Andrew Vega ⋅ The Colony, TX CGI ⋅ 14 years experience

Update on the Coursera course mentioned earlier:

There is now a Data Science track from John Hopkins. It is a more expansive set of courses. I took about 4 of the 6 courses and they were a good introduction into Data Science.

https://www.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/1?utm_medium=listingPage

Paul Trejo ⋅ Austin, TX University of Texas at Austin ⋅ 40 years experience

Timothy,

Possibly the fastest way into the field is through Sales and Marketing, where the need is always high and the turnaround is also high. Today's larger companies live and breathe Sales Reports in the form of "Pivot Tables." Become proficient in Pivot Tables and feature that on your resume. (Basically, pivot tables are statistical reports that can be sorted in dozens of different ways in the blink of an eye.)

A Pivot Table usually relies on a very large database of statistical data -- in this case Sales Data -- in the form of a special SQL database called a "Cube". Excel has a limited capacity for data representation, but a SQL database has no clear limit, as it is currently measured in terrabytes these days. When you need more data for your Excel Pivot Table, you simply return to your SQL Cube data source.

Become proficient in this -- it is not rocket science -- and then join a Sales Team in a large company -- the larger the better. Then have fun traveling the world on business. Best wishes and many thanks for your service.

Best regards,
--Paul Trejo

Angela Meisman ⋅ Rapid City, SD General Electric ⋅ 10 years experience

We here at GE Capital have a number of positions open that may interest you from Technology & Data Support to Modeling and Developing. If you would like more information please let me know.

Peter Hsu ⋅ Atlanta, GA AT&T ⋅ 3 years experience

I'd give data science another look before moving on. The difference between someone who does BI and a data scientist these days seems to be 1) the latter understands has basic programming capabilities, and 2) makes 50% more. You already have #1, you just have to decide whether #2 appeals to you.

These days, companies are looking for people who have basic dba skills, can run native queries against a data warehouse, and have the business acumen to ask and present answers to the right questions. They're calling these folks data scientists and they are paying crazy salaries to attract them.

Here's a fun coursera course that went through the basics of data science: https://class.coursera.org/datasci-001/class

Josh Tayloe ⋅ New York, NY ⋅ 8 years experience

Timothy,

It is definitely a field with huge potential just beginning to take shape. Learning those programs will put you in a great position over the next decade (even if you don't want to only crunch numbers).

I am not sure what your current situation is or what you are interested in, so am a bit in the dark, but a couple thoughts that you may not hear from everyone else:

1) Identify companies that should have this, but don't. Likely smaller to mid-sized. Send a letter with some specific suggestions that they will want to look at to drive revenues or reduce costs. Takes some effort, but highly rewarding if you can justify the creation of a job tailored to you at a company you are excited about. (Or, may result in a nice consulting project.) For example, going to a POS provider that can pass along an extra service to restaurants that helps predict customers/sales for a given week, etc. All sorts of examples of these situations on local/regional levels.

2) MIT does an annual(?) sports conference that focuses on the intersection of big data and sports. If this is something you are into and able to attend, could be a great place to get a foot in the door. Link: http://www.sloansportsconference.com/

Josh

Tom Cal, CFA ⋅ San Francisco, CA Army Veteran, Investment Manager ⋅ 25 years experience

see:
https://acp-advisornet.org/questions/topic/business-intelligence

https://acp-advisornet.org/question/1052/how-do-i-make-a-career-transition-into-business-intelligences/p1