[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Hi @Daniel, I forwarded the meeting placeholder to you.

Thanks!
Leslie​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 02-02-2022 14:14
From: Daniel McCrobie
Subject: Upcoming February (2022) Community Conversation

No placeholder meeting L

 

Original Message:
Sent: 2/2/2022 2:01:00 PM
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: Upcoming February (2022) Community Conversation

Hello Customer Analytics Community Members,

I hope all is well! We are one week away from our February (2022) Customer Analytics Community Conversation and want to get you excited about the session taking place. On Tuesday, February 8th at 11:00 AM CT, we’ll be joined by Community Sponsor Jeff Yankley, Director of Customer Insights & Analytics at Consumers Energy, who will be leading a discussion around, “Reduce Opt-outs and Customer Fatigue with Next Best Offer Modeling.” As this discussion will be interactive, we encourage you to come prepared with questions and your insight.

Learn more about this session and our speaker below!

Session Description:

During this session, Jeff will present a Next Best Offer recommender model that advises what products or services would be best suited for their customers at any given point in time. This recommender model helps Consumers Energy reduce the amount of confusing communications they have with their customers by providing the right message to the right customer at the right time in the right channel.

Speaker: Jeff Yankley, Director of Customer Insights & Analytics (Consumers Energy)

Jeff Yankley is the Director of Director of Customer Intelligence & Analytics at Consumers Energy. In this role, Jeff works to mature the customer analytics and data science capabilities at Consumers Energy to enable value by connecting operational data to customer data, building predictive models for customer interactions, and knowing our customers so well to be able to build segments of “one”. The goal is to deliver the right product, to the right customer, in the right channel, at the right time, with the right message. 

Jeff has spent 20+ years in the Information Technology field as a programmer, analyst, and in various leadership positions. He’s gone from developing solutions that gather data to being able to deliver the customer heartbeat and what it means to Consumers Energy.

Jeff has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

He enjoys reading, golfing, tinkering with cars, and home improvement projects.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A calendar placeholder for this community conversation was sent out via my alternate email address (kpraet@sg.utilityanalytics.com). If you are not seeing a placeholder on your calendar for Tuesday, February 8th at 11:00 AM CT, please reach out to me so I can be sure you are forwarded the invite an alternate way.

Thanks and I look forward to connecting next week!

——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Hello Data Science Community Members,

Please find answers to your unanswered questions from yesterday’s session below. 

Unanswered Questions:

• Do you pay special attention to color theory when presenting items? If so, is there a tried and true resources for color theory (Similar to how a journalist may choose MLA or AP Formatting when writing)?
  • I really don’t but I’m also not a designer. One thing I probably didn’t make clear enough in my presentation is that there is a whole team of designers behind the stories I presented. We worked closely together and every storyboard and text and pitch and draft was shared with me. We would also talk about graphic styles that would best fit the story or sometimes when I did the storyboarding, a concept emerged with it that would then be discussed – it was a very collaborative process.
  • Today I mostly do this work for businesses and helping them with pitch decks and I’m typically tied to corporate colours but I do manage to convince people to use highlighting colours if there is something they want to use to make a point, i.e. with a line chart with multiple data points. I also partner with a designer for this kind of work (we share an office!) and it also makes the creation process more fun.
  • As for resources – check out the links from DataWrapper’s Lise Charlotte Muth that I sent – (she’s even writing a book on the topic! https://datawrapper.notion.site/Color-Book-Updates-54905c2bd0bb4c6bae15d99e31a9d5c4) 
  • Otherwise I am not the authority you seek on this topic.

• Do you have any thoughts on opportunities or challenges associated with visualization applications such as Power BI or Tableau?

  • I think it’s the same as any data visualization – or any information we receive! – being able to understand and correctly interpret the data is key to its success and its biggest potential pitfall. Sometimes when we make it too easy to see “everything at a glance” like a lot of these data dashboard, we also make it too easy for quick takes that may tell us WHAT’s happening, but it’s not insightful if we don’t know WHY it’s happening or HOW it’s happening. We have to remember our own biases when interpreting information and how that can lead us to wrong assumptions.  That being said, if you are able to see causation correlation between a couple of data sets in one place, that can be a pretty amazing insight for your business. 

• What are some of your favorite fonts?
  • hahaha – I’m not a designer ;-) but I am a pretty big fan of the Adelle font, which I use for my slides. I also really like to consider design elements in how they fit into the story, including font selection if you have the freedom.

Thanks again for all your questions during yesterday’s session. I hope these answers help. 

Cheers!

     Leslie

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-18-2022 16:25
From: Leslie Cook
Subject: January 18 Unanswered Questions and Speaker Resources

Hello Data Science Community Members,

We enjoyed a great presentation today on “Storytelling with Data” by Sabine Devins! We had a lot of Q&A at the end of the session, which produced some good resources from our speaker as well as from members. I included these resources below. I also included the questions we did not have time for during the session. Our speaker, Sabine, is reviewing these questions and I will provide her answers soon (I’ll reply to this thread with answers). Thanks so much for joining us today!

