident in what you know and where do you have some areas maybe to work on still. And the other thing that I'll say, and I don't think this is giving too much away, 'cause I think it's even mentioned in the study guides that are out there for the exam, it points out right.

Out the gate. This question is on this subject. This question is on this other subject. It's not a mystery of what tools in general that you're going to have to use. Yeah, you have to assemble everything, put it together. But you know, in general, the subject matter of, of a given question. But what I'll say is reading comprehension is definitely a part of this exam, and you need to read carefully and make sure that you pay attention to the nuance of it.

Going into this spatial analytics is something that we do on a daily basis, so feel very confident in that. Right? And I got into the particular question that I had on that, and I read it to begin with. I was like, oh, this is super easy. I can do this in seconds. And then I start and I was like, oh, wait a minute.

There's some tricky things I gotta take care of here first. And I think there's kind of nuance to that in all the questions. So it's even if you are superb at the tool set that's there, it's one of those things, always be careful and make sure you read the questions carefully, like in any test, right?

Make sure you've completely answered the question, and that's just one of those things to be careful with. Again, because it is different than all of the rest of the exams. It's not something where you select an answer, you're in a remote desktop session and you go in and you're solving the problem you.

Upload you leave your actual workflow files there. You produce whatever your answers are too, right? So everything's gotta be compiled. So it's a, it's a different structure. I really like how it's set up. It's cool and it's, but it's much more evolved. And I think because of that too, you can't just at the end say, oh, right, yeah.

The answer I got is one of these four responses. So, looks like that one, select that one done. It's important to really look into what you did and make sure you answered the question. Completely and look for those kind of hidden questions in the question I'll say as well,

[00:15:01] Megan Dibble: that's great advice for people who are thinking about taking it.

And we've talked about the how of taking the exam, but I did wanna touch on the why and why you all are on this certification journey. Why does it matter? You know, if someone came up to you and said, well, why even take these certifications? What motivates you all to go for it and push for the next one?

[00:15:23] Kelly Hoffman: I would say it's about passion.

I'm very passionate about knowing everything on a topic that I really enjoy, and I really, really like Alteryx and I use it on a daily basis. There's not a day that I don't open Alteryx and I don't wanna come to a problem in the workplace and not be able to answer it. Like I, I just always want to know how to do things.

I want to know all the different possibilities of doing those things. I will also say that it really comes down to the individual because you can give somebody the same amount of opportunity, and if they don't have the passion or the drive about the topic, they're just not gonna do it.

[00:16:05] Megan Dibble: Alison, what about for you?

[00:16:06] Allison Russell: Yeah, I would say so when I was going through school, I had a handful of coding classes, and if anyone knows coding, it's a long, daunting process and you have to know all the. Ins and outs, and it was presented Alteryx, and I said, wait a minute. This is something that is so useful and could be so beneficial to know as much about it as possible.

And actually, I've been with the company now for three years and when I, if you compare each years comparison of. The knowledge that we've gained and just like having our team grow as well, we're all bouncing ideas off of one another. So it is the individual, but we get better as a team because of each of our individual self-motivation.

My first week, uh, we had this big project and I was staying up until way early in the morning and I said, I need to get better at this because as much as we have work, we also wanna have a work life balance. But I also wanna be so good at what I'm doing when I'm in the office and providing. The best material that I can to our clients, to our internal improvement within our company.

So if we get better, so does the company, you have that self-motivation, but then you're gonna help everyone in turn. Um, but then on the certification side, I think it's just being goal oriented. It's just if you have a goal, you reach it and you try to keep going. There is no ceiling coming back to the expert certification.

There's only a handful of people who have. Certification, and I will say it's the money aspect. I think there's this whole intimidation by the title being called an expert, but I think anyone can achieve it if you just believe in yourself to be able to do it and put in the time to prepare and learn and work your way up.

It does. It is a process. I will say we're on par, at least for me, because each certification I did not pass the first time. So you just have to be tenacious, believe in yourself, and then just try again. So we're gonna try again for the expert one.

[00:18:03] Megan Dibble: Yeah. Yeah. And it is very common to not pass each exam on the first try is something we hear a lot.

So, but I love that positivity and I think you guys will for sure. Yeah.

[00:18:14] Cory Hubbard: And along those lines for everybody listening, the reality is there's multiple Alteryx ACEs who are not currently expert certified, but then there's also other ones who are, and they didn't pass it on their first time either. And these are people who, you know, eat, sleep, breathe, live and die Alteryx, right?

And just nonstop or at it. And even they didn't pass it on their first try. So it's not something to feel intimidated by. It's like these two just said. Get after it. Try again and keep going. And now to circle back, to answer your question, from my stance in my position, I'm, I believe in leadership from the front personally, right?

