[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Great post, @Ben! Thanks for telling and sharing this story! I chuckled at the end regarding the celebration of a 90-minute traffic delay. :-)  I have also made note of have a session on story telling at a future Community Conversation.

Thanks!

     Leslie ​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 10-25-2021 11:00
From: Ben Ettlinger
Subject: Story Telling

Happy Birthday!!

 My neighbor down the block has his 90th birthday today!

Actually he lives 6 blocks away and hasn’t moved in all that time! He is the biggest neighbor in the neighborhood and I bet many of you have met him!

Today is the George Washington Bridge’s 90th birthday.

Which reminds me of the story The Little Red Light House and the Great Gray Bridge. Remember that book from story time at home or school?

Which reminds me of story telling, a very important part of analytics. After you do all your data gathering, analytics and analysis you want to be able to tell over the story that your data shows. The world of analytics, that’s called “story telling”. How to tell over your data story takes a little training. Your excited about your results. How to you get others to be the same.  

Which reminds me to ask how about having a session on story telling at a future Community meeting.

Happy Birthday!! What a celebration! They celebrated with a 90 minute traffic delay this morning.

 

see less

see less

——————————
Ben Ettlinger
Emerging Technologies
Enterprise Architecture & Engineering Group
New York Power Authority
White Plains, NY
914 681 6496
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thanks for kicking off the questions for our December 7 “Ask Me Anything” session, @Catherine! Great question for our panel of experts. I look forward to receiving other member questions.

Thanks!

Leslie​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 10-21-2021 13:25
From: Catherine McCowan
Subject: Submit Questions: for December 7 “Ask Me Anything” Session

How do you prioritize work on assets – with limited capital and O&M what factors do you consider?

——————————
Catherine McCowan
Manager, Integrity and Asset Management Governance
Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc.
——————————

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
——————————

[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

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it, @Dan! Thank you for your comment.

Cheers,

     Leslie​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 09-15-2021 15:06
From: Dan Burgess
Subject: Post-Meeting Evaluation for September 15, 2021

That last presentation was an 11 out of 10

 

Original Message:
Sent: 9/15/2021 3:05:00 PM
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: Post-Meeting Evaluation for September 15, 2021

Hello Grid Analytics Community Members,

Thanks for attending today’s (9/15/2021) Community Conversation on “Storm Outage Modeling: Applying Analytics to Inform Electrical Utilities.“ Continuous improvement is an important goal for us in everything we do at UAI, so your feedback on today’s call is very important. Your feedback will tell us how we did, provide ideas for continuous improvement efforts, and will even provide you an opportunity to submit topics suggestions for future Grid Analytics Community Conversations.

Please take the post-meeting evaluation at the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021UAIComm

I will be uploading a link to today’s slide deck and recording soon. Please reach out to me if you have any questions or need anything.

Thanks!

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

What a great new format we explored today for the August 18 Grid Analytics Community Conversation! For those that did not make it to our last minute pivot to an “Ask Me Anything” interview style session, we missed you and you missed some valuable discussions. During this “Ask Me Anything” interview, we talked with @Brad and @Jordan (Thanks Brad and Jordan!) from the Grid Analytics Community leadership team on questions submitted by members of this community. Brad and Jordan answered most of the following questions. They also answered a few questions from the audience. Audience members also provided their thoughts to some of these questions. If you missed the session, @Kevin will post the recording of the session later this week. 

I share the questions with you, because I don’t want the discussion to end with the session. If you have any answers or opinions to any of the following questions, please reply to this thread with your thoughts. Thanks to all! 

Questions from “Ask Me Anything” Interview: 

1. Eight months into the new administration is the grid better prepared for a cyber attack?
2. When my kids were young for a day off activity I would give each a dollar and bring them to a dollar store. For a lesson in economics, how to spend wisely, see how the personality of my kids came out, and to have a lot of fun. (Today I think you need more than a dollar.) As the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act meanders through congress, there is, at least at the moment a significant amount for improvements in our industry. Imagine now Congress is giving you a few dollars. How would you spend it? You could go for more than $1. Or, another way to ask it… Where do you think the infrastructure bill money will go to in our industry?
3. How do you handle expectation management when it comes to analytics projects with senior leadership? We know as data experts what our analytics can and can’t do, but there is often a disconnect between the technical folks and senior leadership. What methods do you employ?
4. Have you ever had to deal with legal issues in your use cases?
5. How do you handle use cases related to safety?
6. How do you handle use cases that shine a light on weaknesses in your system that perhaps you didn’t intend on finding? Data ethics?
7. How do you handle vague requests from senior leadership in regards to use cases? How do you get them to develop a solid objective list?
8. When developing an analytics operation within a department what are the essential roles that must be filled?