Unanswered Questions:

1. Do you pay special attention to color theory when presenting items? If so, is there a tried and true resources for color theory (Similar to how a journalist may choose MLA or AP Formatting when writing)?
2. Do you have any thoughts on opportunities or challenges associated with visualization applications such as Power BI or Tableau?
3. What are some of your favorite fonts?

Resources asked about during the session and supplied by our Speaker, Sabine: 

• The storytelling platform is here: https://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/“ title=”https://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/” href=”https://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank” tabindex=”-1″>https://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/
• Here is the link to what remains of the online magazine: INFO.GRAPHICShttps://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/
• You can create scroll-a-ble presentations in software like Adobe InDesign
• You can mimic the scroll effect with software like Prezi, Pitch or Slides (or even PowerPoint if you know what you’re doing 😉)
• But there are web-publishing software that will work with templates like:
  • Webflow: Create a custom website | No-code website builderhttps://webflow.com/
  • https://www.pageflow.io/en/
• Lisa’s blog posts on colors!
  • https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorguide/
  • https://blog.datawrapper.de/beautifulcolors/
  • And a more in-depth article on this: What to consider when choosing colors for data visualization

Members also shared resources during this session. Please find these items listed below. 

• There are color codes for color blind: Two Simple Steps to Create Colorblind-Friendly Data Visualizations | by CR Ferreira | Towards Data Science
• https://plotly.com“ title=”https://plotly.com/” href=”https://plotly.com/” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank” tabindex=”-1″>https://plotly.com: They have both free version (local dev) and Enterprise version as well (paid)

Cheers!

     Leslie

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Hi @Dan – Thanks for reaching out. We are working on preparing the recording now and will post it in the Data Science Community Library within the next day or so. @Kevin will post a message in the Data Science Community Discussion Forum to announce when the recording and other resources have been posted. I hope this helps.

Thanks!
   
     Leslie ​​​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-19-2022 11:21
From: Dan Carlson
Subject: January 18 Unanswered Questions and Speaker Resources

Leslie,

 

I couldn’t attend this one due to a conflict but I would like to review it if it was recorded.  Is there a link available to a recording?  I tried to find it on the UAI site but I wasn’t successful – maybe I didn’t know where to look.

 

Thanks,

 

Dan

 

 

 

Dan Carlson

Manager, Special Projects – Customer Service Strategy & Transformation

WEC Energy Group — Business Services

 

920.433.5785

Daniel.Carlson@wecenergygroup.com

 

Serving WEC Energy Group, We Energies, Wisconsin Public Service, Michigan Gas Utilities, Minnesota Energy Resources, Peoples Gas, North Shore Gas, Upper Michigan Energy Resources and Bluewater Gas Storage

 

Original Message:
Sent: 1/18/2022 4:25:00 PM
From: Leslie Cook
Subject: January 18 Unanswered Questions and Speaker Resources

Hello Data Science Community Members,

We enjoyed a great presentation today on “Storytelling with Data” by Sabine Devins! We had a lot of Q&A at the end of the session, which produced some good resources from our speaker as well as from members. I included these resources below. I also included the questions we did not have time for during the session. Our speaker, Sabine, is reviewing these questions and I will provide her answers soon (I’ll reply to this thread with answers). Thanks so much for joining us today!

Unanswered Questions:

1. Do you pay special attention to color theory when presenting items? If so, is there a tried and true resources for color theory (Similar to how a journalist may choose MLA or AP Formatting when writing)?
2. Do you have any thoughts on opportunities or challenges associated with visualization applications such as Power BI or Tableau?
3. What are some of your favorite fonts?

Resources asked about during the session and supplied by our Speaker, Sabine: 

• The storytelling platform is here: https://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/“ title=”https://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/” href=”https://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank” tabindex=”-1″>https://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/
• Here is the link to what remains of the online magazine: INFO.GRAPHICShttps://app.visualpedia.igg.cloud/
• You can create scroll-a-ble presentations in software like Adobe InDesign
• You can mimic the scroll effect with software like Prezi, Pitch or Slides (or even PowerPoint if you know what you’re doing 😉)
• But there are web-publishing software that will work with templates like:
  • Webflow: Create a custom website | No-code website builderhttps://webflow.com/
  • https://www.pageflow.io/en/
• Lisa’s blog posts on colors!
  • https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorguide/
  • https://blog.datawrapper.de/beautifulcolors/
  • And a more in-depth article on this: What to consider when choosing colors for data visualization

Members also shared resources during this session. Please find these items listed below. 

• There are color codes for color blind: Two Simple Steps to Create Colorblind-Friendly Data Visualizations | by CR Ferreira | Towards Data Science
• https://plotly.com“ title=”https://plotly.com/” href=”https://plotly.com/” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank” tabindex=”-1″>https://plotly.com: They have both free version (local dev) and Enterprise version as well (paid)

Cheers!

     Leslie

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Hello UAI Members,

Happy New Year! I wish you all a healthy, happy, and prosperous 2022! I am replying to our “Introduce Yourself” thread, because we gained quite a few new members on UAI Connect during 2021. I want to give our new and, of course, our current members an opportunity to share more about themselves, so we can get to know each other better as a community. I want to not only make this forum a place for work and professional connections to take place on a daily basis, a place to ask each other questions, find answers and exchange knowledge and share information, I want to make it a fun environment to help us all de-stress, get to know each other a little better, and build bonds and friendships of a lifetime.