And that doesn't always translate into management and executive leaders needing to know how to turn all the knobs and the dials and do all the technical skill sets. But personally, if you can't go in and understand on a case of something like Alteryx, understand the tool set, understanding the software, what it's capable of, what can be done with it.

You really can't lead your team to ask and maximize the potential of something if you don't know what something can be done with it to begin with. Right. That's part of it. And then you certainly can't teach them if you don't know it yourself. Yes, I am expert certified, but I can tell you there's lots of nooks and crannies within the platform that I am not an expert at, and there's always room to, to grow and learn more.

[00:19:36] Kelly Hoffman: I just wanna add to both of them that it's really nice to have a team that is also very driven. So if it was just me that was driven, I think it would be a little bit harder, but it's really nice to have a camaraderie amongst all of us that. We all want that. We all have that drive. We support each other's goals and we really want each other to achieve those goals.

[00:19:56] Megan Dibble: Definitely. Yeah, and I liked what you said, Corey, about leading from the front. That was an experience I had at my last company where we were an Alteryx customer at Stanley Black and Decker and I, we definitely had a good Alteryx adoption and journey and upskilling, and that was something where my manager was always teaching me things, showing me how to optimize what I was doing.

So I think that's a common thread across companies where there is that really strong team aspect, that strong adoption aspect. Leadership is a big part of that. If they know the tool and are able to push the team forward, or if other teams know the tool and they lead these office hours like you guys were talking about, or user group meetings.

I think those are all really important threads to growing that adoption and upskilling for sure. So then I wanted to finish off on talking about how Alteryx, how the software has impacted your career journeys as a whole. I know you're all at different stages in your careers and it's looked different, but I think it'd be cool for listeners to hear about how it's impacted each of you uniquely.

[00:21:05] Cory Hubbard: All right. Well, from my seat, really, it's been a complete game changer because we've shifted and changed with the way we do many things across the business. It's changed everything that we're doing. There's a lot of things that we've put in the pipeline beforehand when we were even researching what tools are out there with things that we were trying to get done and how we're looking to advance things.

And then when Alteryx came across our lap and realized what could really be done there and how much easier it was, you know, Alison mentioned earlier. Coding versus all of a sudden a low-code, no-code solution, right? And just the speed to insight, the speed of automation, everything else that we can do has been fantastic.

The reality is being able to take those mundane tasks I. Out of the way so that we can, if those can be automated, then we can actually focus our time and efforts into, to higher level analytics, higher level insights and business solutions for the company and for our clients, right? As opposed to at the end of the day, these reports have to get done.

This x, y, Z process has to get done. But if instead of taking hours, days. To do that. If we could turn that into a touch of a button now it's much more important and much more valuable things that we're able to focus our time and efforts towards. So that's been humongous impact, not only for myself being able to get, get do those same things, so now I can do the work of several people as opposed to just what I would do myself.

But then being able to take that and see how it applies to different team members across the company and the company at large and how it impacts our clients has been a game changer.

[00:22:37] Allison Russell: So I went to Penn State for math, and I had a bunch of coding classes, like I mentioned prior. And so I was prepared when graduating that I was gonna try and find a position I.

That would use code and I was prepared of all that it was gonna take to, to be in those types of positions. And then I graduated right when Covid happened, and so everyone went out there. Listeners would know it was tough there for a minute to try and find a position during that period of time. And then this position opened itself up here at GWA.

And it was a unique application process and unique onboarding process. And there was a point in my interview where they were like, okay, we're gonna present you with data and go and take it and give us your insights and feedback and go into this position. And just the amount of projects so we have at a time that probably before would be unachievable and it would be daunting.

And now we have. So many projects on our plate that were like, yep, we can get that to you in a couple days, and we'll have a meeting at the end of the week and it's something that would've taken weeks or months prior. Um, so it has really opened my eyes of what are all the possibilities, and as Corey said, low code to no code and just getting better with it over the last three years of each year, just trying to get better and better to.

Help internally. We have a probably over a hundred applications now that we have within the company that a lot of our teams have access to, to run and save weeks, months of timeframe to produce the same stuff that beforehand would be. Like I said, daunting and wouldn't, didn't seem feasible. So still in the same position that I started, but definitely a different user entirely.

Alteryx is my number one, so I recommend anyone to just even attempt it and try and learn the basics about it, and hopefully. Use it in the future because I think everyone should use it at some point to show, um, how it makes our lives easier as well.

[00:24:46] Cory Hubbard: Allison mentioned that our hiring process and the case problem that we put out there, and it's something that can be solved in Excel, right?

