Do you really need to document everything? Those who say that there is no such thing as a stupid question might be reconsidering their position right about now. Of course we need to document everything! Perhaps my reluctance stems from my hatred of technical writers. If you are a tech writer and are a decent…
I went to the Western Users of SAS Software conference last week and came home sad. It wasn’t for the reasons you’d guess. No one sexually harassed me (as if!). I did not forget how to code a confirmatory factor analysis in the middle of the pre-conference class I was teaching. The other statisticians didn’t…
You wouldn’t think there would be that much to say about scree plots. That is because you are like me and sometimes wrong. The problem I often have teaching is that I assume people know a lot more than is reasonable to expect for someone coming into a course. Sometimes, I’m like a toddler who…
I find this scree plot of eigenvalues very helpful in identifying the number of factors. A scree plot is a plot of the eigenvalues by the factor number. I realized this is only helpful if one understands what an eigenvalue is. First of all, go way back to Stat 101 & remember that correlation is…
Start-ups are all about buzzwords – innovation! disrupt! billion! We’re going to disrupt the something something something with our innovation that will bring us a billion dollars! Hurray! VCs , give me money! That all sounds really good until it’s you that’s being disrupted. We’re part of the Boom Startup Ed Tech accelerator for twelve…
I certainly understand how you could think that all CEOs are rude and all investors are assholes but it’s really not quite that simple. This occurred to me today as for the 4th (or was it 5th?) time in a row, I told someone talking to me that I had to go because I had…
First, the big, exciting news, if you have not heard it – we are one of EIGHT COMPANIES IN THE WORLD selected to be part of the Boom Startup Accelerator for Educational Technology. Can you tell that I’m super-excited about this? At lunch today, for the second time in two days, someone asked me what…
Just finished the second week of the Boom Startup Ed Tech accelerator, which is GREAT. I am learning a lot and plan on working insane hours for the next few months to put it all into practice. We have had to answer a lot of legitimately hard questions about cash flow analysis, burn rate, user…
A few months ago, in between everything else in my life, I had been working on applications for accelerators and an executive summary for investors. While money is always a good thing, I was surprised by the unexpected benefits. The questions asked by investors are the same ones you should be asking yourself. If you…
I read this in a review of a study on teacher expectancy effects but it could really apply to so many other studies. If these results bear any relationship at all to reality, it is indeed a fortunate coincidence. Those of us who choose careers in research like to believe that it is all like…