One of the coolest things about the UAI community is seeing members make connections with one another-it’s incredible to watch personal and professional relationships and friendships begin, grow, evolve, and last. The more relationships that are built between us and the more we get to know each other, the more valuable our work exchanges will become. We open up, we share more, we learn more and we all become so much better together!

Our community gets bigger every day. Many of you already know one another, while others are brand-new faces. Everyone please take time to introduce yourself:

• Share your name
• Where you’re from
• How long you’ve worked in utility analytics
• I also encourage you to share non-invasive personal tidbits about yourself, i.e. what you like to do for fun, your hobbies, your pet peeves, or even your favorite memes, of course keeping it in good taste. Share things that will help us all get to know you better

I think it is important to have a little fun while we work and enjoy each other’s company. Please, use the Ask Your Network discussion forum as a place to work hard and play hard, enjoy, laugh, and have some fun.

Please reply to this discussion post to introduce yourself. Give a little of yourself and you will be surprised at how much you get in return through your valuable, purpose-built relationships via UAI.

Stay safe and healthy!

Cheers!
   
      Leslie

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 03-18-2020 10:38
From: Leslie Cook
Subject: Introduce Yourself

Hello UAI Members,

I’m excited to try something new on UAI’s Member-Only Community. I want to not only make this forum a place for work and professional connections to take place on a daily basis, a place to ask each other questions, find answers and exchange knowledge and share information, I want to make it a fun environment to help us all de-stress, get to know each other a little better, and build bonds and friendships of a lifetime.

One of the coolest things about the UAI community is seeing members make connections with one another-it’s incredible to watch personal and professional relationship and friendships begin, grow, evolve, and last. The more relationships that are built between us and the more we get to know each other, the more valuable our work exchanges will become. We open up, we share more, we learn more and we all become so much better together!

Our community gets bigger every day. Many of you already know one another, while others are brand-new faces. I feel like it’s time that we (both new members and established ones) take a little time to introduce ourselves.

• Share your name
• Where you’re from
• How long you’ve worked in utility analytics
• I also encourage you to share non-invasive personal tidbits about yourself, i.e. what you like to do for fun, your hobbies, your pet peeves, or even your favorite memes, of course keeping it in good taste. Share things that will help us all get to know you better

I think it is important to have a little fun while we work and enjoy each other’s company. Please, use the UAI Member-Only Community as a place to work hard and play hard, enjoy, laugh, and have some fun.

I’ll kick us off, and please know you can include as much or little detail in your introduction. I’m wordy, so I went all out:

I’m Leslie, UAI’s membership & digital engagement manager. I’ve been with UAI for almost five months and I’m passionate about connecting members who share similar interests and challenges, and providing them with benefits, experiences, and tools they need to solve their problems and improve their organizations. I enthusiastically joined UAI to help improve and evolve the UAI membership value, as well as manage UAI’s collection of Communities. I am a strategic program director, dynamic business leader, and expert facilitator with over 20 years of experience. To learn even more about my professional work or to connect with me, visit my profile on UAI’s member-only site or LinkedIn. Please reach out to me directly at any time if you have questions or need anything from UAI. I can be reached at lcook@endeavorb2b.com or 646-693-5965.

I’m a Texas girl at heart, born and raised in a small town in north Texas, and then I headed out west to graduate from Texas Tech University (Go Red Raiders!). After school I moved to Colorado and I’ve lived all along the front range for the last 22 years, settling in Denver for the last six years, and I still have a Texas accent (You can take the girl out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas accent out of the girl!). I’ve been married to my best friend from high school for 17 years, and we have two amazingly intelligent miniature Australian Shepherds, Indio and Charley, who keep us busy.

When I’m not working, I can be found traveling the world. We have been to 11 countries so far and we hope to continue to expand our adventures. I also like to leverage my high attention to detail and project management skills when dabbling in home remodeling and interior design. I come up with crazy design schemes and my patient husband implements my ideas, doing all the skilled and hard labor work. We are now close to the end of a complete remodel of our 1952 house. I cannot wait to be done with this project that has taken us about three years to complete…I can almost see the light!

I am truly excited to get to know ALL UAI’s members, so please reply to this discussion post to introduce yourself. Give a little of yourself and you will be surprised at how much you get in return through your valuable, purpose-built relationships via UAI.

Like I said, I have only been with UAI for about five months, but I’m already having so much fun and learning a lot from all of you! We have a lot of positive updates coming soon and we are evolving, with your input, to better meet your needs and goals, and I can’t wait to share these things with you. You must stay tuned into UAI’s Member-Only Community to learn more within the next few months. We will also be announcing some new things and some updates during the unique and exciting event we have coming in June 2020, UA Summit Reimagined!

Introduce yourself, learn more about others, and connect through UAI!

