Day two of my training was all about Pig, which is a scripting language for exploring data sets.
Here is a list of a few topics we covered today:
We also worked on a few examples covering clickstream and stock market data.
I’m starting to realize how much there really is to learn here. We’re cramming a lot of information into each session, but I think this is the best way to get some experience with it.
I decided it is finally time to jump in and start looking at Hadoop. I’d originally scheduled for Windows version of the class, but it was cancelled so I switched to the Apache version. At this point, I really wish I’d kept up with Linux commands…
Some of the topics we have discussed so far:
I’m taking the Hortonworks official training since they are a Microsoft partner. One thing that is a little odd is that I am the only one in my classroom. Everyone else (about 15) are in different cities/offices. I really set up with combination of cameras and WebEx. It seems to work well, at least so far. The learning facilitator is top notch as well. Definitely not his first time teaching the course.
Lots to learn with Hadoop and I am hoping this course will help me get up and running.
Slow start to the meeting for attendance, but it looks like this was due to a lot of traffic around the mall. Good turnout after a slow start – I counted 52. This month’s sponsor is Nebula Partners. Thanks for sponsoring the meeting and the food!
Teo Lachev
This month we have Javier Guillén from BlueGranite. Javier is presenting “The Emotional factor in BI Solutions” which should be an interesting topic that is often overlooked. Javier has a background in psychology and applied some of those principles to his projects. Someone asked how to apply some of these while working remote. Javier replied that is why he meets in person frequently. Great presentation and nice discussion afterwards. Check this presentation out if you have a chance.
Javier Guillén
Before the meeting, there was some discussion about volunteering with the group and some roles. More importantly, some discussion about moving from pizza every meeting and giving something else a try. Lots of factors here to consider:
Any ideas? if so, I’d like to hear them. It’s turned out to be a little more complicated than just switching to something else.
So, finally ready to discuss my 2014 goals…
Certification
Status: Pass, 1 exam left for MCSE, just need to get it knocked out. I am still prepping for Tableau Desktop and Hortonworks Certified Apache Hadoop 2.0 Developer.
Projects
Status: Pass, Hard to measure, but all projects are in good shape and met all deadlines.
Healthcare VC:
Status: Pass, We had a good run last year and have had a few months off. Jumping back in this month and really need to get it where we want/expect it to be.
SQL Events/Training:
Status: Pass, I attended 1 SQLSaturday (Nashville) and the PASS BA Conference in the spring. Normally, with formal training this year I would say this is a failure, but I was able to learn a lot on my own in many new areas.
Learn something new:
Status: Pass, this started slowly , but I’ve spent most of my time lately with R, Tableau and Hadoop. Still need to look at BIML more.
Blog:
Status: Fail. Not nearly enough posts. I’ll try again in 2015.
Technical Books:
Status: Pass. I lost count of many I read which is a good thing, but need to start doing some reviews of those.
Review Yearly Goals:
Status: Fail. I stopped looking by mid year.
So, not good but not bad either. I had a great year, but really fell short with blogging and speaking. I’m trying to find a better way to quantify my goals for 2015. Maybe I need a Dashboard and Metrics…