You can do it with pivot tables, you can do some VLOOKUPs, things like that. Really, it's more of a test of critical thinking. Do you have the base level skill sets to put these things together? But you know, okay, do this in Excel, use Python, or R what, whatever. Tools that you're comfortable with, start there.

Right? So they go through that. We deem them worthy of hiring them. We bring them on board onto the team. Again, one of the first things they do is learn Alteryx. And then I say, okay, now go back. Now that you know Alteryx and how to do these things here, I don't know. You do the whole thing in what, 20 minutes, 30 minutes?

Something like that.

[00:25:29] Allison Russell: I think when I was provided the information, I was like, okay, here you go. You have a week. And I basically just got it done in time and then did it back in the office after a few months of going through the process of learning Alteryx. And like you said, I think I did it in a day. But yeah, it's such a benefit and I'm so grateful.

That was the tool that when I started was, alright, so you're gonna work with this? I said, oh, thank you, because this is much better.

[00:25:55] Megan Dibble: That's awesome. Kelly, I'd love to hear about how Alteryx has impacted your career journey as well.

[00:26:01] Kelly Hoffman: Sure. I also graduated during Covid with a math degree, but I did have a little bit of a different journey than Allison did.

I took the first job that was willing to hire me, and it was not as a data analyst, it was as an account coordinator. It was my first job out of college, and I just wanted a job, basically. And within the first week of working here, I talked to my then boss. And I was like, Hey, just so you know, my end goal is to be on the analytics team.

I do not plan on staying as an account coordinator. So I pushed and I must to all the leaders here, and I kept asking for Alteryx and the different programs that we have here. So I would say about a year into my journey on the account team, I finally got approved to get Alteryx on my computer. So while I was working that job, I found time to go through all of those trainings, all the interactive lessons.

Within a few months I got my advanced certification, and at that point I was using that to leverage and push to management and say, Hey, I am fully capable of doing this. I understand the account now, which is really great because now I do most of my work for that account. I know what they're missing. I know the issues they have.

Within my first few months of having Alteryx, I actually fixed one of the problems that they had been doing manually for years and years. I. And I remember within the first month of me working there and they showed me this process, I genuinely was shocked. I could not believe they were doing it manually for 10, 15 years.

And within six months of me having Alteryx, I was able to automate it and completely change. Their entire process. So then at that point, I transitioned fully into the analytics department and the analytics team, which I'm very grateful for because Alteryx basically helped me get to my career goal and where I wanted to be.

And I always wanted to be with math and working with numbers, hence my degree. But it was very difficult to find that job when Covid happened, and I had to work a little harder. Yeah, to get down here and to convince people that. I needed to be down here instead of where I

[00:28:14] Cory Hubbard: was. And she says down here, just because our Oh, down here is on the, on the first floor of the building.

We

[00:28:19] Kelly Hoffman: are in the, we are in the basement. Sorry. I refer to it as down here because my original department was on the fourth floor. And analytics is on the basement. Basement Analytics.

[00:28:32] Cory Hubbard: It's a walkout basement. It's like a, oh good.

[00:28:35] Megan Dibble: You got windows. We have windows. Don't worry, like

[00:28:37] Cory Hubbard: we're a little trolls stuck at the bottom of the building.

[00:28:39] Megan Dibble: That's great. Well, I'm super happy you all could join today for the podcast, and we'll definitely link some resources for people looking to check out things we've mentioned. I hope people feel inspired to try the expert exam to study for it. We'll link those prep guides, but this has been really great learning from you all and.

Hoping that listeners out there can take some of the best practices you all have established at GWA and apply them at their organizations. So thanks so much for your time. Thanks for listening. To learn more about Top mention in this episode, including the expert certification, head over to our show notes on community.alteryx.com/podcast.

See you next time.