Stay safe and healthy,

     Leslie

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
646-693-5965, lcook@endeavorb2b.com
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thanks for allowing UAI to feature you as our January 2022 Member Spotlight, @Mario and thank you for everything you do for the UAI Community! I loved reading your interview and learning more about your professional journey.

Cheers!

     Leslie ​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 01-04-2022 14:32
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: January (2022) Member Spotlight: Mario Correa (SoCal Gas)

Mario Correa is an active UAI member and provides outstanding influence and contributions to the UAI community through any of our multiple channels, including, but not limited to engagement on UAI Connect, volunteering with UAI, involvement and/or leadership in monthly Community Conversations, and/or speaking at UAI events, plus so much.  Mario was even selected as one of this year’s Top 25 Thought Leaders in Utility Analytics! As thanks, we are featuring him in the January 2022 UAI Member Spotlight.

Kevin: How did you get into the utility analytics industry?

Member:  I was at a Christmas party.  The supervisor in charge of AMI analytics was telling me about her challenges in building a team that needed to monitor the natural gas consumption of six million meters every day.  I was an IT lead at a defense contractor at the time, but I had been an algorithms team lead prior so I thought it was a good opportunity to leverage my experience in something entirely new.

 

Kevin: What project have you enjoyed working on most in your career?

Member:  The answer to the next question has that answer, but I think the best is yet to come.  These are exciting times at SoCalGas.  There is a huge push to get applications and processes to the Cloud and that requires transformational change across the board.  Similar to what I did for the AMI consumption analytics team, I’m helping other teams in SCG restructure in preparation for being more data driven than in the past.  I am looking forward to the time, just on the horizon, where we have an ecosystem of analytic systems and teams tackling challenging business problems.

 

Kevin: What has been your biggest professional challenge and how did you work through it?

Member:  I was the principal engineer in charge of putting together the technical solution for my company’s bid to upgrade a nationwide system.  I was able to put together a dedicated, strong core team whose members were able to bring in the talent we needed to make a go at it.  That came in handy during crunch time.  I remember being in the lab late at night on the weekend over Christmas break, not the same Christmas mentioned above, eating pizza with some of the team as we were trying to reverse engineer some firmware logic that was giving us some heartache.  We couldn’t reach our hardware vendor partner and not everything was in the documentation.  Fortunately, we were able to make headway before the holiday ended and I’m happy to say that we ended up winning the bid.  That was a fun time and not just because we were eating pizza in the computer lab; the lab manager would have had a conniption.

 

Kevin: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice before entering the utility analytics industry, what would it be?

Member:  I was lucky because after I graduated one of my aunts told me the following, “who you know can be more important than what you know”.  Just coming out of a mathematics program that didn’t make sense initially, but it eventually sank in.  The spectrum of analytics tasks, from building models and data pipelines to effectively communicating the results, requires a team and productionizing analytic process may take several teams.  It is the network of the “right” people that swiftly moves everything along.

 

Kevin: What would you like to talk to fellow colleagues and members about in UAI Connect? Or, what issues or topics would you like to see more discussions on in UAI Connect?

Member:  I would like to start hearing discussions on what I call higher level analytics. For example,  models and processes that use input from a number of other models or “smart processes” for bigger picture situational analysis and awareness.

 

Kevin: Thank you so much for sharing with us and for being a highly engaged member of UAI!

Do you have any final thoughts, ideas, or comments you would like to share with your fellow UAI members?

Member:  Great job UAI members!  Four years ago at the UAI conference I attended, many of the presentations were about getting started in analytics.  I’ve seen several presentations in the past year that deep dive into a variety of uses cases and lessons learned.  That reflects the rapid growth of capabilities within our industry.  I have been able to leverage some of the ideas presented and taken note of others.  Thank you.

——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

I have excellent news! We have scheduled a data storyteller to present during the January 18, 2022 Data Science Community. Please find more information about the session below. If you are not part of the Data Science Community and want to attend this meeting, please join the Community by completing our form at https://eb.endeavorb2b.com/uai-community-signup. See you online for a unique presentation! 

• Date and Time: Tuesday, January 18, 2022 at 1:00 PM CT
• Community: Data Science Community
• Speaker: Sabine Devins, Digital storyteller, content maker, and speaker – Freelance / Talks about #data, #content, #storytelling, and #visualstorytelling
• Speaker Bio: Sabine Devins is a freelance content director and journalist who likes math. She’s produced stories for Handelsblatt Online, the Wall Street Journal, Voice of America, National Geographic, and Scientific American. She’s also done conceptual work for companies like Lufthansa, the Federal Environmental Ministry of Germany and the Bundesliga. Born in Canada, she lives in Berlin with her family.
• Session Title: Storytelling with Data
• Session Description:
  • Join the Data Science Community on Tuesday,January 18, 2022 at 1:00 PM CT for a presentation with Q&A and open discussion on “Storytelling with Data” with Sabine Devins, a freelance content director, journalist, and digital storyteller (who also likes math).
  • Behind every bit of data lies a story – but how do you tell it in a way that doesn’t just sound like you’re talking about a roller coaster? Or listing off a lot of numbers? Or – more importantly – how do you tell a story with data that people can relate to or use to make better decisions?  Journalist and editor Sabine Devins will take you through the fundamentals of finding a story, crafting a story and presenting a story with examples from her work as the Managing Editor of the award-winning INFO.GRAPHICS digital magazine. We’ll look at the stories and how we applied certain principles and how and why to apply storytelling to your work.

