Back by popular demand, we’ve updated our data nerd Gift Giving Guide to cap off 2021. We’ve kept some classics and added some new titles that are sure to put a smile on your data nerd’s face. Here are eight highly recommendable books to help you find that special gift. 🎁 📚 🤓
Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Lessons in Data-Driven Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI, by Randy Bean
How did we get here? Data industry legend Randy Bean answers this question and others as he tells the story of the rise of Big Data and its business impact – its disruptive power, the cultural challenges to becoming data-driven, the importance of data ethics, and the future of data-driven AI. This book is for any data leader looking to get the most out their data and their data teams.
You can purchase Fail Fast, Learn Faster here. Also check out this great conversation between DataKitchen Founder Chris Bergh and Randy Bean for the highlights.
Data Mesh: Delivering Data-Driven Value at Scale, by Zhamak Dehghani
This book is not available until January 2022, but considering all the hype around the data mesh, we expect it to be a best seller. In the book, author Zhamak Dehghani reveals that, despite the time, money, and effort poured into them, data warehouses and data lakes fail when applied at the scale and speed of today’s organizations. A distributed data mesh is a better choice.
The book will be available from O’Reilly Media here. If you can’t wait, check out this DataKitchen white paper, Build a Data Mesh Factory with DataOps.
Data Teams: A Unified Management Model for Successful Data-Focused Teams, by Jesse Anderson
If your data nerd leads a team of data nerds, big data projects, or aspires to one day, “Data Teams” is the book for them.👩🏻💼
Data Teams author Jesse Anderson – a data engineer, creative engineer, and managing director of the Big Data Institute – writes about running successful big data projects, resourcing teams, and how those teams should work with each other to be cost-effective. The magic sauce of this book lies in the three groups that Jesse outlines and dives into as necessary for data analytics projects to be successful (i.e., the data scientist, the engineer, and the operations engineer).
You can purchase Data Teams from its publisher site at Apress here. For a preview, we talked to Jesse Anderson in this webinar here.
Disrupting Data Governance: A Call to Action, by Laura B. Madsen
If your data nerd is all about bucking the status quo, Disrupting Data Governance is the book for them. 🗣️
The old adage “if ain’t broke don’t fix it” doesn’t apply to data governance. Author Laura B. Madsen posits that it is in fact broken and it’s long overdue for fixing. The book is written in her casual, witty style tapping into Madsen’s decades of experience, sharing interviews with other best-in-field experts, and is grounded in research. Like a Nicolas Sparks novel, see where it all fell apart, challenge long-held beliefs, and commit (to data governance).
You can purchase Disrupting Data Governance from its publisher site at Technics Publication here. For a preview, we had a great webinar with Laura here.
Practical DataOps: Delivering Agile Data Science at Scale, by Harvinder Atwal
If your data nerd is obsessed with the newest, coolest technology and what big companies tech firms are doing, Practical DataOps is the book for them. 📱⌚
Author Harvinder Atwal, a Chief Data Science Officer himself, offers a practical introduction to DataOps, a new discipline for delivering data science at scale inspired by practices at large tech companies like Facebook, Uber, LinkedIn, Twitter, and eBay. Data Science is more than just about models and algorithms – DataOps helps you to activate people, processes, and technological changes to deliver value from data.
You can purchase Practical DataOps from its publisher site Apress here. For a preview, check out our webinar with Harvinder here.
The DataOps Revolution: Delivering the Data-Driven Enterprise, by Simon Trewin
Hot off the press, The DataOps Revolution: Delivering the Data-Driven Enterprise by Simon Trewin is a narrative about real world issues involved in using DataOps to make data-driven decisions in modern organizations. The book is built around real delivery examples based on the author’s own experience and lays out principles and a methodology for business success using DataOps. Presenting practical design patterns and DataOps approaches, the book shows how DataOps projects are run and presents the benefits of using DataOps to implement data solutions.
You can purchase the book here. For more from the author, we sat down with Simon to talk about DataOps in Financial Services in early 2021.
Recipes for DataOps Success: The Complete Guide to An Enterprise DataOps Transformation
The sequel to the popular DataOps Cookbook, Recipes for DataOps Success provides practical advice for any organization looking to advance DataOps. Authors Chris Bergh, Eran Strod, and James Royster describe how data teams are using DataOps to transform their organizations for business agility. This book answers questions such as how do you build support for DataOps? How do you structure your team? And how do you transfer DataOps from a single team to the greater enterprise? While you fill your brain with some great tips, you can also fill your stomach with some of the new recipes included in this edition. 👨🍳
Currently only available in ebook format, you can get your free copy here.
The DataOps Cookbook: Methodologies & Tools That Reduce Analytics Cycle Time While Improving Quality
Now a popular classic, Authors Chris Bergh (CEO), Gil Benghiat (VP Product), and Eran Strod (Marketing Content Manager) of DataKitchen, a DataOps software and services provider (and full disclosure: the company writing this blog post), take you through understanding DataOps, its century-long evolution from pioneers like W. Edwards Deming and statistical process control, and how these ideas crossed into the technology space in the form of Agile, DevOps, and now DataOps. In addition to making DataOps a thing, The Data Ops Cookbook does actually in fact contain some recipes like chile mole, banana oatmeal bread, trail mix cookies, and vegan corn chowder to name a few. 👨🍳 🍽️ 🤤
You can purchase a Kindle version of The DataOps Cookbook to gift your data nerd from Amazon here.
Well, that’s a wrap on gift ideas for your data nerd! Hopefully, we’ve given you a few choices to make finding a gift for that someone special a little less stressful.
If you’re a data nerd and want to tell us about some great gifts you’ve gotten, feel free to reach out to us at marketing@www.datakitchen.io with subject line ‘Data Nerd Gift Ideas’ and we’d be happy to put them in a follow-up blog post.