Ep 163 Alteryx Adoption and Upskilling at GWA [00:00:00] Megan Dibble: Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Megan Bowers, and today I am talking with Cory Hubbard, Kelly Hoffman and Allison Russell from Gregory Will Roth Advertising. In this episode, we chat about how they have adopted Alteryx. How they grow their skills with the Maveryx community and their internal user group and their advice for tackling Alteryx certifications all the way up to the expert exam. Let's get started. Thank you all for joining the Alter Everything podcast today. Super excited to have you here. I'd love to just start off with some introductions to everyone. We'll start with Corey. [00:00:42] Cory Hubbard: Hi, and thanks for having us, Megan. I'm Cory Hubbard. I'm the Vice President of Strategic Analytics at Gregory Wel Trth Advertising. [00:00:50] Allison Russell: Awesome. Allison. Hi, I'm Allison. I am a data analyst for our analytics team here at Gregory Werth Advertising. [00:00:58] Kelly Hoffman: And Kelly. Hi, I'm Kelly Hoffman. I'm also a data analyst here at GWA and we work directly under Corey. [00:01:06] Megan Dibble: Great. Well, it's awesome to have you all on the show today. Love to just start off with. How are you using Alteryx at Gregory Walter Roth Advertising. [00:01:16] Cory Hubbard: I'll jump in to start. We really use Alteryx across the board, across the company, though we're still not to where we could be. There's always areas to expand, always places to do more on our team directly. Alteryx is a huge part of what we leverage for analytics, process automation, building out new tool sets and capabilities for the rest of the company. In some cases it's working directly with departments and client teams on developing solutions for their needs. In other cases, we build things out overall for the company and then deploy out rollout from here. [00:01:50] Megan Dibble: I originally met all of you at Alteryx Inspire this year, and we chatted about how you've really upskilled your team with Alteryx. I'm wondering, like for your team, what does upskilling look like and how do you find the time to do it? [00:02:06] Kelly Hoffman: It really comes down to us making time for it. We do have a weekly a EG meeting that we set up on Thursdays that we go through some weekly challenge problems every week. So that's really nice. But then also most of our job is waiting for data. So when we're waiting around for data or we're waiting for things from clients, we spend a lot of our time working through different trainings and different challenge problems basically. [00:02:31] Megan Dibble: Very cool. So when you're doing the challenges, you're doing them together and seeing how each other solves them, or what does that look like? [00:02:38] Kelly Hoffman: Yeah. We basically get in a room with all of our people at our company that have Alteryx and we all work through problems together and we bring up different possibilities, different solutions, which is really nice to see because. Everyone has a different way of solving things and it's really cool to see that even though all seven of us, I think there are, solve something differently, we can still get to the same solution. [00:03:02] Cory Hubbard: So just to expand upon the reality is from a department leadership stance, what we really try to do is make sure that we have time to upskill this because Alteryx is such a huge part of what it is that we're doing. I need to make sure that everybody on the team is skilled in what they're doing right. And it's this approach right from when a hire comes on. And if we can find somebody that has pre-existing experience with Alteryx. Great. Awesome. I would say most of the time that's not necessarily the case. I'm sure that will continue to change as we go, and I look forward to that. Um, but right now it's really that process of going through and okay, does somebody have critical thinking knowledge? And I. Capabilities that I need. And then do they have some of the specific analytics and marketing background, what have you, right, to be able to attack these problems. And then Alteryx is just really, it's a tool set that brings their skill sets to the next level. So knowing that, that's why we make sure that we have make time for that. So right straight ahead from onboarding, it's really Okay. Let's take time. Start working with interactive lessons and other things that are online on the community, get through that and start to to work through problems as they start to also learn what are the actual business problems that we're trying to tack. Right? And then it's a combination where the two things come together and then on an ongoing basis, because we always want to continuously be learning and and iterating in how we do things and refining and getting better. That's where we have this Alteryx user group, our a UG meeting every week internally. Where, not just on my team, but also our other Alteryx users across the company, they come into that as well. And as these two mentioned, that's where we will tackle challenge problems if nothing else is coming up or it's those other business related problems that somebody has, and it's just having that different outlook and different view into what's going on, that everybody working together really allows us all to, to get better in the process. [00:05:03] Megan Dibble: That's really cool and something that came up at Inspire different people from different companies coming in and asking, I love Alteryx Designer. How do I get more people in my company to use it? Or how do I get people over the hump in terms of adopting the software, actually solving their business challenges with it? So I love, first of all, that mix of doing the challenges, getting exposure to new tools, but then also. Obviously looking at the business problems together and the fact that you have an internal user group that meets weekly to have that office hour type thing. I think that's a really cool takeaway for listeners looking to increase the Alteryx culture almost in their organization. I think that's really neat. And you all kind of touch on this a little bit with interactive lessons, with weekly challenges, but just in general, how has the Mavericks community played a role in your upskilling and in your journey? [00:05:56] Cory Hubbard: Well, I'll get