Harnessing Predictive Analysis: Reshaping Consulting, Government Tech, and the Future of Work

Unlock the secrets to harnessing predictive analysis in the ever-changing world of consulting. We've come a long way since the humble beginnings of Microsoft Excel, and in this episode, we're sharing just how revolutionary AI and machine learning tools have become for savvy businesses. By translating massive data sets into actionable insights, tools like SPSS and Tableau are no longer just for the data scientists; they're for anyone keen to make informed decisions. And if you've ever wondered how these advancements affect the nuts and bolts of government agencies and the opportunities for small businesses within that sphere, you're in for a treat. We'll give you an inside look at how COVID-19 expedited a tech revolution in government operations and what it means for the likes of Microsoft Teams and the data warehouse Advana.

When it comes to the future of work, the conversation gets even juicier. Are you ready to navigate the new professional landscape that's been reshaped by the remote work revolution? We're weighing in on the great debate: remote versus traditional workplace structures. Discover the strategies companies are implementing to support new employees and maintain a culture of mentorship, all without the confines of office walls. We'll also tackle the unique challenges and benefits from both management and employee standpoints, offering a balanced perspective on this modern work dilemma. Expect a candid discussion that doesn't shy away from the tough questions, whether you're leading a team or forging your own path in today's dynamic work environment.

• Hosted by: Terrell Cummings & Devon Florczak
• www.countryintel.com
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Facebook

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Hello and welcome back to the Country Intelligence Report. We're your hosts Spencer Bentley, terrell Cummings and Devon Florzak. Thank you for joining us. Today we're going to be talking about something that has a lot of power in the world of consulting and something that is really consequential to, I think, everyone's career at this point at least understanding how it works and how you can manipulate it and that is the power of predictive analysis, Specifically, leveraging advanced data tools to forecast trends and make informed business decisions.

Speaker 1: 1:01

A lot of what we do on a day-to-day basis at Country Intel is centered around data analysis.

Speaker 1: 1:08

It's kind of an inescapable dynamic in the world of consulting, especially if you're consulting with the DOD or any of the larger organizations within the government. Understanding data, understanding your role in controlling your data, understanding the power of data analysis and the manipulation of data is really crucial to ensuring that you're offering a valuable product to the client and that you're sort of securing a future for the continued growth of your company. If you don't understand data, if you don't understand how to leverage data and showcase it to your advantage, then you're really at a strategic disadvantage in this market. Devon's put together a nice little presentation for us around data analysis, so we will get into that. Then we'll discuss some tools and tricks that we've learned and we will end the episode with our thoughts on just what's going on in the world today. We'll start it off and Devon, why don't you give us a little intro and some context into why data analysis is so important and how it became sort of entrenched in the business world that we're all sort of navigating today?

Speaker 2: 2:47

Yeah, I want to start with Microsoft Excel, which is everyone's favorite sort of application from the 80s until today even. Actually, there were some advances in the computing industry before Microsoft Excel was released in 1985, and we could debate this. But at least from my vantage point and obviously I wasn't alive for that time, but from my vantage point at least it seems like that was sort of like the snap-on moment when data analysis and doing analytics sort of went mainstream, where people might have moved from. Maybe it wasn't this archaic, but typically a lot of that stuff was done on paper beforehand. That's why I'm from an engineering background and that's why we have engineering paper, because a lot of those visualizations and calculations were done on that gridded paper where you could actually see it. If you're designing something, you can see it in exact proportion towards your calculations. But with Excel and that going mainstream, I think that really brought in the business world and pretty much everywhere, usually accessible platform that almost anyone can pick up and use and teach himself within a couple of weeks on how to actually use it on a basic level. Like I said, excel came out in 1985, and I didn't actually know that it was initially released specifically for the original Apple Mac, which I thought was kind of interesting. It was interesting. I didn't know that either. You would assume that they had their own computer, but I didn't really know that.