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thank you, @Mario! @Teresa will be in touch.

Cheers,

Leslie Cook
UAI ​​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 12-14-2021 16:13
From: Mario Correa
Subject: New Endeavor T&D Industry Event

Good Afternoon Teresa and UAI Team,

 

I am interested in participating. I’m in contact with the majority of data scientist in SCG and SDG&E and can get their input with respect to unique approaches/presentations across the analytic spectrum.

 

Mario Correa

Project Manager

SoCalGas

 

Original Message:
Sent: 12/13/2021 4:55:00 PM
From: Teresa Hansen
Subject: New Endeavor T&D Industry Event

Hello, UAI members! My name is Teresa Hansen and I’m vice president of content for Endeavor Business Media’s energy group. I’m working closely with Abbie Caracostas, Ashley Lutz, Leslie Cook, Gina Webber and others on the energy team to launch a new event called T&D World Conference and Exhibition. We’re looking for a few utility experts to serve on the advisory board to help us create the best educational sessions possible. Because you are familiar with Endeavor through your activity with UAI, we thought you might be interested in participating and/or willing to recommend a colleague. Ideally, board members would be executives or managers in T&D engineering and/or operations. In addition to experts in data analytics, we need members in other key areas. Here is a link to the event’s website, which includes a list the focus topics we hope to cover in the conference program.

The new event will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Oct. 5-7, 2022. We plan to offer about 25 conference sessions throughout the event. This link will open a document explaining in detail what is required of each advisory board member and the estimated time commitment. This document also lists the benefits of being part of this exclusive group. In 2022, all board meetings will be virtual, so no travel will be required until the event in October.

If you’re interested or can recommend someone within your company to serve on the advisory board, that would be great. I can then reach out to them to answer questions or provide more details. In addition, if you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me at thansen@endeavorb2b.com or 918-638-7036.

Thank you in advance for helping us launch this exciting new industry event. 

——————————
Teresa Hansen
VP Content – Energy
Endeavor
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Hi @Jordan, 

I hope you are well. I noticed that your question within the Grid Analytics Community has gone unanswered, so I am replying to bring it back up to the top. I hope this message will prompt someone in this community to reply. I also encourage you to post it in the Ask Your Network community, which goes to over 2700 UAI Members vs the Grid Analytics Community with 161 members. 

Here is Jordan’s original question: At BGE, some colleagues and myself are investigating an idea of installing tension monitoring devices on circuits. This would act to alert either Distribution Automation & Technology and/or Reliability units of potential faults (trees leaning on wires, animals, and so on). Once they get an alert, those circuits can be opened and crews can be sent immediately. Obviously we have DA equipment but sometimes even those can fail to operate at times. Does this exist? Has anyone investigated this before?
​
Thanks Jordan and Happy Holidays!

Cheers, 

     Leslie

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 11-22-2021 14:43
From: Jordan Pino
Subject: Tension Monitoring Device

Hi all,

At BGE, some colleagues and myself are investigating an idea of installing tension monitoring devices on circuits. This would act to alert either Distribution Automation & Technology and/or Reliability units of potential faults (trees leaning on wires, animals, and so on). Once they get an alert, those circuits can be opened and crews can be sent immediately. Obviously we have DA equipment but sometimes even those can fail to operate at times.

Does this exist? Has anyone investigated this before?

Thanks!

Jordan 

——————————
Jordan Pino
Sr. Data Scientist
Baltimore Gas & Electric (BG&E)
Baltimore MD
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thanks for allowing UAI to feature you, @Victoria, in this month’s member spotlight! It has been a pleasure to work with you as a Community Leader for the Grid Analytics Community. I loved reading your interview and getting to know you even better. I especially loved your favorite quote at the end. I am going to re-share it on our “NOTES TO INSPIRE” section on the Ask Your Network homepage under Announcements. :-) 

Thanks!
Leslie​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 12-01-2021 15:20
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: December (2021) Member Spotlight: Victoria White (Oncor Electric Delivery)

Victoria White is an active UAI member and provides outstanding influence and contributions to the UAI community through any of our multiple channels, including, but not limited to engagement on UAI Connect, volunteering with UAI, involvement and/or leadership in monthly Community Conversations, and/or speaking at UAI events, plus so much. As thanks, we are featuring her in the UAI Member Spotlight. Victoria White is the Advanced Metering Systems Design Supervisor at Oncor Electric Delivery in Texas. She primarily works on managing the team that strengthens and maintains the Advanced Metering System (AMS) and guides efforts on root-cause analysis based projects within Oncor regarding topics such as AMS analysis, Storm Impact Prediction, and Outage Analysis. She is a well-respected speaker at multiple industry conferences (i.e. DistribuTech, UAI) and organizations (i.e. AEIC, IEEE).

 

Kevin: How did you get into the utility analytics industry?