started with that and then I'll let the two of them speak further because the reality is when they started with Alteryx, there's a lot more available today than there was when I started back in, I think 2016, and the community was always a big part of that. I onboarded Alteryx into the company, so there was absolutely no one here to teach me what was going on. It was myself and one of my colleagues at the time. So we were just going back and forth blazing our own trail when that happened. And for us it was then going into the community posting and looking, searching out solutions for what we were doing and working our way through. And the reality is we actually benefited from right away, right after we first got our first Alteryx license. The two of us went to Inspire a couple months later. So we had hands-on training at Inspire, which really helped and really gave us a jumpstart. Um, but outside of that and where things have gotten since now, there's tons of these interactive lessons that are available in the community. And as I mentioned before, that's really where I push people towards right outta the gate, whether they're a new hire or if there's someone else in the company that's just interested in learning what Alteryx can do and how they can use it. Because the reality is you can get into these interactive lessons and you don't even need designer installed. Computer because you can go through it and see what's in there, how it works, and what you can do. So that's been fantastic. Obviously the weekly challenges that are out there, there's the learning paths that have been added since all of the certification paths and training materials that are now available for them as well. Those are a huge help. So I'm. Happy for everybody who are especially new Alteryx users because now there is just a plethora of resources that are available and it seems like there'd be an attitude on a daily basis almost. [00:07:43] Kelly Hoffman: Yeah. I would also add to that along with the weekly challenge problems, it's really nice to have a place to go and just ask questions and just search. You can literally just search your question and it most likely has been answered and multiple people have. Come up with different solutions, which is very nice. So I don't always have to bother Corey when I have a question. I can go right onto the community and I'm sure I'm certain there's an answer somewhere there. [00:08:11] Cory Hubbard: And if there isn't, somebody responds fairly quickly. Exactly. True. Which is awesome. [00:08:16] Megan Dibble: Speed of the responses in the discussion forums. I love it so much. I think you mentioned certifications, Corey earlier, and I noticed you have your certification pin on your jacket right now. Love that. So one thing we talked about at Inspire was just that you're expert certified and Allison and Kelly, that you all just had your first attempt at that exam at Inspire. So wondering what your advice is for listeners who want to try the expert exam. [00:08:47] Allison Russell: I think the irony of the certification process is that the first exam was probably actually the hardest in my opinion, and then they've actually gotten easier as the more exposure that we've had. So I can speak to this. I know Kelly probably feels the same way, that the expert exam was not actually as difficult as we were expecting. The situation though, I feel that we have that opinion is because of how much training and practice that we did prepare. We use Alteryx and a lot of tool pallets every single day at work. And so getting that much exposure to get to all the different categories and then also just the continued education on our end. The training process to each certification has actually felt easier and easier as we've gone on. But yes, attempted the expert exam. Have some stuff to practice. [00:09:39] Megan Dibble: Yeah. That's awesome. I love that you feel like it's gotten easier because you work so much with the software every day, and obviously you guys do so many challenges that expose you to different tools. Kelly, did you have any additional advice for people looking to attempt it or any observations from your first attempt? [00:09:56] Kelly Hoffman: One thing I would say is don't let the price intimidate you, because I think we saw that it had a price associated with it as well, and that kind of intimidated us and made us a little. More nervous to take it. And like she said, we both went into it and it was not as bad as we anticipated at all. And then I would also say, if you do take it and you fail, don't let that determine your worth or your knowledge on the topic. Because I know we both know how to do all the things that are on that exam and we're very fluent in the program. It's just sometimes exams. Make you a little nervous Sometimes you go in and you just flake a little bit. Get a little nervous when you're in the exam and. You keep the watching the clock, there's a bunch of different things that go into the exam, but I know that although we did not pass, it does not determine that wey are not experts. [00:10:50] Megan Dibble: And it's weird going into that timed exam situation so many years after being out of school. It's like throwback. It's a whole different skill set in some way. So you're practicing the content, you're also practicing your test taking skills. Exactly. Which is helpful as you're taking the core, the advance, you're practicing both of those things. So. And Corey, what are your takeaways from having taken it and passed? What would you say to people who wanna try it? [00:11:16] Cory Hubbard: Absolutely. So I think the couple notes that I would add, first and foremost, even before the expert exam, the core exam. The advanced exam, those ones are free to take now. It used to be you had to wait longer. Now you can take those on a weekly basis. So those are things that I would say absolutely as people are going through that jump in, it's part of the learning process, taking the actual test. And I'll take that a step further to the expert exam in that, I'll say even when I took it, and I did pass it the first time, but when I went to go take it, when I went in there, it was to even see how it was structured and how it would go because it is completely different than the other two exams before that. So I've been working with Alteryx for years now, so I was comfortable in the subject matter of what was gonna be covered, but I had no idea how the actual test itself was actually gonna be structured. So part of it was I'm just gonna go in there, see what's happening, and learn that and well, you know, as these too ing, it's not as scary as you think. It's just one, you see a price tag to begin with normally, which can deter you a little bit. 