1. When department is stood up
2. When department matures

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thanks for kicking off the submission of questions, Ben! Great question. Keep them coming!

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 08-11-2021 11:29
From: Ben Ettlinger
Subject: Ask Me Anything – Request for Questions

Eight months into the new administration is the grid better prepared for a cyber attack?

 

 

Original Message:
Sent: 8/10/2021 10:13:00 AM
From: Leslie Cook
Subject: Ask Me Anything – Request for Questions

Hello Grid Analytics Community members,

I hope you are staying safe and doing well. I reach out to you today to request some information. I am working on a future session with the Grid Analytics Community leadership team. We would like to do an interactive session called Ask Me Anything during an upcoming Community Conversation. This would be a new, unstructured format for us that we would like to try.

You may already know, but let me give you a little background on 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 would be our Grid Analytics Community leadership team acting as a panel of grid analytics experts) — has interesting insights and information to share. The format has become so popular that other websites host these forums too. 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 is grid analytics professionals and those UAI members who are interested in grid analytics. Our audience will determine topics and how the conversation will go based on their questions. I am excited about this new format for our community! It could be interesting and I know we will all learn something.

Now for my request… if you could ask a panel of grid analytics experts any question, what would you ask? Please reply to this message with your questions. You can submit as many questions as you would like. We are excited to see your questions. 

Thanks to all!

Cheers,

     Leslie

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

I love seeing this active thread. If you are interested in this topic, please make sure to join us for the next UAI Enterprise Analytics Community Conversation.

Join the Enterprise Analytics Community on Thursday, August 26th at 1:00 PM CT for a panel discussion around, Big Data/AMI Data, with the following panelists:

– Mario Correa, Project Manager – SoCalGas

– Sung Yee (Paul) Lam, Sr. Software Engineer – SoCalGas

– Norv Clontz, Director, Data Science Innovation – Duke Energy

– Brad Gall, Sr. Data Architect, Connected Analytics – The Energy Authority

During this session, each panelist will share their implementation of big data/AMI data, their validation process, use of AMI (What are utilities doing with it? How are their utilities using it?), better practices and challenges. Come prepared to asks questions, because panelists will take time to answer questions about the topic from the audience.

If you are not registered for the UAI Enterprise Analytics Community, please do so via our Community Registration Form to get access to this meeting.

Cheers, 
     Leslie

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 08-06-2021 14:08
From: Rosemary Peh
Subject: Organizational Structure

At Hawaiian Electric, we have just formally established our Enterprise Data & Analytics organization and aligned it to our Data Governance Group, and overall strategies.  We ran a Data & Analytics Initiative for about 2 years getting buy in from our organization across all business units, before transitioning this year into our going forward operating model.  We did it this way because, we had multiple analytics teams that were specific to a particular business unit, and our strategy called for the optimization of resources and capability across the entire company.  See answers to your specific questions below:

1 – If you have AMI, does it have it’s own analytics platform, or is there just one platform that services the entire enterprise?
We have one platform that services the entire enterprise.  Primarily because our decisions are more and more integrated across the entire utility space.

2 – What is the hand-off between IT supported functions and analytics?
We have created a DataOps team within the CIO business unit and it has federated business unit “spokes”.  The “hub” team under the CIO takes care of all the ELT or ETL work coming from transactional systems, and maintains the central repository.  It currently has Data Engineers, and Data Analyst, and will add Data Scientists as appropriate.  The hub supports the business units that have data analysts, and a limited number of specialized data engineers.  In this way, the line between IT and business blurs, as the CIO hub – has both business analytics and IT technical support roles and capabilities.  The spokes will depend on the hub as they mature or are already mature.

3 – Where does the responsibility for data strategy/governance rest?  Is that an IT function/analytics function/both?
Our data strategy and governance is the responsibility of our Enterprise Architecture team – as led by the Data/Information Architect.  They work closely with the new EDA team and the business to ensure alignment.

