For me

Up front you should know I’m doing this first for me. So if this isn’t interesting to you or you can’t fathom why someone would do it, don’t worry! For me, doing this out in the open creates a running log of my work on this project and it forces me to stay focused and on schedule to keep pushing through the minutiae of the work. By doing it openly it should force me to be more accountable and to try my best – even though it’s highly likely no one is watching.

For you?

Have you ever wondered how other people do data science work? Come watch me as I struggle and feel better about your own abilities!

Also, I want to demystify the process of data science a bit. A lot of it is writing code, executing it, thinking about the results, and moving to the next bit of code. And a lot of Googling.

As I start to make use of the data I am analyzing I hope that having done the livestream and documented many of my coding decisions, business rules, and exploratory data analysis will give my work further credibility. I want to make the process of coming up with useful performance metrics for public services as transparent as possible and be honest and open about the strengths and weaknesses of the underlying data and methods.