Speaker 2: 4:45

Then, essentially in the following years, things sort of spiraled into different spreadsheet software, such as Lotus123, which eventually became a part of IBM, which everyone knows today. Then, in addition, Microsoft released Microsoft Access, which is their version of SQL, it's more so of a database management system which we have some experience with. I briefly touched on Microsoft Access. I know some other people in our company use it pretty regularly. That's still definitely used today. Then, more so in the late 1990s, we had more business intelligent tools come about, such as something called enterprise resource planning, which I'm not sure if you guys use any of that, but apparently that came to be known as Oracle or a part of Oracle. It's kind of funny that I feel like a lot of these things had these more so nascent names given to them. Now they're just these big massive companies IBM and Oracle. Everyone knows who they are nowadays.

Speaker 2: 5:57

Then in 2000, it was more so marked by more advanced tools like SPSS, which I actually used. You guys might have used SPSS before. I know that's still definitely taught today in some universities more on the if you're doing more so some of the statistical courses. That's really where the concept of big data started coming about Late 2010s, like 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010,. That era at least from what I looked up, that seemed to be when people started connecting and it doesn't say people are using these platforms around social media. They're googling stuff.

Speaker 2: 6:40

If we can collect and harness all this information, I bet we could capitalize off of it. That seems to be the consensus on when big data started coming about collecting data and everything and being able to put it forward and use it to better yourself or better your company. Then, later on in the 2010s, some more things that we're definitely familiar with as well came about, such as Tableau. I think we've all used Tableau before. It's something like we discussed before.

Speaker 2: 7:13

Tools like Tableau and what you mentioned as well when we were chatting.

Speaker 2: 7:19

Things like that sort of help allow people to actually make complex visualizations without really knowing not knowing, but not knowing how to put together a code to set that data up to be able to visualize it.

Speaker 2: 7:39

You can just put the data in there and it guides you along and helps you visualize it better. All this is really about is expanding the knowledge sphere that people are able to use data visualization tools, because before, in the late 80s and 90s, there was just a small group of people that can actually take data, gather it, analyze it and then visualize it properly, versus now you just put it into a tool and just visualize it. It's just there. I think that's pretty important just because there's a larger audience that can actually do some of this stuff. Then, late 2010s or early 2020s, where we're now everyone's talking about AI, machine learning To me specifically, I feel like data accessibility is something that's definitely grown. When you're using whatever website, it seems like each website or company has their own API that you can access. That's an application programming interface. You can actually go in and gather the data from their website, which I think is pretty cool. That's where we're at today.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Yeah, that's a very eloquently put little snapshot of the history of data there. You're right that it's come a long way in a relatively short amount of time and I think the trajectory now is, like you said, sort of leaning towards accessibility, while widespread accessibility. Yeah, you and I were speaking earlier about Tableau and also another software that I'm learning to use now called Alterix, which maybe some of our listeners may be familiar with that. But yeah, both of those have kind of revolutionized how businesses can leverage data to communicate. You know certain aspects of what they're trying to accomplish or or understand. You know some of the data that they're they're gathering on a more actionable level and it's taken the, the onus of learning code out of the equation, which I think has been a huge hindrance For a lot of people when it comes to, you know, getting into the data analysis space or trying to better understand how they can, you know, leverage whatever data they may be collecting. And that that's this is, you know, definitely the truth from me. I've always been interested in it.

Speaker 1: 10:24

Obviously, you know, growing up as a millennial, we've been hearing that you know big data is the future, big data is the answer to, you know, all of your business's problems.

Speaker 1: 10:40

But the issue is, you know, very few people historically have been able to access that or to understand how to leverage it, and the big, the huge barrier was because you know you had to know how to write code, you had to understand all these coding languages, things like that, which is still very helpful. But you know, as these software companies have learned, you know you have a. If you focus on only developing tools for that small subset of people, you're not really going to be able to grow to them, and I think that's also one of the driving forces behind the simplification of these tools that's been sort of prevailing here, and also, with AI coming along and how that's disrupting the coding world as well, these tools are becoming more and more, I think, salient in the workplace because of the fact that you're not going to be able to grow too much. I think salient in the workplace because they're just, you know, it takes very little learning curve to understand how to use them and use them effectively.

