What’s Worth Your Time: Read, Watch, and Listen

reflection
data science
data analysis
resources
A curated list of data science, analysis, coding, tech-related, and miscellaneous work I’ve found to be useful and impactful
Author

Collin K. Berke, Ph.D.

Published

January 11, 2025

Photo by Cristina Gottardi

Motivation

We’re a week into 2025, and I thought this would be a perfect time for some reflection. Inspired by Tan Ho’s post, I felt compiling a non-exhaustive list of content I’ve enjoyed would be a valuable, useful exercise to kick off the new year. Rather than have these resources sit untouched in my bookmarks, I thought I’d share.

Below you will find sections containing curated lists of posts, videos, and other content I’ve found relevant to shaping how I view and approach my work. Much of the content is data science, analysis, technology, career development, and media industry related. Some links are just stuff I’ve found interesting.

Enjoy!

Data science, analysis, coding

  • Jenny Bryan: Project-oriented workflow, blog post (~15min read)
    • This is one of those pieces that was a paradigm shift in my thinking: self-contained projects. A simple idea with a major impact. In the past, my workflow would be a hodgepodge mess of errant scripts and files. The idea of using some simple conventions to allow my code to work on ‘another computer’ or in an ‘another environment’ was absent. Employing some of the post’s conventions increased my impact, as I was better positioned to share my work with others.
  • Jenny Bryan: Object of type ‘closure’ is not subsettable, YouTube video (53 mins)
    • If you work with the R programming language, this video is worth every minute. Learning how to debug code helps you more quickly identify where something is going wrong, determine what is going wrong, and come to a useful solution.
  • Emily Riederer: RMarkdown Driven Development (RmdDD), blog post (~20 min read)
    • RmdDD (now QmdDD for some) just works for analysis project development. A straightforward idea: get your entire process into one file, then refactor from there. This is how I generally approach most analysis projects now.
  • Sharla Gelfand: Don’t repeat yourself, talk to yourself! Reporting with R | RStudio(2020), YouTube video (21 mins)
    • The key takeaway: think of ways to incorporate structure into your projects that will be helpful the next time you have to complete something. This talk motivated me to be more intentional about project structure and to think about how this structure relates to the impact of my work. There’s power in being nice to your future self and others.
  • Emily Riederer: Building a team of internal R packages, blog post (~35 mins)
    • This post outlines a framework for the development of internal R packages. It frames internal package development as value adds when they act like work colleagues, as they can be helpful to pass along institutional knowledge to others. I aspire to align my internal package development with the suggestions in this post.
  • David Robinson: TidyTuesday live screencasts, YouTube videos (~45mins to ~1hr 15mins)
    • Although David Robinson hasn’t posted a screencast in some time, I still find great value in these, now older, videos. Just watching someone and hearing their thought process as they work to visualize TidyTuesday datasets has been super valuable. I’ve learned a lot from this great resource.
  • Colin Gillespie: Getting the Most Out of Git - posit::conf(2024), YouTube video (21 mins)
    • Despite this talk’s focus being about Git, I think there’s an even more general lesson shared here. That is, use only what’s needed for the type of project you’re working on and don’t fall into the trap of over burdening yourself and/or team with unneeded complexity. Git and platforms like GitHub have lots of functionality. Critical software is built using these tools, where their use is necessary. But, does my personal project need a DevOps strategy with fully automated testing and app deployment to be successful? Probably not. Can my team get some value from running a few automated tests when they submit a pull request? Maybe, as long as it doesn’t overburden them to get their work done. I struggle with finding the right balance here from time to time. This talk is a freeing reminder to use only what’s needed for the project.

Productivity and project development

  • Jenny Bryan: How to Name Files Like a Normie NormConf YouTube video (5 mins) and GitHub repo (10 mins)
    • Take five minutes to change your life forever. Regardless if you code or not, everyone who uses a computer needs to develop the skills for naming files. Incorporating some simple naming conventions can be a big productivity boost.
  • Hank Green: The Secret to My Productivity, YouTube video (4 mins). Thanks for sharing, Tan.
    • I came away with a simple takeaway from this video: get your projects to 80%, share it with the world, and move on to the next. Too often we fall into the trap of attempting to get things perfect. Although striving for perfection makes you feel productive, in reality it slows your ability to learn.

Management, leadership, and organizational culture

  • Emilie Schario & Taylor A. Murphy, PhD: Run Your Data Team Like a Product Team, blog post (~20 mins)
    • I like the framing this post uses to describe how to build and run a data organization. It posits two things data teams need to do to meet their full potential: focus on building a Data Product and view others within your organization as your customers. Indeed, I certainly don’t contend this will work for every data team, but I found it a useful vision for the work my team does.
  • JD Long: It’s Abstractions All the Way Down… - posit::conf(2023) YouTube recording (1hr 2mins)
    • This talk provided a clear framework to better understand where my work fits within a larger organization / network. Framing these ideas in terms of abstractions and providing thoughts on how to understand and work these abstractions has impacted how I approach and view the work within my organization.
  • Harvard Business Review: HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter, book (~$22).
    • Meetings are inevitable. In fact, you may be tasked with leading a meeting some time in your career. Some meetings move the needle, others could have been an email. Prepare yourself with some useful techniques to make meetings more impactful, useful.

Media industry specific (the industry I work in)

  • Decoder podcast, The Verge (1hr episodes)
    • If you’re interested in media or tech, this podcast is for you. Nilay Patel, the host, does a phenomenal job interviewing various CEOs and thought leaders in these industries. Listening to each episode has kept me up to date with the big trends and news happening in these spaces.

Potpourri

This section is a miscellaneous collection of stuff I’ve enjoyed but really doesn’t fit into the other categories.

  • Marketplace weekday radio show and podcast (~30 min episodes)
    • I like to keep up with business and economic news. Marketplace is an excellent, weekday collection of stories focused on these topics.
  • Planet Money, podcast (~30 min episodes) National Public Radio (NPR)
    • Understanding the complexities of the economy can be challenging. Planet Money helps put these topics into perspective.

Final thoughts

The above list is certainly not comprehensive of all the work I’ve found useful and impactful. Some content that has shaped my work and views is not included here. It will expand over time.

I hope you found at least one useful takeaway. If so, let’s connect and chat about it:

Here’s to a wonderful start to 2025. Cheers 🎉!

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Citation

BibTeX citation:
@misc{berke2025,
  author = {Berke, Collin K},
  title = {What’s {Worth} {Your} {Time:} {Read,} {Watch,} and {Listen}},
  date = {2025-01-11},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Berke, Collin K. 2025. “What’s Worth Your Time: Read, Watch, and Listen.” January 11, 2025.