4 – Recommendations on Analytics Roadmap – should there be a separate Roadmap/data vision for AMI or should there be one Roadmap/data vision?
As mentioned above, AMI is part of our overall Data & Analytics Strategy and therefore, its Roadmap.

4 – how many people do you have engaged in data strategy/data governance?  How many are engaged in maintaining the analytics platform? We have a Data Governance Group that is cross functional across the organization and facilitated by the Data/Information Architect.  Data Owners, Stewards and Custodians are being identified, and our intent is to utilize this group and the spoke leads to vet and update the Data & Analytics Strategy and Roadmap.

Hope this helps.

——————————
Rosemary Peh
Operations Excellence Director
Hawaiian Electric Company
1-808-543-4790
——————————

Original Message:
Sent: 08-05-2021 11:54
From: Bich Nguyen
Subject: Organizational Structure

Hello Nadia,

These are great questions! Here OGE this is the way we approached it..

1 – If you have AMI, does it have it’s own analytics platform, or is there just one platform that services the entire enterprise? Our AMI data is part of our overall data strategy and analytics platform
2 – What is the hand-off between IT supported functions and analytics? From a supported perspective, if it’s data availability and data questions we have a data product line that addresses the issues which is now a function of IT. And if it’s technical support we have some SME and system support folks. 
3 – Where does the responsibility for data strategy/governance rest?  Is that an IT function/analytics function/both? Our data strategy and governance rest in our Business Intelligence group specifically in the data product line group however, there’s a shared responsibility with the data owners/business units as well. 
4 – Recommendations on Analytics Roadmap – should there be a separate Roadmap/data vision for AMI or should there be one Roadmap/data vision? The way we approach it is that broke our data and analytics road map into different pillars and AMI is a part of that.
4 – how many people do you have engaged in data strategy/data governance?  How many are engaged in maintaining the analytics platform? We also have an Analytics center of Excellence who help drives the engagement and support our analytics platform.

I hope this help and if you have further questions we can connect and I can get some folks on our team to share with you in details.

——————————
Bich Nguyen
Manager Analytics COE
OG&E

Original Message:
Sent: 08-02-2021 17:12
From: Nadia Powell
Subject: Organizational Structure

Hello all,

We seem to be struggling with a coordinated direction.  I have a few questions:

1 – If you have AMI, does it have it’s own analytics platform, or is there just one platform that services the entire enterprise?
2 – What is the hand-off between IT supported functions and analytics?
3 – Where does the responsibility for data strategy/governance rest?  Is that an IT function/analytics function/both?
4 – Recommendations on Analytics Roadmap – should there be a separate Roadmap/data vision for AMI or should there be one Roadmap/data vision?
4 – how many people do you have engaged in data strategy/data governance?  How many are engaged in maintaining the analytics platform?

Very much appreciate your input!

nadia
El Paso Electric

——————————
Nadia Powell
Director of Palo Verde Management and Local Gen Support
El Paso Electric
——————————

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

I enjoyed reading your story, @Beth. Thank you for sharing and thank you for all you do for the UAI community!

Cheers!

     Leslie​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 08-02-2021 11:12
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: August (2021) Member Spotlight: Beth Massey (The Energy Authority)

Beth Massey 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.

Dr. Beth Massey brings over 20 years of experience in research and development including leading-edge technology innovation and full lifecycle project delivery for the energy sector. Her specialties include demand-side energy research, data science, machine learning algorithms, computer vision techniques, software development, project management, and technical proposal writing. She has also significant experience in strategic programs planning, having delivered on large-scale projects for the US Department of Defense and NASA.

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

Member: After completing the PhD in England, I Initially thought that the field of medicine would be where my career path would take me. However, I took a job with an American company working on HVAC diagnostics (using the statistical analysis and computer vision skills used in medical image analysis). This took me into the energy services research area, which led to energy efficiency in buildings and it grew from there.

 

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

Member: Being in applied energy research in Europe was some of the most exciting work.  We were building multi-disciplinary teams to produce pre-commercial outcomes that the commercial partners could then further develop into their product lines.  It is very satisfying to develop a product or process that stakeholders (such as utilities) can then turn into products and services for their customers.  We were also analyzing policy and making recommendations to the local and national governments.