Speaker 2: 11:50

Yeah, yeah, I agree, and it seems like more people that are like getting jobs nowadays where you maybe wouldn't expect to be, you know, dealing with data or trying to visualize stuff. It seems like it's just becoming more common that it's sort of something that's expected when you do start a new job, like some of my friends have started new positions lately. They didn't really mention that they have to be working with a you know database and you have to pull down data and visualize it. It's more so like basic tasks they're actually going to do, but there's more so the fact that you know they didn't really mention it too much in the job description. It seemed like they started a position and they were like, oh well, they didn't really mention this, but it's more so expected that they just kind of you know, know how to manipulate, at least on a basic level, you know, some sort of data.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Yeah, and I think that's that's going to be the trend.

Speaker 1: 12:43

And this point you know, if you want to be competitive in the workplace, especially if you're just entering the job market or if you're looking to, you know, transition to a new role, things like that you know, if you're, if you're anywhere in sort of the the intelligentsia sphere, where you're working with your brain and not your hands, more likely than not, especially if you're working for, you know, a company, a larger company or a company that that you know works with more of a high profile client like the DoD or something like that, I think it kind of it behooves you as a, as a candidate, to start learning some of these tools, start learning the basics of data analysis, because it's really becoming a differentiating factor in terms of skill set out on the open market, not just for individuals but for companies as well, for small companies, you know.

Speaker 1: 13:43

You really have to start understanding the power of data and understanding what data you are collecting, what data you know you can leverage as a company to sort of increase your competitive advantage over others. It's really becoming kind of a non negotiable if you really want to stay competitive in the space. So yeah, and with our experience with, the, you know, dod and federal government.

Speaker 2: 14:08

I feel like the general consensus, at least from the public. They probably think the government moves slow Sometimes. You know, I do tend to agree with them. But to sort of go at bat for them, I do have to, you know, give some props for how Microsoft Teams was pretty much deployed industry or I guess more so government wide at the start of COVID. You know it seemed like. You know, ever since the being in March or whenever COVID started, it seems like like at least a month later, you know everyone had a Teams account on the government side. It seems like, at least if our clients and our agencies that we work with, you know everyone had already set up, you know, standing meetings and they were already organized on. You know the workflows online. So I thought that was kind of impressive. At least you know, because you know we envision the government to be, you know, very, not age, but it's more so like a lot of things that take place are either within top secret areas or on different air force bases, army bases, but the ability for them to sort of be able to adapt using teams, I think that's something that probably a lot of people don't really give props to for the government. But I thought that was kind of interesting how quickly all of that was kind of rolled about, and that's something that we still use a lot today. We're all on government teams and we all use that.

Speaker 2: 15:46

In addition, something that we're getting more familiar with is some more government wide tools, such as Advana. Essentially it's just a big data warehouse that's maintained by Booz Allen right now. So there are tools out there but from what we're seeing it's kind of hard to get access to unless you can prove you need access to it for your project. But once you do get access to it, I'm assuming that's going to be very helpful. So the government, I think, is making some good strides to staying with the times.

Speaker 2: 16:20

But there's definitely some times where some people say, for contractors, at least we're offering the government yesterday's technology tomorrow. So I thought that was kind of funny. That's why I heard from another mutual at a contracting group. They said they did that a lot with Tableau actually, where they would have their license to Tableau and the government had issues getting their own licenses at the time. So essentially they're selling their capabilities and their ability to use Tableau to the government, which obviously the government saw some worth in that, but that's something that we sort of do as a contracting group. But yeah, as far as the government, though, just to wrap it up, like I said, I think they don't get enough props for doing some things actually kind of quickly. But yeah, there's definitely some cracks in the system still.

