In Startup world, there’s so much you can’t talk about.
I’m a people-first technologist and well-rounded strategist with over a decade of experience as a Tech Lead and more than two decades as a community-centric leader. As a day 1 employee at my health tech startup years ago, coincidentally first as a contractor through Data With Style and eventually converted into a full time employee, I played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s vision, culture, and product.
One of the things I’m most passionate about is democratizing knowledge, but when you’re deep in the trenches of a startup, there’s so much knowledge and experience you gain but are unable to share broadly.
Lightbulb moment
One day, in our monthly Engineering + Product Team Bonding Syncs, one of our product designers mentioned that they didn’t realize really how much I love Eurovision until I made some comment in our meeting about something having a common relationship with an ESC reference. This is when I realized I really do get very excited about anything Eurovision-related and should probably find a healthy outlet for it that lets me contribute to the ESC fandom with my tech skills.
Time to take action
Data With Style has always been a business consulting company at its core, but I found myself wanting to use the frontend real estate space in a more transparent, educational, and quirky way. Still keeping in the theme of bringing data and style together, I thought it would be fun to catalog all the bits and pieces that go into building startup-type workflows, but with Eurovision as a proxy for the data, tools, and tech inspo.
I decided to catalog all the data I wish I had when trying to find context about performances and songs–I’m thinking song/translation meanings, artist inspo, performance mood/vibe, host country info, fashion choices, context of what’s going on in the larger world, etc. I’d love to model some new data, build a data pipeline, share data reports and style guides, discover related music, and keep the archives going! My hope is that this can be a useful resource.
Why is this important?
Through the lens of Eurovision, I’ll demonstrate how to build a data pipeline, create a UX journey, generate the kind of content and reports necessary for startup success, etc. By leveraging the Eurovision theme, I’ll make complex concepts accessible and engaging for our audience.
You don’t have to be a Eurovision (ESC) fan to follow along, but I love Eurovision, and so I thought this was the perfect way to bring these concepts and ideas to life without any gatekeeping.
I like to think it’s doing my part to help shape the kind of future I hope for, because I know what it’s like to feel hidden in the data by design. I sincerely believe that building a more equitable future that’s actually representative of us will take all of us. By
Potential blockers to consider
My personal challenge will be finding downtime to consistently contribute to such an ongoing, ambitious project, but I think if I let people into the process from the beginning, you’ll be able to see the week-to-week of what goes into something like this, and not just the final product!
Ready to dive in!
Even though the frontend side of datawithstyle.com is turning into a data and style archiving project for Eurovision, I’m always open to consulting and contracting work, and I think it’s important to share what I know generously. People who signed up for my email list before Data With Style 2.0’s launch will still get the guide (5 Common Client Scenarios and How to Respond). I’ve been testing what I put together so that it stands the test of time, and I’ll be really happy to send that out! 💖
Thanks for being here, and thanks for being YOU!
Jacky
P.S.
If you’d like to hire my team or me for consulting projects, send us a message!
Will probably need to go back and edit this some more after it goes out. Don’t want to be a blocker for getting it launched but also don’t want to forget to refine it a bit!