Member: I have been an engineer at Oncor since 2014 and since my start have been given opportunities to engage and lead various analytics projects regarding our distribution system. It was definitely not what I expected when I first started my career but I’ve quickly become intertwined in the intricacies of the analytical world and am happy that this is where my work has lead me.

 

Kevin: What project have you enjoyed working on most in your career?

Member: My most enjoyable project has been a distribution damage prediction model. This was a collaboration effort at Oncor where I lead a small group and together we created a model that predicts the damage created by storms in the Oncor territory. This project really sparked my interest in analytics and to this day is something that I love to talk about and share with others.

 

Kevin: What has been your biggest professional challenge and how did you work through it?

Member: In my particular career path the biggest challenge has been working to communicate effectively to other non-engineering technical individuals as well as non-technical collaborators. I didn’t have to work on this communication path at the beginning of my career but as time passed it quickly became something I needed to figure out. Once I identified it as a shortcoming correcting the issue wasn’t as difficult. I work to make sure that how I share progress and updates on projects can be effectively shared and understood despite technical background.

 

Kevin: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice before entering the utility analytics industry, what would it be?

Member: My biggest piece of advice to myself would have been to take python in college or additional predictive analytics courses; having to learn those on the job was a challenge especially when there is not a SME for that subject at Oncor.

 

Kevin: What would you like to talk to fellow colleagues and members about in UAI Connect? Or, what issues or topics would you like to see more discussions on in UAI Connect?

Member: I love to discuss predictive analytics projects and based on my current role various ways to further utilize the large amounts of metering and AMS mesh networking information. There is so much we are still learning and working to leverage.

 

Kevin: Thank you so much for sharing with us and for being a highly engaged member of UAI!

Do you have any final thoughts, ideas, or comments you would like to share with your fellow UAI members?

Member: I would love to share one of my favorite quotes which helps point out that every day is a chance to try.

“However, I continue to try and I continue, indefatigably, to reach out. There’s no way I can single-handedly save the world or, perhaps, even make a perceptible difference – but how ashamed I would be to let a day pass without making one more effort.”

-Isaac Asimov

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Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
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[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Great series of questions, @Catherine! We are on a roll! Let’s keep the questions coming in. You can submit your questions by replying directly to this post or you can submit them to me at lcook@utilityanalytics.com. ​

Thanks! 
​

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

Thanks for submitting a question, @David, for our Natural Gas Analytics Ask Me Anything session!  Two other questions have been submitted, as follows. I look forward to hearing from others with their questions for this session.

• How do you prioritize work on assets – with limited capital and O&M what factors do you consider?
• How is everyone looking at appliance disaggregation and what progress has been made on the natural gas side to understand what appliances customers have?

Submit your questions by replying directly to this post or you can submit them to me directly at lcook@utilityanalytics.com. ​

Thanks!

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-16-2021 15:23
From: David Baron
Subject: If You Could Ask a Panel of Natural Gas Analytics Experts Anything, What Would You Ask? – Input Requested for Upcoming “Ask Me Anything” Session

Are there utilities capturing smart pigging data in-house to run their own analysis?

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David Baron
Director, Performance Mgmt & Org Strategy
Sempra Energy Utilities
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-08-2021 10:00
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: If You Could Ask a Panel of Natural Gas Analytics Experts Anything, What Would You Ask? – Input Requested for Upcoming “Ask Me Anything” Session

Good Morning UAI Utility Members,

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Today I wanted to make you aware of an exciting “Ask Me Anything” themed session, taking place Tuesday, December 7^th at 12:00 PM CT as part of our Natural Gas Analytics Community, and invite you, our utility members, to be part of the discussion. Given the popularity of the “Ask Me Anything” format in some of our previous Community Conversations, we’re very excited to create a session entirely around Natural Gas Analytics.

Are you a Natural Gas Utility? If you could ask a panel of natural gas analytics experts anything, what would you ask? We want to hear your voice!

To ensure we deliver the best session in December, we want to turn to you and get your direct input on any questions you would like to explore. Please respond privately to this discussion thread with any input, or email Leslie Cook (lcook@utilityanalytics.com) who is working to compile our list of questions. There is no limit to the number of questions you can ask, please let us know what you would like to discuss!

*This session is open to all UAI Utility Members. If you are not part of the Natural Gas Analytics Community already and would like to be included in this session, please respond below or email me at kpraet@utilityanalytics.com so I can be sure you’re forwarded our meeting placeholder.

For those of you that are newer to the “Ask Me Anything” format, we’ve provided some more info below:

Ask Me Anything (aka AMA) is an interview format that originated on the website Reddit. The idea is that everyone — from daredevils who’ve climbed Mt. Everest to regular folks who work at Walmart (and in our case it is our Natural Gas Analytics Community leadership team acting as our panel of experts) — has interesting insights and information to share. This format thrives on audience participation. The Ask Me Anything forum is an interesting new concept we would like to introduce through Community Conversation sessions from time-to-time. Our audience (you) will determine topics and how the conversation will go based on their questions.

Again, please submit your questions privately below or send directly to Leslie Cook at (lcook@utilityanalytics.com). If you would like to be included on this session but aren’t a member of the Natural Gas Analytics Community, let me know so I can be sure you’re forwarded our meeting placeholder.