Speaker 1: 17:21

Well, yeah, I think that I definitely have to credit the government with moving with intention in their efforts to integrate some of these software solutions. But honestly, it's a matter. In my opinion, it's a matter of sink or swim the way that technology is advancing and the pace with which it's sort of exponentially advancing these days. The government really had no choice. It's one thing with, obviously, the onset of the pandemic, things like that, where there was an uncertain future around people's ability to gather in groups, things like that Software solutions like Teams just only made sense. But I think, moving forward and hopefully they can learn from the successful integration of Teams moving forward, especially with the proliferation of AI, the government's going to have to make some really concerted efforts to, I think, at the very least move at the pace of change.

Speaker 1: 18:35

You don't have to be at the bleeding edge, but there's really no reason why a lot of consumer level solutions for data analysis or AI modeling and predictive modeling, things like that there's no reason why a consumer should have the power of that in their hands and a federal employee can't access that.

Speaker 1: 19:05

I think that that's going to become more of a strategic disadvantage that they cannot ignore and for small businesses it presents, I think, a really good opportunity to bring some value to the government.

Speaker 1: 19:20

And, devin, you and I have been sort of batting ideas around about how we can, as a company, sort of get into a space where we can offer solutions to the government that incorporate some sort of advanced learning or AI capabilities, things like that, and I think it's going to be completely necessary for small businesses to start thinking along those terms where, trying to figure out the gaps and capabilities for these government entities and filling that with your own expertise, because I think there's a really strong business case that's rooted honestly in national security that small businesses can make to the government that they have to start implementing a lot of these solutions in a more meaningful and robust way.

Speaker 1: 20:19

Obviously, teams is something different. Business is not chat, gpt or Gemini as it's known now, but the successful implementation of that should show them that it is possible to teach an old dog new tricks and, as we see I'm sure you saw this Devin chat, gpt and Gemini just released yet another update where they're able to create these very elaborate videos off of a single prompt and that just pretends all types of changes that are coming along much quicker than I think most people anticipate. So, yeah, it's definitely something that small businesses should remain vigilant and cognizant about adopting. So, regarding what we do on the client and company side, how can we think about integrating or even just learning some of the tools that we can leverage in our day-to-day lives and bring some value to the client?

Speaker 2: 21:47

Yeah, I think one of the things that we talked about, or at least on the client side, is that I personally I do a lot of stuff in Python in our studio and it bores mm, mm, mm, mm. And obviously you need to be careful with how you're using some of that stuff. Python and RStudio for those who aren't familiar, it is a coding language. Python is a coding language and RStudio uses R, which is a coding language, and both of them you can run within your local command prop on your PC and then for those, the interface for those languages are RStudio for R and then Python. You can use different sort of interfaces. A popular one is called Jupyter. I've used Jupyter before where essentially they help you organize your code, and even Jupyter now Jupyter kind of has some features where it helps you fill in the code and gives you some ideas on how to complete your code, which I think is kind of cool. But that's something that we definitely offer to our clients and that's something we use both on the company side and the client side, where I think for small businesses, if they're sort of wanting to get started with the basis of data analytics you should obviously know Excel at this point, but I think just getting familiar with how to get the data initially.

Speaker 2: 23:20

We've talked about APIs before on this podcast, but I'm familiar with how to familiarize yourself using APIs and accessing APIs through Python and RStudio or any other really coding language that allows you to do that, and once you do that, I think that experience is best learned just by doing so.

Speaker 2: 23:42

I think it's just more so just setting aside time to play around with data and go into different websites. You can even go into LinkedIn. Linkedin has an API and you can even play around with the data you can get from LinkedIn itself. So I view it as more so using the set aside time and play around with it. Try to make some fun of it. Outside of work, I like to play around with fancy football data, so various sources like pro football reference. There's a couple other sites that have APIs on football data and advanced football data, and each one is slightly different as far as accessing their API, but once you get the data sent back to your device, it's all a matter of what you do as a next. So that's sort of my general advice for what we do and how I look at it.