 

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

Member: Working in another country with their local customs, professional protocols and expectations.  Clearly, not everyone thinks or acts like Americans.  Even small differences in things such as the time to arrive at work or the number of days off for vacations and holidays, to what food stuffs are available at the grocery store, the different perspectives can be overwhelming. For example, the local pub served food but no takeaway containers.  It wasn’t until I started to bring in my own plastic containers that they decided others might want to do the same. One works through these changes, little by little.  Being patient, doing a bit of research on the local customs and having contacts at the consulate are all helpful.

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: A bit of advice that I was given, and took, early in my career is to take every opportunity to expand your skill set.  This is applicable across any industry.  And, for scientists and engineers, the solution-oriented, critical analysis skills are transferrable to many disciplines and applications.  Companies, the world over, are always looking for talent with these skills and a proactive work ethic.

 

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: Diversity in the energy and data sectors.  It is important, I believe, that we keep diversity (of roles, teams and gender, for example) as a part of our everyday lives.  I would like to see how utilities in general and specifically data analytics teams are working to increase diversity in their working environments. 

I would also like to see more discussions around energy communities and how utilities are developing deeper engagement strategies with their customers as individuals and as communities.  Are energy communities a real-world idea for utilities and will the growing micro-grid market be a change agent for this trend?

 

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: Be open-minded, take every opportunity to improve and be kind.

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Hello UAI Members,

I noticed we have an unanswered question on Ask Your Network, so I want to reply to it to bring it back up to the top. Does anyone have any insight for @Hemanya on the following question?

“I was wondering what kind of algorithms are being used to detect anomalous customer usage behavior given that there is NO SMART METER data and the usage is captured monthly. Is there a way to capture events like zero usage, broken meter, bypass, etc. by using monthly usage data?“

Thanks in advance for providing your replies!

     Leslie​

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thanks for the heads-up, Cristian! Kevin will get the calendar invite out to you right away. 

Thanks!

     @Leslie​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 07-07-2021 17:44
From: cristian easton
Subject: Upcoming July (2021) Customer Analytics Community Conversation

Hey Kevin,

 

I just joined the community so I do not have an invite. Can you send it to me please?

 

Thanks.

 

Sincerely,

 

Cristian Easton

 

Original Message:
Sent: 7/7/2021 5:24:00 PM
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: RE: Upcoming July (2021) Customer Analytics Community Conversation

Hello Customer Analytics Community Members,

I hope all is well! We are just under one week away from our July Customer Analytics Community Conversation and want to get you excited about the session taking place. On Tuesday, July 13 at 11:00 AM CT we’ll be joined by Poonam Yadav, Sr. Manager, Insights and Research at Consumers Energy and Francisco Gonzalez, Director Utility Services Experience Design at Consumers Energy who will be leading a presentation on Consumers Energy’s Entire Customer Journey.

Learn more about this session and our speakers below!

Session Description:

This presentation series will be about Consumers Energy’s Customer Journey and a 360 degree view of their customer. Part one, “Consumers Energy’s Customer Journey” is a presentation with Q&A and open discussion with Poonam Yadav, Sr. Manager, Insights and Research and Francisco Gonzalez, Director Utility Services Experience Design from Consumers Energy.

Speakers:

Poonam Yadav: Sr. Manager, Insights and Research at Consumers Energy

Poonam Yadav, Sr. Manager, Insights and Research at Consumers Energy is a subject matter expert with over a decade of experience in customer research, analytics, experience design, problem solving and voice of the customer. She is a strong customer advocate with a passion to build best in class customer and product experiences. 

Francisco Gonzalez: Director Utility Services Experience Design at Consumers Energy

Francisco Gonzalez, Director of Experience Design for Consumers Energy. Francisco leads the Utility Services value stream team at Consumers Energy. His portfolio is comprised of Outage, Billing and Payment, Operational Communications and Field Experiences. His team is responsible for the end-to-end journey that customers will encounter when they need them the most. Recent accomplishments are significant increases in customer index metrics, customer activations, and new customer facing web applications that Michigan residents love. Francisco lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan and has been in the utility sector in varies leadership roles for almost 25 years. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A calendar placeholder for this community conversation was sent out last week via my alternate email address (kpraet@sg.utilityanalytics.com), however some members made us aware they either did not receive or noticed the invite got caught in spam. If you are not seeing a placeholder on your calendar for Tuesday, July 13th 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
——————————

Original Message:
Sent: 07-01-2021 14:49
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: Upcoming July (2021) Customer Analytics Community Conversation

