The magic word for family-serving organizations I recently mentioned to someone how I believe that building your data capacity and being able to tell the story of your impact can help your organization get more funding. He perked up, wrote down “funding” on his paper, and underlined it twice. I chuckled and asked, “Did I say the magic word?” But
When I was updating my website recently, I came across a post I wrote when my daughter was a newborn, talking about the metrics that were relevant to me at the time. It listed things like how many ounces she was eating at a time, how little sleep we got each night, and how many times we had to put
10 things I’ve learned in 10 years of business Everyone loves a countdown post, right? As I recently celebrated 10 years of being in business, it felt fitting to count down the top 10 things I’ve learned over the years! The past 10 years have been an amazing, winding journey, and I’m so grateful to be able to reflect on
“I couldn’t have put it better myself…” We all know how powerful a startling statistic can be. Maybe you’ve seen a PowerPoint presentation where there is just a huge number on the slide or a newspaper headline that highlights the stark realities of a situation. Remember the New York Times’ cover early on in the pandemic that shared the tragedy
How can we measure 2021? Over the past few months, we’ve been playing a lot of music for our baby girl, to keep her entertained (mostly because Mommy and Daddy sing and dance around the house like fools) and to help lull her to sleep. We may not be helping her get along with her future peers, but for now,
A sleep-deprived perspective on data tracking I’m back from maternity leave! I’ve always had great admiration for parents and caregivers, and after almost two months with a newborn, that respect has grown ten-fold! Parenting (especially without much sleep) is tough work. While I was out, I had a few discussions with data-minded colleagues and read some articles about tracking data
A gut check While I am lucky that I get to consult with schools and districts in their work with families, it isn’t often that I get to engage with students and families directly (especially since COVID derailed my weekly mentoring sessions at a high school here in Columbus). So I was especially delighted this week, when, through my part-time
Preparing for Another Uncertain School Year I think we had all hoped that after two school years disrupted by COVID-19, the 2021-2022 school year could be a return to “normal.” Yet with the Delta variant surging throughout the country and children under 12 still unvaccinated, it’s becoming clear that educators and families are in for another year of uncertainty. The
Reframing data analysis as meaning-making This summer on the Engage with Data blog, I’m exploring different ways to answer the question: “So what?” My goal is to remind us of the human element of data — we are in the field of student and family engagement, after all! But I do get it – data analysis can be a pretty
Summarize, visualize, analyze In my last post, I asked for feedback about what you’d like to learn about in our summer of figuring out the “so what?” of our data. To my amusement, a longtime colleague and friend replied to my LinkedIn post with the following topic: “How to turn raw data into meaningful information to make decisions. AKA how