Speaker 1: 24:42

It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's always easier to learn things when you make a concerted effort to just integrate it into your daily routine. So that's really great advice and we will wrap it up there. Thank you for that excellent overview, devin. For all the small businesses out there listening, please do start taking your data seriously, if you're not already. It really is something that is going to make or break the growth of your company, especially if you're looking to enter into the consulting space, if you're looking to work specifically with the DOD, getting an understanding of your data is paramount. Moving on, we'll jump into our sort of freestyle session that we have here. You know we're trying to have more of an open discussion at the end of these podcasts and just sort of have a sort of thought session around things that are interesting to us throughout the week that we've noticed or thoughts we've been sort of ruminating on in our free time, and I'll open the mic to all. You had a great point earlier. Love to hear your thoughts on that now.

Speaker 3: 26:07

Yeah, I've come across a couple of articles that we're talking about just how bosses and managers are fed up with employees working remotely. Like I said, I've seen conflicting stats on that out there or whatnot there. But you know, I can kind of see both points Well, obviously, like being the person that works remote now and everything, I can't see myself going back to going to an office every day. I feel like I can be productive, just productive outside of the office, as I'll be in the office when I know other people. They're working outside of the office. They need that office environment. They need that interaction with individuals in the office. They need that every day kind of water cooler talk, be able to walk directly across to someone's office and ask them a question or whether that may be For now, like we're talking about earlier, we have Microsoft Teams. That helps, you know, as far as, like you know, child people throughout the day, like I mean Devin. We should talk all the time. We're working on the same projects every day. It's like that's what I was working close, the closest with. That's how they're interacting with most on teams as far as that.

Speaker 3: 27:12

But part of me thinks that bosses want more control. They'll be able to control. You know where their money's going. You know, obviously employees they feel like you know I get this work done. You know where you can be five minutes to work, where you can be an hour to work, you're saving time, you're saving gas. You know some people are more comfortable working depending on if they have to be on camera all day or not, as far as what they're wearing. You know, some people might have to keep their kids at home when they're working and that's better for them because you know right now childcare is super expensive, like everything else going on in the world, so maybe they can save some money that way, you know.

Speaker 3: 27:54

So there's different things where it can affect everybody. I've seen different points, you know, like for younger workers. I think it's harder for them If they're first starting off, you know, working a remote job, then I've got office coming to you every day. I think it's hard for them to be able to put culture of the company hard for them to see, kind of like the work ethic of the company. Hard for them to see and pick up on, I guess, the way things are done within their company, how they can complete tasks, the processes for it be able to easily have a mentor. That's there. Obviously you can do things like teams and everything like that, but there's really that's probably where I see the place.

Speaker 3: 28:31

Where it affects someone the most is someone when they're first starting into the workplace. You know and they can understand what working in an office environment really is versus not. You know how it's different from a classroom setting, where I was different from, like studying for tests or whatever like that and like just the ways you go about it and the ways you can be professional in a workplace as well. There's that and there's learning, those different even like office politics that's out there and my health went to the ladies' land and how you can network through that one way or another. You know there's just a lot of learning things that I think the younger generation that's coming in and working more remote than not, where they are missing that part of the office environment because they're working remote.

Speaker 2: 29:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:21

I think that's a, as far as you know, new employees I think that's more so on the company just have a good structure in place for fostering new employees, and that's something that I wouldn't say we struggle with, but that's something where I think we're getting better with over the last year or two where, especially in like an online environment, you know it's kind of you know I get why bosses might feel that way, that they need to be more so micromanaging, or at least you know if everyone's in the office they could see everyone and they're there right away to help out if anyone needs any help. But I think I mentioned this to you guys earlier, but I think that's kind of ironic because I feel like Microsoft Teams allows you to be, you know, more big brother than you would be in the office. You know some companies are crazy and they track the amount of like, like, say, you're doing like per hour and things like that. You know we don't do that, but you know technology kind of enables us to do that. But at least you know on the company side, as far as, like, our processes go, I think something that's helped is that sort of splitting up.

