[Ben Ettlinger]

Thanks. Sorry again, but I was out on vacation until yesterday.

 

Ben

 

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Original Message:
Sent: 10/1/2021 10:17:00 AM
From: Leslie Cook
Subject: Recap & Action Items: September 29 EAC Meeting

Hello UAI EAC Members,

Thank you for attending the September 29, 2021 UAI Executive Advisory Council (EAC) meeting. It was a pleasure to reconnect with you. We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to join us for our September meeting and for the thoughtful input you provided during our discussions. Thank you!

I also look forward to quickly reconnecting with you all again on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM CT for our in-person EAC meeting during UA Week (which will also be offered virtually for those that cannot travel).

Please find below a recap of our discussions and the action items that we need to accomplish before Friday, October 8, 2021. Action items are highlighted in yellow below.

Please find the recording of the September 29, 2021 EAC meeting and a PDF version of the slide deck in the EAC Library. 

UAI Executive Advisory Council Meeting NOTES
September 29, 2021

 Items highlighted in yellow are action items.

AGENDA

• UAI Updates
• Update from SAB Discussions
• EAC Discussion
• Informal Open Discussion

UAI UPDATES

• New Member Welcome
  • We welcomed the following new Utility Members: CLP Hong Kong and PSEG
  • We welcomed the following new Solution Provider Members: Guidehouse and Publicis Sapient
• 2021 Meeting Schedule
  • 2021 Quarterly Virtual Schedule
    • Wednesday, March 31 at 12:00 PM CT
    • Wednesday, June 30 at 12:00 PM CT
    • Wednesday, September 29 at 12:00 PM CT
    • Wednesday, December 15 at 12:00 PM CT
• 2021 In-Person Schedule – UA Week in Dallas, TX
  • SAB & EAC Dinner: October 12, 2021, from 6:00 – 7:30 PM CT at Old Hickory
  • EAC Meeting: October 13, 2021, from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM CT in San Saba 1 (ACTION ITEM: We are offering a live stream of this meeting. If you cannot travel to Dallas, please join us virtually. Make sure this is on your calendar with a Teams meeting link)
  • Member Lunch: October 13, 2021 from 12:00 – 1:30 PM CT
• UAI Events
  • We provided an update on the following events:
    • UA Week In-Person | Grapevine, TX | October 13-15 – UAI is offering a live stream of the breakout sessions during UA Week. Register for UA Week Virtual to get access to the link for the live streaming of the in-person event!
    • Smart Utility Summit | Ponte Vedra, FL | November 7-9^th
    • T&D World Black Sky Hazards & Grid Resilience | Virtual | Nov 16-17^th
    • UA Week Virtual | December 8-9^th
•  Training
  • We provided an update on Utility Analytics 101
  • Learn more about training and register at https://training.utilityanalytics.com 
• Excellence Awards Finalists
  • We thanked our phase 1 and phase 2 award judges
  • We announced our 2021 UAI Awards finalists in the following categories:
    • Best Utility Analytics Professional
    • Best Utility Analytics Leader
    • Best Innovative Utility Analytics Team
  • We shared that we will recognize our finalists and announce our winners on December 9, 2021, during the Virtual UA Week event, including winners in these additional categories:
    • Analytics Ambassador
    • Community Engagement Awards
      • Most Engaged Individual
      • Most Engaged Utility
    • Top 25 Thought Leaders in Utility Analytics
• New Content/Research
  • We shared recently published member-only research, public content, and member-only research that is coming soon

UPDATE FROM SAB DISCUSSIONS

• The SAB is doing a final review and will soon approve the SAB charter. We will share it with the EAC once final is approved
• We discussed what is next for UAI Training
• We launch the UAI Training & Membership Sub-committees – ACTION ITEM: Please volunteer to participate on one of these sub-committees. We will get them up and running in Q4 2021. 