Thanks and we look forward to hearing from and including you in this exciting session!  

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Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
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[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

I immediately thought of you, @Norv, as soon as Kevin posted this Meme this morning. I knew you would come through with a good meme…you always have a good data joke! :-) ​​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-05-2021 12:13
From: Norv Clontz
Subject: UAI Connect Engagement Challenge Reminder + Share An Analytics Meme and Earn Points!

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Norv Clontz
Director, Data Science Innovation
Duke Energy
Charlotte NC
9803732380
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-05-2021 11:43
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: UAI Connect Engagement Challenge Reminder + Share An Analytics Meme and Earn Points!

Hello UAI Members,

Happy Friday! As we kick off November I wanted to send a quick reminder on the “UAI Connect Engagement Challenge” and thank all of those that have been getting involved. In just the past few weeks, we’ve seen a massive spike in engagement across UAI Connect and we look forward to continuing this challange through Friday, December 17, 2021.

Just a quick reminder on the rules: This game is open to all current UAI members and is designed to help you maximize your engagement throughout UAI Connect. As part of this game, we provide clear direction on how to get more involved and how to make the most of your experience on UAI Connect. By getting more involved within UAI’s communities, discussions forums, and completing your profile on UAI Connect (just to name a few things), you will in turn gain more value from the network on UAI Connect, which includes some of the brightest and smartest minds within utility analytics. For a complete breakdown of how to earn points during this game and the scoring, please refer to our “Gamification Scoring Sheet” found in the Ask Your Network Library.

In addition to getting more active on Connect, we will be selecting three winners at the end of December (to be announced Monday, January 3, 2022) based off of their scoring. Please note our scoring will only include data between October 8 and December 17, 2021, and previous scores will not be included .

Just in case you’re still not excited, see what great prized we have picked out for our winners!

• 1^st place – Webcam/microphone bundle
• 2^nd place – Lume Cube
• 3^rd place – $25 Amazon gift card

To help you get started with some “easy points” I wanted to start a discussion thread below on your favorite analytcis, data science, or utility related memes. First up is a great one I saw from some team members internally!

Have a funny meme to share? Let us know us know by responding to this thread!

Thanks again and best of luck in the UAI Connect Engagement Challenge!

——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Because we don’t have a “laughing” button…
​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
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——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 11-05-2021 16:07
From: Justin Rogers
Subject: UAI Connect Engagement Challenge Reminder + Share An Analytics Meme and Earn Points!

 

 

Justin Rogers Data Science Manager Business Data & Insights Phone: 504-576-4767; 8-576-4767 (Internal) jroge12@entergy.com

 

 

 

This message is intended for the exclusive use of the intended addressee. If you have received this message in error or are not the intended addressee or his or her authorized agent, please notify me immediately by e-mail, discard any paper copies and delete all electronic files of this message.

Original Message:
Sent: 11/5/2021 3:43:00 PM
From: Sam Held
Subject: RE: UAI Connect Engagement Challenge Reminder + Share An Analytics Meme and Earn Points!

This may have happened to me once or thirty times.  ;)

——————————
Sam Held
Analyst, Workforce Planning & Analytics
TVA
423-751-2220
——————————

Original Message:
Sent: 11-05-2021 11:43
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: UAI Connect Engagement Challenge Reminder + Share An Analytics Meme and Earn Points!

Hello UAI Members,

Happy Friday! As we kick off November I wanted to send a quick reminder on the “UAI Connect Engagement Challenge” and thank all of those that have been getting involved. In just the past few weeks, we’ve seen a massive spike in engagement across UAI Connect and we look forward to continuing this challange through Friday, December 17, 2021.

Just a quick reminder on the rules: This game is open to all current UAI members and is designed to help you maximize your engagement throughout UAI Connect. As part of this game, we provide clear direction on how to get more involved and how to make the most of your experience on UAI Connect. By getting more involved within UAI’s communities, discussions forums, and completing your profile on UAI Connect (just to name a few things), you will in turn gain more value from the network on UAI Connect, which includes some of the brightest and smartest minds within utility analytics. For a complete breakdown of how to earn points during this game and the scoring, please refer to our “Gamification Scoring Sheet” found in the Ask Your Network Library.

In addition to getting more active on Connect, we will be selecting three winners at the end of December (to be announced Monday, January 3, 2022) based off of their scoring. Please note our scoring will only include data between October 8 and December 17, 2021, and previous scores will not be included .

Just in case you’re still not excited, see what great prized we have picked out for our winners!

• 1^st place – Webcam/microphone bundle
• 2^nd place – Lume Cube
• 3^rd place – $25 Amazon gift card

To help you get started with some “easy points” I wanted to start a discussion thread below on your favorite analytcis, data science, or utility related memes. First up is a great one I saw from some team members internally!

Have a funny meme to share? Let us know us know by responding to this thread!

Thanks again and best of luck in the UAI Connect Engagement Challenge!

——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thanks for being our November feature for the Member Spotlight, @Chris! I enjoyed reading your interview and learning how you got into the utility analytics industry and what your passions are, and I especially LOVE your final thoughts. Thanks for sharing!