Hello Customer Analytics Community Members,

I hope all is well and that you’re enjoying that start to your summers! With July just kicking off, I wanted to reach out and get you excited for our July (2021) Customer Analytics Community Conversation. On Tuesday, July 13th at 11:00 AM CT, we will be joined by Poonam Yadav, Sr. Manager, Insights and Research and Francisco Gonzalez, Director Utility Services Experience Design from Consumers Energy and their presentation,  “Consumers Energy’s Customer Journey.” This presentation will be part 1 of a two part series and will include Q&A and open discussion. Come prepared to ask questions and share your insight! I’ll be providing more information on this session one week prior to our meeting but you can always learn more about each of our upcoming Community Conversations on our Events Page HERE.

I’m excited to share with you our latest IT update that will allow me to send meeting placeholders directly to your calendars. I have still included our placeholder as an attachment to this message but also forwarded as an invite your calendars this morning. If you did not receive a calendar invitation let me know so I can help troubleshoot. Our Microsoft Teams link will be updated on the placeholder and sent out to member via the discussion form one day prior.

If you have any questions please reach out to me otherwise I look forward to connecting with you all later in the month.

Thanks!

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Hello Samantha,

Thanks for posting your message on your “Telematics & Safe Driving Program” at CPS Energy on the Safety Analytics Community last week! I am replying to your message to bring it back up to the top of the discussion forum and into our Safety Analytics Community members’ inboxes. I know we have members that have Safe Driving Programs, so I am hoping you will received a reply soon. 

Thanks!

     @Leslie​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 07-01-2021 08:45
From: Samantha Perez
Subject: Telematics & Safe Driving Program

​​

Hi All,

We are implementing Telematics in our fleet vehicles.  Is anyone using this technology and data to improve your Safe Driving Program?

We are curious to know what data parameters or approaches are used by other utilities to measure good (or needs improvement) driving behaviors.  For example, our Integrated Security team uses phishing email campaigns to identify employees that need refresh training on security best practices. Wondering if others are using telematics to customize Safe Driving training in such ways.

Thank you!
Samantha Perez
CPS Energy Fleet
San Antonio, TX

——————————
Samantha Perez
Manager, Fleet & Safety Informatics
CPS Energy
San Antonio TX
2103532061
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[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Hi Junyuan, 

Thank you for making us aware. I will forward you the calendar invitation. It will be coming from @Kevin from the email address kpraet@sg.utilityanalytics.com. ​Can you please check your spam and junk folders for the invite if you do not see it? I also recommend whitelisting Kevin’s email address. Also, please reach out to me at lcook@utilityanalytics.com if you still don’t see it come through. I will work through this issue with you. 

Thanks!

     Leslie

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 07-02-2021 08:07
From: Junyuan Lin
Subject: Upcoming July (2021) Community Conversation

Hi,

 

Thanks for sharing!! But I didn’t receive a calendar invitation. Could you kindly help me to fix that problem?

 

Thanks,

 

Junyuan Lin

Management & Professional Trainee | Analytics & Reporting

Data Analytics – IFM

 

Ontario Power Generation

 

(416) 231 4111  |  (514) 586 8122  | junyuan.lin@opg.com

800 Kipling Avenue, Toronto, ON, M5Z 5G5

See how we are powering the future of Ontario at opg.com

 

 

 

Original Message:
Sent: 7/1/2021 3:20:00 PM
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: Upcoming July (2021) Community Conversation

Hello Data Science Community Members,

I hope all is well and that you’re enjoying that start to your summers! With July just kicking off, I wanted to reach out and get you excited for our July (2021) Data Science Community Conversation. On Tuesday, July 20th at 1:00 PM CT, we will be joined by Julie Zhang, Lead Data Scientist at SoCalGas, who will be leading a presentation around “Natural Language Processing Use Cases at SoCalGas: Named Entity Extraction, Automatic Redaction and Text Classification for General Counsel and Damage Prevention Documents.” This presentation will include Q&A and open discussion and we encourage you to come prepared ready to ask questions and share your insight. I’ll be providing more information on this session one week prior to our meeting but you can always learn more about each of our upcoming Community Conversations on our Events Page HERE.

I’m excited to share with you our latest IT update that will allow me to send meeting placeholders directly to your calendars. I have still included our placeholder as an attachment to this message but also forwarded as an invite your calendars this morning. If you did not receive a calendar invitation let me know so I can help troubleshoot. Our Microsoft Teams link will be updated on the placeholder and sent out to member via the discussion form one day prior.