'cause you want to make sure, alright, I'm not gonna just give this the old college try, I wanna make sure I'm prepared for this. But then the other half of it too is. If people are going to inspire. And at that time period, if you have the opportunity that at least the last few years, it's a great opportunity to take that expert exam because Alteryx has waived the cost if you take it at the conference. So that's how I went and did it. And so be because of that, I was like, okay, it's free. Why not? Let's just, let's see what happens. And it, so it turned out pretty well for me. A big thing is just going in and trying it and seeing what it's gonna be like. Use it. Just like I mentioned with the other two exams. It's a learning experience and if nothing else, you come out of it. Understanding one, how the test is gonna be structured and also where are you confident in what you know and where do you have some areas maybe to work on still. And the other thing that I'll say, and I don't think this is giving too much away, 'cause I think it's even mentioned in the study guides that are out there for the exam, it points out right. Out the gate. This question is on this subject. This question is on this other subject. It's not a mystery of what tools in general that you're going to have to use. Yeah, you have to assemble everything, put it together. But you know, in general, the subject matter of, of a given question. But what I'll say is reading comprehension is definitely a part of this exam, and you need to read carefully and make sure that you pay attention to the nuance of it. Going into this spatial analytics is something that we do on a daily basis, so feel very confident in that. Right? And I got into the particular question that I had on that, and I read it to begin with. I was like, oh, this is super easy. I can do this in seconds. And then I start and I was like, oh, wait a minute. There's some tricky things I gotta take care of here first. And I think there's kind of nuance to that in all the questions. So it's even if you are superb at the tool set that's there, it's one of those things, always be careful and make sure you read the questions carefully, like in any test, right? Make sure you've completely answered the question, and that's just one of those things to be careful with. Again, because it is different than all of the rest of the exams. It's not something where you select an answer, you're in a remote desktop session and you go in and you're solving the problem you. Upload you leave your actual workflow files there. You produce whatever your answers are too, right? So everything's gotta be compiled. So it's a, it's a different structure. I really like how it's set up. It's cool and it's, but it's much more evolved. And I think because of that too, you can't just at the end say, oh, right, yeah. The answer I got is one of these four responses. So, looks like that one, select that one done. It's important to really look into what you did and make sure you answered the question. Completely and look for those kind of hidden questions in the question I'll say as well, [00:15:01] Megan Dibble: that's great advice for people who are thinking about taking it. And we've talked about the how of taking the exam, but I did wanna touch on the why and why you all are on this certification journey. Why does it matter? You know, if someone came up to you and said, well, why even take these certifications? What motivates you all to go for it and push for the next one? [00:15:23] Kelly Hoffman: I would say it's about passion. I'm very passionate about knowing everything on a topic that I really enjoy, and I really, really like Alteryx and I use it on a daily basis. There's not a day that I don't open Alteryx and I don't wanna come to a problem in the workplace and not be able to answer it. Like I, I just always want to know how to do things. I want to know all the different possibilities of doing those things. I will also say that it really comes down to the individual because you can give somebody the same amount of opportunity, and if they don't have the passion or the drive about the topic, they're just not gonna do it. [00:16:05] Megan Dibble: Alison, what about for you? [00:16:06] Allison Russell: Yeah, I would say so when I was going through school, I had a handful of coding classes, and if anyone knows coding, it's a long, daunting process and you have to know all the. Ins and outs, and it was presented Alteryx, and I said, wait a minute. This is something that is so useful and could be so beneficial to know as much about it as possible. And actually, I've been with the company now for three years and when I, if you compare each years comparison of. The knowledge that we've gained and just like having our team grow as well, we're all bouncing ideas off of one another. So it is the individual, but we get better as a team because of each of our individual self-motivation. My first week, uh, we had this big project and I was staying up until way early in the morning and I said, I need to get better at this because as much as we have work, we also wanna have a work life balance. But I also wanna be so good at what I'm doing when I'm in the office and providing. The best material that I can to our clients, to our internal improvement within our company. So if we get better, so does the company, you have that self-motivation, but then you're gonna help everyone in turn. Um, but then on the certification side, I think it's just being goal oriented. It's just if you have a goal, you reach it and you try to keep going. There is no ceiling coming back to the expert certification. There's only a handful of people who have. Certification, and I will say it's the money aspect. I think there's this whole intimidation by the title being called an expert, but I think anyone can achieve it if you just believe in yourself to be able to do it and