Cheers,

     Leslie ​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
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Original Message:
Sent: 11-01-2021 11:30
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: November (2021) Member Spotlight: Chris Lyles (WAPA)

Chris Lyles is an active UAI member and provides outstanding influence and contributions to the UAI community through any of our multiple channels, including, but not limited to engagement on UAI Connect, volunteering with UAI, involvement and/or leadership in monthly Community Conversations, and/or speaking at UAI events, plus so much.  As thanks, we are featuring him in the UAI Member Spotlight. Chris has been leading WAPA’s Asset Management department for the last 3 years and absolutely love the value the program brings to WAPA’s capital planning efforts.  When not at WAPA, Chris spends the majority of his time with his wife and three kids playing around in the Rocky Mountains.   

 

Kevin: How did you get into the utility analytics industry?

Member: I started capital planning for WAPA back in 2008 before asset management was even a thing.  What I really needed back then was a risk-based approach to understanding WAPA’s assets, but had no idea how to make that happen.  Capital planning back then was more about talking to subject matter experts to get a basic idea of what assets had the biggest issues.  When AM was formalized in 2015 at WAPA, I knew I wanted to be a part of the solution. 

 

Kevin: What project have you enjoyed working on most in your career?

Member: large power transformers and transmission lines are what intrigue me the most and bring me the most enjoyment in my career.  If there’s a project or program involving one of these two fun assets, that’s where my enjoyment has been found. 

 

Kevin: What has been your biggest professional challenge and how did you work through it?

Member: The challenge of stepping into the leadership position of a new and maturing asset management program has been the biggest challenge professionally.  When something is so new, there’s so much development and opportunity in front of you that is hard to wrap you brain around.  My Type A personality wants to get it all done in the first 12 months, but the reality of having limited budget and people has a way of coarse correcting even the most ambitious plans. 

 

Kevin: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice before entering the utility analytics industry, what would it be?

Member:  If you can’t help end users visually see the asset data and enable them to make good business decisions from it, then you haven’t done your job.  It’s one thing for an asset management person to think the data is cool, but if it’s so complex and hard to visualize that others can’t use it, it offers little value. 

 

Kevin: What would you like to talk to fellow colleagues and members about in UAI Connect? Or, what issues or topics would you like to see more discussions on in UAI Connect?

Member: I’m always interested in the culture change aspect around data and analytics.  Since the WAPA program is relatively new, we are still in the middle of our culture change.  This aspect of our industry always fascinates me.  What has worked for utilities in this area and how long does it take for people to become as excited about this asset management stuff as I am?  What’s the single most important thing you can do as an asset manager when trying to shift culture around asset data?  

 

Kevin: Thank you so much for sharing with us and for being a highly engaged member of UAI!

Do you have any final thoughts, ideas, or comments you would like to share with your fellow UAI members?

Member: Family first and work second.  My headstone will likely never mention asset management and data analytics, but I sure hope it mentions something about being an awesome father and husband. 

——————————
Kevin Praet
Membership Coordinator
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
Boulder CO
315-440-3033
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Great question, @Kaleb! I’ve added it to the list for the December 7 “Ask Me Anything” session. I’m excited to see more questions submitted for our panel of experts.

Thanks and Happy Friday!!!

     Leslie​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
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——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 10-29-2021 12:20
From: Kaleb Thompson
Subject: Submit Questions: for December 7 “Ask Me Anything” Session

I’d like to better understand how everyone is looking at appliance disaggregation and what progress has been made on the natural gas side to understand what appliances customers have.

——————————
Kaleb Thompson
Supervisor – Enterprise Analytics
ONE Gas
Tulsa
9188457000
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2021 14:14
From: Leslie Cook
Subject: Submit Questions: for December 7 “Ask Me Anything” Session

Hello Natural Gas Analytics Community Members,

Sending a friendly reminder… we can’t wait to see your questions!

If you could ask a panel of natural gas analytics experts anything, what would you ask? Now’s your chance!

We are prepping for the December 7, 2021 Community Conversation. During this session, we get to try a new session format, i.e. “Ask Me Anything“.

I am getting a head start on prepping for this December 7 “Ask Me Anything” session, so we can collect a good list of Natural Gas Analytics questions for our panel of experts. Please reply to this message as soon as possible with your questions or you can send them to me directly at lcook@utilityanalytics.com. You can submit as many questions as you would like. 

Description of “Ask Me Anything”:
Ask Me Anything (aka AMA) is an interview format that originated on the website Reddit. The idea is that everyone — from daredevils who’ve climbed Mt. Everest to regular folks who work at Walmart (and in our case it is our Natural Gas Analytics Community leadership team acting as our panel of experts) — has interesting insights and information to share. This format thrives on audience participation. The Ask Me Anything forum is an interesting new concept we would like to introduce through Community Conversation sessions from time-to-time. Our audience (you) will determine topics and how the conversation will go based on their questions. I am excited about this new format for our community!

Again, submit your questions today by replying to this message or you can send them directly to me at lcook@utilityanalytics.com.

We are excited to see your questions! Thank you so much! 

Leslie

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