If you have any questions please reach out to me otherwise I look forward to connecting with you all later in the month.

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thanks to everyone that replied to this post and sent me a private message with your response. The most popular date and time for an informal, casual virtual networking hour is Wednesday, July 14, 2021 at 2:00 PM MT (1 PM PT / 3 PM CT / 4 PM ET). We are going to call this the UAI Power Hour! Keep an eye out for registration for this Power Hour tomorrow. We ask that you register, so we can send you a calendar invitation with login credentials for the Teams meeting. 

If you have any questions, please reply to this post or send me a direct message on my profile for @Leslie.

See you online!

Cheers,

     Leslie ​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 06-25-2021 09:08
From: Pamela Flot
Subject: Questions about a Member Requested Informal Virtual Networking Hour

I agree with Ron, Wednesday the 14th at 2:00 PM MT is good. The other time that works good for me is Friday the 16th at 10:00 AM MT.

——————————
Pam Flot
Program Analyst
WAPA
——————————

Original Message:
Sent: 06-24-2021 10:02
From: Leslie Cook
Subject: Questions about a Member Requested Informal Virtual Networking Hour

Hello UAI Members,

We have received several requests from you to host an informal virtual networking hour. You have asked us not to pre-plan topics of discussion. You want time with your fellow members to ask each other questions, pick each others’ brains, talk about use cases you’re working on… basically to have scheduled time for casual and informal networking.

I want to schedule this time in July, but have some questions for you first. I want to make sure I meet the majority of members’ needs, so please reply to this email with your answers. Based on your answers, I will schedule the casual and informal networking hour… let’s call it a Power Hour!

1. I was thinking about scheduling this during the second week of July 2021. which day works best for you?
   • Wednesday, July 14, 2021
   • Thursday, July 15, 2021
   • Friday, July 16, 2021
2. What time of day works best for you? 
   • 10:00 AM MT / 9:00 AM PT / 11:00 AM CT / 12:00 PM ET
   • 12:00 PM MT / 11:00 AM PT / 1:00 PM CT / 2:00 PM ET
   • 2:00 PM MT / 1:00 PM PT / 3:00 PM CT / 4:00 PM ET)

Once I receive answers to the above questions, I will schedule a UAI Member Power Hour! I’m excited to try this out.

Thanks!

     @Leslie

​

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

Thank you for answering these questions from the May 3, 2021 Community Conversation, @Treena! This is very helpful.

Cheers,

     Leslie ​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 06-03-2021 19:41
From: Treena Colby
Subject: Questions Asked During May 3 Customer Analytics Community Conversation

Hello UAI Customer Analytics Community Members,

Thank you for the excellent questions regarding my presentation. My answers are below. Feel free to reach out to me for additional information or a discussion.

• @Treena — How do you do journey maps? A journey map is a diagram of steps that captures the rational and emotional experiences a customer goes through to resolve an issue or conduct a transaction. The map captures interactions between the customer and the utility as well as related experiences that lie outside the utility’s purview, thus providing a deeper understanding of the customer’s experience. Creating one involves inventorying and describing touchpoints-all of the points in which the customer interacts with the utility. 
• @Treena — How do you prioritize your initiatives? We look at the effort of the initiative, strategic alignment, financial ROI, risk avoidance, and the consequence of inaction. 
• @Treena — How are your customer analytics developed? This question is outside of my purview since I am on the business side of our analytics efforts. I would be happy to connect the person who asked the question to the contact at TPU leading the charge!

Thank you,

——————————
Treena Colby
Program Development Manager
Tacoma Public Utilities
Tacoma WA
2535028113
——————————

Original Message:
Sent: 05-03-2021 20:38
From: Leslie Cook
Subject: Questions Asked During May 3 Customer Analytics Community Conversation

Hello Customer Analytics Community Members,

Thanks to everyone that joined us today, May 3, 2021, during the Customer Analytics Community Conversation. I am excited to report that we had 151 attendees join us during today’s Community Conversation! If you missed today’s session, we have posted the recording in the UA Summit event platform and we will soon post it within the online Customer Analytics Community Library (@Kevin is working on it now!).

