Foreword
When your dad is insatiably curious about what you are studying, home is not a safe harbor.
I received my master’s in analytics in 2018. Through the course of my graduate school program, my cohort learned how to leverage machine learning, AI, and analytics to add value to businesses and develop solutions for real-world challenges. I have a passion for these things—a passion that I share with my dad, Jeff Prosise. In fact, I can’t tell you the number of times he asked if he could join me in class (I’m not kidding) or launched a salvo of questions about what we were studying in the kitchen when I escaped the grind at my parents’ house.
If you have ever been on an airplane experiencing turbulence and the person next to you coped by striking up a conversation about what a marvel of engineering modern jetliners are because they do not have a single point of failure, you know exactly how I felt.
Our love of data and analytics grew into a shared love of the value it provides. Using the tools and techniques outlined in this book, one can draw certitude in the face of uncertainty. Data science allows you to find underlying truth—to discover what is really happening and how it drives behaviors and outcomes. The ability to peek behind the curtain using analytics, rather than intuition, is an appreciating skill set in our information economy and is vital for people and institutions navigating modern uncertainty.
Equally important is effectively communicating these findings to a nontechnical audience while having a deep technical understanding of just what is going on under the hood. This level of communication can’t be faked (I’ve tried a time or two during those kitchen discussions with my dad).
Analytics, AI, and machine learning do not have insurmountable technical or deployment issues. Rather, the challenge and accessibility of understanding just what is happening and how they work is the impediment, because this understanding is often shrouded in technical jargon and industry shibboleths. These barriers to entry act as a limiting principle and stunt the utilization of data science to address problems and questions.
That is what this book seeks to change: it removes the shroud and jargon, making these tools and resources accessible.
And, to be completely honest, my dad is very good at writing and teaching intimidating technical topics in a manner that makes learning them almost effortless, and he has been for all my life. He has made subjects all the way back to DOS understandable for the movers and shakers in today’s business world. He has made subjects that I frankly can’t wrap my head around accessible for generations of programmers over the last few decades. To put it simply, he’s the best.
The secret is this: his ethos of how he approaches teaching a topic centers around “how would I want this explained to me if I had never heard of it but was interested?” Given the unique challenges data science poses and the myriad perspectives professionals in this space come from, his approach provides a level of accessibility not found in many other places.
Take it from me: you couldn’t have a better guide through the complexities of ML and AI. If you’re already familiar, then this book will hone your understanding, as it did for me. (Looking at you, Chapter 13.) If you’re interested in machine learning, AI, analytics, and the value they add to humanity, you’re in the right place.
Regardless of which camp you fall in, you’ll come away with deeper knowledge of the subjects he outlines, empowering you to use these tools and then tell the story of what you found.
Usually I would end something like this by saying, “I hope you enjoy the book and learn something,” but in this case, that would not be the truth. I don’t hope—I know. I know you will learn from and alongside my dad, as I have.
There’s no person I’ve tried to be more like in my life than Jeff Prosise, and I couldn’t be more excited to share this aspect of him with you. And maybe—just maybe—it will ignite a passion for this stuff, as it did with me.
I’ll leave you with this. I’ll say to you what he apocryphally told me as he held me on the day I was born: “Welcome to the show, kid.”