Learning How to Code. Lesson 1: the decision

After years of working with early-stage and growth technology companies, I have decided to step into their world, understand the inner parts of software building.

It was a call that came as a measure against procrastination in the time of Coronavirus. A desire to keep my mind ticking over while the vast majority of the things I had focused on were shelved both at work and in my personal time.

I started with programming for data science, thus helping me answer questions which I had for years as I was analysing company performance, later moving to portfolio performance. It was a call to my nature, to question, challenge and think creatively.

Why Data Science?

The world is changing and most roles moving forward will have to have an element of programming, or being able to understand a lot more data than previous generations. It is this flow of data, whether we are looking and advertising campaign effectiveness or determining which channel to use to push a product to the market; or we are looking at benchmarking a portfolio of companies, and understanding our exposure.

The basic tools I was able to use in the past for those exercises have been limited to Excel. While you can do a lot with Excel, I think it has limitations, there are better ways to store, process and analyse data, never mind visualisation.

In determining what to start with I have followed the learning guidance and thought around how I could build on this moving forward.

What would stop me from developing my own applications to analyse portfolios or benchmark companies? What would stop me from creating my own applications, simplify my professional assessment of an investment or help me ascertain potential issues in a company faster?

The answer is really nothing, perhaps what only my own thinking about what can be learnt and built upon. The beauty with companies like Udacity is that you have the guidance from tutors, forums, the ability to practice which is what I wanted and be tested by professionals in that space. At this point in my development, I don’t just want theoretical knowledge, however important, I want to be able to answer real-life business questions.

In my view, the world is changing and we all must change with it. We need to wake up to a world where technology is helping us, freeing our ability to think creatively, to apply those analytical skills without being dragged down by tasks which computers can do instantly.