Speaker 2: 30:31

You know who's managing who and you know starting to split up. You know the actual, like personnel management duties of the company, because that way, you know, you know we don't just have like one person looking over 30 people, we have, you know, five people looking over, you know three people each or something like that. Something where you know the responsibilities are sort of segmented, where, especially when, like, a new person comes in, you know that their sort of supervisor can, you know, look after them, you know, check in on them, sort of track what they're doing, like on their own, and not be so like you know, big brother. Micro managing tactics are used elsewhere and I think that's something that we're definitely doing right now. That's pretty good.

Speaker 1: 31:18

Yeah, and I feel like this argument, which has become surprisingly persistent, is kind of, in my opinion, done in bad faith by a lot of the more prominent talking heads out there. You keep hearing the same sort of outlets parroting these things, that you know the trials and tribulations of working from home compared to the traditional work structure Some variation on that appears basically on a weekly basis now through a lot of these outlets and I feel like you know obviously it's just my personal opinion A lot of that is probably is rooted in corporate greed. You know there's this undercurrent that I've discussed with you guys about of resentment when it comes to rents. In case in point, you can go to DC right now and it's never going to be what it was in downtown DC before the pandemic. It's, like you know, still, I think, around 40% occupancy for a lot of those office buildings and they're never expecting to get back to pre-pandemic levels and they're discussing, you know, refurbishing those into living spaces and I think that's, I think that is at the root of a lot of, you know, bosses ire is that they have, they're locked in these leases that they're not going to be able to get out of and they're just not going to be able to recoup those costs.

Speaker 1: 32:51

And then I think, you know, like you said before, terrell, I think it's a power, dynamic shift that nobody was prepared for. You know, there is something of a sort of an advantage that really settles in the bosses quote, unquote bosses corner when you're forcing people to come into this building and you're able to sort of you know hawk over their every move and control their time in a way that I think, while not probably necessary for productivity, is something that a lot of companies see as a cornerstone for maintaining control over their workforce. And you know, as the pandemic has shown and as a lot of political theorists have known for a long time, once you give some, once you give the people something, it's very difficult to take it away. That's just like the nature of human beings you can't give them something and then ask them to just give it away unilaterally.

Speaker 1: 34:07

So I think it's sort of a we're in the middle of this shift that I think is going to ultimately settle on the side of the worker, because, you know, the working class is only getting younger. Boomers are aging out of the workforce. Gen Z is, you know, millennials are set to be the new predominant force in there and then Gen Z is gonna come and then whatever is after them Gen Alpha, something like that and Gen Alpha is gonna have grown up with parents that work from home pretty much their whole life and they're in these corporate roles and they're not gonna expect any different in my, I think, I predict. So, you know, I think it's just a generational thing. That is ultimately the traditional structures, in my opinion, are just gonna die out on the vine.

Speaker 2: 34:58

Yeah, it's definitely a good point regarding you know us working from home now and you guys with kids seeing your kids are seeing what you're doing every day Versus. You know, when we are all growing up, you know I'm not working from home, you know she's massage therapist, but my dad, you know he'd for sure be gone. You know eight to four or nine to five every day for sure, and you guys probably all had the same thing. So that's definitely interesting.

Speaker 1: 35:24

All right, well, yeah, another great discussion. Guys, we'll be able to wrap it up there. Thank you for listening to the country intelligence support. Until next time. Thank you for listening to the country intelligence report. Please like and subscribe to stay on top of the latest developments with the show. For more information on the country intelligence group, please visit our website at wwwcountryintelcom. You can also be found across multiple social media platforms at countryintelcom.