EAC DISCUSSION

• During this discussion, we asked the EAC what they would like to discuss during the October 13 EAC meeting in Dallas? What’s on the top of your mind? Let’s get a list of 3 to 4 topics to take a deep dive on during the October 13 EAC meeting
• The EAC came up with the following topics. ACTION ITEM: I (Leslie) will be sending out a poll to rank these topics by priority for our October 13 discussion:
  • The state of adoption of analytics in utilities; what are the different strategies being used? Is a central model or a distributed model more effective? What is the funding mechanism around the various analytics project? Capital vs expense challenges? 
  • How many utilities engage data scientists beyond the utility analyst role? 
  • What tools are people using and how is it working? What is going on with AWS, Azure, Google, etc.? 
  • Data Engineering vs. Data Science (data side vs. data science side); Are we seeing a merger of these roles or are they still separate roles? Within smaller utilities, what is a core skill set that we should be looking or if we can’t separate the data engineer role from the data scientist role and analyst? 
  • How do you establish a good data governance policy for data to be foundational within the organization? 
  • Resource Constraints in Analytics; How are utilities prioritizing items or moving forward with a specific strategy with limited resources? What are the analytics costs and benefits models being adopted? 
  • What are the options/structures for ongoing product support post-deployment: MLOps, DevOps?
  • Hiring and retaining data scientists for a successful career at a utility? 
  • Data privacy and security; How are utilities handling? How do you embed a security mindset within analytics roles?  
  • UAI Training – What’s next? What need does UAI need to fill after Utility Analytics 101? If UAI delivered a UA 201 and 301, what would these training courses include and who would we target?

Thanks!
Leslie Cook

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Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
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[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Good morning, EAC members!

I hope your week is off to a great start! Please remember to perform the action items from last week’s meeting. I have included the action items below for your reference. Also included at the bottom of this message is the poll results for our October 13 EAC meeting as of end of day Monday, October 4. The poll will close on Friday, October 8, so please take the poll under number 1 below. 

EAC ACTION ITEMS: 

1. Please prepare for the October 13 EAC meeting discussion!
   • I look forward to quickly reconnecting with you all again on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM CT for our in-person EAC meeting during UA Week (which will also be offered virtually for those that cannot travel).  
   • Please take our poll to rank by priority the discussion topics that were shared during the September meeting for our October meeting – Take the poll by Friday, October 8, 2021.  Direct link to the poll: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LHBZRQS.
2. We are launching the Membership & Training Sub-Committees – We need EAC member volunteers on these two sub-committees.
   • Please reply to this discussion post or send a note to me directly at lcook@utilityanalytics.com to volunteer for one of these sub-committees.
   • Your knowledge, experience, and expertise is needed on these sub-committees! 
3. UA Week breakout sessions and Community Conversations taking place in Dallas, Texas between October 13-15, 2021 are being live streamed!
   • To get access to the link or the live stream, you need to register for the UA Week Virtual event taking place on December 7-9, 2021
   • Register at https://www.utilityanalyticsweek.com/  

​
Thanks to all for your focus on these action items. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,
Leslie

POLL RESULTS as of 10/4/21 – last response to poll:

1. The state of adoption of analytics in utilities; what are the different strategies being used? Is a central model or a distributed model more effective? What is the funding mechanism around the various analytics project? Capital vs expense challenges? – 7.86
2. Data Engineering vs. Data Science (data side vs. data science side); Are we seeing a merger of these roles or are they still separate roles? Within smaller utilities, what is a core skill set that we should be looking or if we can’t separate the data engineer role from the data scientist role and analyst? – 7.43
3. How do you establish a good data governance policy for data to be foundational within the organization? – 7.00
4. What tools are people using and how is it working? What is going on with AWS, Azure, Google, etc.?  6.86
5. Resource Constraints in Analytics; How are utilities prioritizing items or moving forward with a specific strategy with limited resources? What are the analytics costs and benefits models being adopted? – 6.29
6. Hiring and retaining data scientists for a successful career at a utility? – 5.29
7. What are the options/structures for ongoing product support post-deployment: MLOps, DevOps? – 4.29
8. How many utilities engage data scientists beyond the utility analyst role? – 4.00
9. Data privacy and security; How are utilities handling? How do you embed a security mindset within analytics roles? – 3.29
10. UAI Training – What’s next? What need does UAI need to fill after Utility Analytics 101? If UAI delivered a UA 201 and 301, what would these training courses include and who would we target? – 2.71

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Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
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