How About This presents Ray Harris

The data guy who's a Twitter guy who's all that and more

Aug 15, 2022

Welcome to Atlantic Canada Mondays, a regular feature of How About This where we interview interesting residents of the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador. Today we’re featuring Ray Harris (aka @RayDoesData on Twitter), founder of datawazo.com . Known for helping to bring COVID-19 data to New Brunswickers and other info of interest, we’re pleased to feature Ray today. Now over to Ray!

Why data as a career?

It's just such a fun way to learn about different subjects. You get a unique knowledge by understanding the data, how it gets accumulated and what to use it for. I love learning about new business and how they operate and this is the perfect way.

How did this all start?

in 2016 someone on Reddit posted to a sub asking for Tableau help. I put my name in, but they already found someone. A year later they followed up, out of the blue. Did that for a while and, simultaneously, really got tired of my job which was as a "soft skill" business analyst (requirements gathering, entity relationships).

So started to wonder if I could pursue this other journey in a way that was lucrative enough to do it full time. Four months later I had enough work to consider the prospect of quitting and moving into a full time freelance role.

What's one key thing about data and data analysis that you wish more people understood?

I think how easy it is to lie with data, and how we should go about trying to decipher and detect lies with data. Just because someone uses data, and that data is real, doesn't mean it isn't cherry picked, doesn't mean it's presented fairly with appropriate context.

I'm thinking of Chandler Bing when I ask this question: do your friends and family understand what you do for a living?

Pretty charts and dashboards are easy enough to understand and I think that much they get. But I know I lose the room when I start talking about cleaning data, or database management or KPI strategy sessions. They're supportive, absolutely, but definitely some content management efforts at play.

Does your work as an entrepreneur strike the right balance between terrifying and fun?

It can certainly hit the full range of emotion, but I imagine that's no different than any other job. It's cheesy, but a fitness instructor at the gym once said "there are millions of people in the world who would give anything to be where you are right now" and that has always stuck with me. No matter how bad or scary things can seem in the minutia, most of us are far, far more fortunate than many.

I take it most of your work is done remotely these days. Are you comfortable with remote working at this point?

My work has always been remote. I've probably had fewer than 20 in person work meetings in five years. I learned early on (2018) that work from home wasn't going to work for me. My wife would come home and I'd chase her around the house giving her the deep details of my 8 hours sitting at a desk.

So for four years I've had an office at Planet Hatch and work out of there. I just need that feeling of being somewhere outside of the house, going out and experiencing society. No judgement for those that love the wfh lifestyle but it's not for me.

Were you an active Twitter user prior to the start of the pandemic? It looks like you've been around for 13 years.

My handle used to be CanadasPredsFan and I participated primarily/exclusively in the Nashville Predators fan space. I sometimes feel bad for my old group of Preds Nation followers that are still hanging on while I've just about completely shifted to local content.

What led you to start posting graphs based on COVID-19 data on Twitter, and other analysis?

Selfishly: the dopamine of the engagement and the opportunity to help get exposure to the business.

Unselfishly: I think we're a smarter society when we take the time to understand the data that surrounds us. I think people are naturally curious and appreciate the opportunity to consume well organized data. So I have the skillset in the 2nd bullet point to help people with the 1st bullet point. And hopefully, those that choose to consume my data look for other opportunities to consume helpful data that will allow them to make smart decisions in their lives.

Do you find Twitter relatively sane and healthy at this point or are things still pretty unhinged, in your opinion?

It's still very unhinged. I actually have a harder time being on the platform everyday. It's so, so easy to fall into echo chambers and then just live in those echo chambers without any real ability to find an escape rope and get out.

You and your family sure seem to love cats. Any other pets?

No. We had two cats and we were planning on adding a dog this summer, a golden retriever. But both our cats passed suddenly (and somewhat youngly) over the winter. We didn't really want to add two kittens and a puppy simultaneously so we chose to get more cats first, and punt the puppy option down to a future year. My parents have a great golden right now anyway who is basically family.

Pretend you wake up one morning and the Internet has been destroyed. What's the first thing that you do?

Rest. Finally

Thanks to Ray for the interview!