A shout out and BIG thank you to our speakers, @Treena, @Timothy, and @Poonam! We appreciate you sharing your knowledge and expertise during the session. Can each of you take a look at the below questions and reply to this discussion post if you have answers? Thank you!

We had quite a few questions asked in the chat box during today’s session. We did get to some of the questions, but not all of them during today’s session. I would love to continue the conversation here. The questions below are open to any UAI Customer Analytics Community member, not just our speakers from today’s session, so please reply to this post to share your insight on the below questions. Each question is marked with a speaker name to note whose presentation it was submitted during. 

Thanks to everyone that asked questions, answered questions, and shared today! Great session! I walked away wanting more! :-)

QUESTIONS ASKED IN THE CHAT BOX FROM MAY 3 CUSTOMER ANALYTICS COMMUNITY ATTENDEES:

• @Treena — How do you do journey maps?
• @Treena — How do you prioritize your initiatives?
• @Treena — How are your customer analytics developed?
• @Tim — What drives your customer segmentation on the billing assistance?
• @Tim — I’m interested in your definition between Active and Inactive digital customers. Is that a certain # of logins per year, within last x months, or other?
• @Tim — How are you tracking your customers digital interaction with other companies/providers? Are there tools/methods used in addition to a survey question?
• @Tim — How do you delineate segments vs. personas? A follow-up to that is there any order, e.g. Step1. segmentation, Step 2. personas
• @Tim — How are segmentation personas created? Is it based on targeted customers or contain overall customers?
• @Tim — What tool is used for the customer segmentation? Python/R or other?
• @Tim — Did you use digital or mail-surveys?
• @Poonam — How are metrics created based on voice of the customer program?

​​​
Thanks!

     Leslie

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

[Leslie Cook (Adm)]

I am thrilled to see you as the June 2021 UAI Member Spotlight, @Jeff! Thank you for all you do for UAI! It is a pleasure to work with you as a Community Sponsor for the Customer Analytics Community. I hope to get you to share your knowledge and experience around your advanced analytics projects that were born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically the machine learning models to predict the distress levels of your customers and the item you called “Communication Burnout”… interesting!

Cheers!

     Leslie ​

——————————
Leslie Cook
Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
——————————
——————————————-
Original Message:
Sent: 06-01-2021 12:16
From: Kevin Praet
Subject: June 2021 Member Spotlight: Jeff Yankley (Consumers Energy)

Jeff Yankley 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. Jeff is the Director of Customer Intelligence & Analytics at Consumers Energy.  In this role, Jeff is working 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 his customers so well to be able to build segments of “one”. 

 

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

Member: I started in the utility industry over 20 years ago in the IT field. Nearly 5 years ago, a new position opened up in the area of Customer Analytics at Consumers Energy and I jumped at the opportunity. It was a nice career progression for me, where I went from building and maintaining systems that capture customer data to figuring out what to do with all that data once we have it.  It has been a fascinating journey so far.

 

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

Member: As strange as this may sound, I’ve really enjoyed the projects that were born out of the COVID-19 pandemic as they have served as a springboard to the advanced analytics capabilities we are building in the Customer space at Consumers Energy. Over the past year, we’ve built some machine learning models to predict the distress levels of our customers, daily forecasting of gas and electric consumption and revenue, and something we call “Communication Burnout”. I enjoy these projects because they are helping to inform strategy that will help our customers and our company.

 

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

Member: Transitioning from IT to Analytics was a challenge since being in IT was all I knew for over 20 years. Groups like the Utility Analytics Institute helped a lot – the online forums, communities, and the UAI hosted events really made it easy for me to learn about what other utilities are doing in the world of analytics. I continue to be impressed with the amount of collaboration and knowledge sharing the UAI member utilities provide to each other.

 

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: Exercise patience and creativity. The utility industry is different than most with respect to the funding models, especially with regulated utilities. You may have great ideas but may not be able to fully execute due to funding restrictions. Get creative, implement what you can with what you have, and be patient while the funding catches up.

 

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 hear more about how other utilities manage all the different products and services they offer their customers – products like Demand Response, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, etc. At Consumers Energy, we offer a lot of products to our customers but we have a fixed customer base.  

 

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: We are all at different levels of our analytics journey.  For those starting out it can seem overwhelming.  My advice is to start small but start.  Continue to leverage the UAI and all the resources available.  My hope is that you’ll be as impressed as I am with the amount of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and support you will receive. 

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