put in the time to prepare and learn and work your way up. It does. It is a process. I will say we're on par, at least for me, because each certification I did not pass the first time. So you just have to be tenacious, believe in yourself, and then just try again. So we're gonna try again for the expert one. [00:18:03] Megan Dibble: Yeah. Yeah. And it is very common to not pass each exam on the first try is something we hear a lot. So, but I love that positivity and I think you guys will for sure. Yeah. [00:18:14] Cory Hubbard: And along those lines for everybody listening, the reality is there's multiple Alteryx ACEs who are not currently expert certified, but then there's also other ones who are, and they didn't pass it on their first time either. And these are people who, you know, eat, sleep, breathe, live and die Alteryx, right? And just nonstop or at it. And even they didn't pass it on their first try. So it's not something to feel intimidated by. It's like these two just said. Get after it. Try again and keep going. And now to circle back, to answer your question, from my stance in my position, I'm, I believe in leadership from the front personally, right? And that doesn't always translate into management and executive leaders needing to know how to turn all the knobs and the dials and do all the technical skill sets. But personally, if you can't go in and understand on a case of something like Alteryx, understand the tool set, understanding the software, what it's capable of, what can be done with it. You really can't lead your team to ask and maximize the potential of something if you don't know what something can be done with it to begin with. Right. That's part of it. And then you certainly can't teach them if you don't know it yourself. Yes, I am expert certified, but I can tell you there's lots of nooks and crannies within the platform that I am not an expert at, and there's always room to, to grow and learn more. [00:19:36] Kelly Hoffman: I just wanna add to both of them that it's really nice to have a team that is also very driven. So if it was just me that was driven, I think it would be a little bit harder, but it's really nice to have a camaraderie amongst all of us that. We all want that. We all have that drive. We support each other's goals and we really want each other to achieve those goals. [00:19:56] Megan Dibble: Definitely. Yeah, and I liked what you said, Corey, about leading from the front. That was an experience I had at my last company where we were an Alteryx customer at Stanley Black and Decker and I, we definitely had a good Alteryx adoption and journey and upskilling, and that was something where my manager was always teaching me things, showing me how to optimize what I was doing. So I think that's a common thread across companies where there is that really strong team aspect, that strong adoption aspect. Leadership is a big part of that. If they know the tool and are able to push the team forward, or if other teams know the tool and they lead these office hours like you guys were talking about, or user group meetings. I think those are all really important threads to growing that adoption and upskilling for sure. So then I wanted to finish off on talking about how Alteryx, how the software has impacted your career journeys as a whole. I know you're all at different stages in your careers and it's looked different, but I think it'd be cool for listeners to hear about how it's impacted each of you uniquely. [00:21:05] Cory Hubbard: All right. Well, from my seat, really, it's been a complete game changer because we've shifted and changed with the way we do many things across the business. It's changed everything that we're doing. There's a lot of things that we've put in the pipeline beforehand when we were even researching what tools are out there with things that we were trying to get done and how we're looking to advance things. And then when Alteryx came across our lap and realized what could really be done there and how much easier it was, you know, Alison mentioned earlier. Coding versus all of a sudden a low-code, no-code solution, right? And just the speed to insight, the speed of automation, everything else that we can do has been fantastic. The reality is being able to take those mundane tasks I. Out of the way so that we can, if those can be automated, then we can actually focus our time and efforts into, to higher level analytics, higher level insights and business solutions for the company and for our clients, right? As opposed to at the end of the day, these reports have to get done. This x, y, Z process has to get done. But if instead of taking hours, days. To do that. If we could turn that into a touch of a button now it's much more important and much more valuable things that we're able to focus our time and efforts towards. So that's been humongous impact, not only for myself being able to get, get do those same things, so now I can do the work of several people as opposed to just what I would do myself. But then being able to take that and see how it applies to different team members across the company and the company at large and how it impacts our clients has been a game changer. [00:22:37] Allison Russell: So I went to Penn State for math, and I had a bunch of coding classes, like I mentioned prior. And so I was prepared when graduating that I was gonna try and find a position I. That would use code and I was prepared of all that it was gonna take to, to be in those types of positions. And then I graduated right when Covid happened, and so everyone went out there. Listeners would know it was tough there for a minute to try and find a position during that period of time. And then this position opened itself up here at GWA. And it was a unique application process and unique onboarding process. And there was a point in my interview where they were like, okay, we're gonna present you with data and go and take it and give us your insights and feedback and go into this position. And just the amount of projects so we have at a time that probably before would be unachievable and it would be daunting. And now we have. So many projects on our plate that were like, yep, we can get that to you in a couple days, and we'll have a meeting at the end of the week and it's something that would've taken weeks or months prior. Um, so it has really opened my eyes of what are all the possibilities, and as Corey said, low code to no code and just getting better with it over the last three years of each year, just trying to get better and better to. Help internally. We have a probably over a hundred applications now that we have within the company that a lot of our teams have access to, to run and save weeks, months of timeframe to produce the same stuff that beforehand would be. Like I said, daunting and wouldn't, didn't seem feasible. So still in the same position that I started, but definitely a different user entirely. Alteryx is my number one, so I recommend anyone to just even attempt it and try and learn the basics about it, and hopefully. Use it in the future because I think everyone should use it at some point to show, um, how it makes our lives easier as well. [00:24:46] Cory Hubbard: Allison mentioned that our hiring process and the case problem that we put out there, and it's something that can be solved in Excel, right? You can do it with pivot tables, you can do some VLOOKUPs, things like that. Really, it's more of a test of critical thinking. Do you have the base level skill sets to put these things together? But you know, okay, do this in Excel, use Python, or R what, whatever. Tools that you're comfortable with, start there. Right? So they go through that. We deem them worthy of hiring them. We bring them on board onto the team. Again, one of the first things they do is learn Alteryx. And then I say, okay, now go back. Now that you know Alteryx and how to do these things here, I don't know. You do the whole thing in what, 20 minutes, 30 minutes? Something like that. [00:25:29] Allison Russell: I think when I was provided the information, I was like, okay, here you go. You have a week. And I basically just got it done in time and then did it back in the office after a few months of going through the process of learning Alteryx. And like you said, I think I did it in a day. But yeah, it's such a benefit and I'm so grateful. That was the tool that when I started was, alright, so you're gonna work with this? I said, oh, thank you, because this is much better. [00:25:55] Megan Dibble: That's awesome. Kelly, I'd love to hear about how Alteryx has impacted your career journey as well. [00:26:01] Kelly Hoffman: Sure. I also graduated during Covid with a math degree, but I did have a little bit of a different journey than Allison did. I took the first job that was willing to hire me, and it was not as a data analyst, it was as an account coordinator. It was my first job out of college, and I just wanted a job, basically. And within the first week of working here, I talked to my then boss. And I was like, Hey, just so you know, my end goal is to be on the analytics team. I do not plan on staying as an account coordinator. So I pushed and I must to all the leaders here, and I kept asking for Alteryx and the different programs that we have here. So I would say about a year into my journey on the account team, I finally got approved to get Alteryx on my computer. So while I was working that job, I found time to go through all of those trainings, all the interactive lessons. Within a few months I got my advanced certification, and at that point I was using that to leverage and push to management and say, Hey, I am fully capable of doing this. I understand the account now, which is really great because now I do most of my work for that account. I know what they're missing. I know the issues they have. Within my first few months of having Alteryx, I actually fixed one of the problems that they had been doing manually for years and years. I. And I remember within the first month of me working there and they showed me this process, I genuinely was shocked. I could not believe they were doing it manually for 10, 15 years. And within six months of me having Alteryx, I was able to automate it and completely change. Their entire process. So then at that point, I transitioned fully into the analytics department and the analytics team, which I'm very grateful for because Alteryx basically helped me get to my career goal and where I wanted to be. And I always wanted to be with math and working with numbers, hence my degree. But it was very difficult to find that job when Covid happened, and I had to work a little harder. Yeah, to get down here and to convince people that. I needed to be down here instead of where I [00:28:14] Cory Hubbard: was. And she says down here, just because our Oh, down here is on the, on the first floor of the building. We [00:28:19] Kelly Hoffman: are in the, we are in the basement. Sorry. I refer to it as down here because my original department was on the fourth floor. And analytics is on the basement. Basement Analytics. [00:28:32] Cory Hubbard: It's a walkout basement. It's like a, oh good. [00:28:35] Megan Dibble: You got windows. We have windows. Don't worry, like [00:28:37] Cory Hubbard: we're a little trolls stuck at the bottom of the building. [00:28:39] Megan Dibble: That's great. Well, I'm super happy you all could join today for the podcast, and we'll definitely link some resources for people looking to check out things we've mentioned. I hope people feel inspired to try the expert exam to study for it. We'll link those prep guides, but this has been really great learning from you all and. Hoping that listeners out there can take some of the best practices you all have established at GWA and apply them at their organizations. So thanks so much for your time. Thanks for listening. To learn more about Top mention in this episode, including the expert certification, head over to our show notes on community.alteryx.com/podcast. See you next time.

This episode was produced by Megan Bowers (@MeganBowers), Mike Cusic (@mikecusic), and Matt Rotundo (@AlteryxMatt). Special thanks to @andyuttley for the theme music track, and @mikecusic for our album artwork.

Alter Everything Podcast

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163: Alteryx Adoption and Upskilling at GWA

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This episode was produced by Megan Bowers (@MeganBowers), Mike Cusic (@mikecusic), and Matt Rotundo (@AlteryxMatt). Special thanks to @andyuttley for the theme music track, and @mikecusic for our album artwork.