| A lot of questions - don't need to answer. Maybe they can jog your thinking... What draws you to data visualization? Is it the sorcerer's apprentice type visceral appeal of creating meaning out of seemingly entropic data? Or is it you like the data visualization aspect more than the political campaign/marketing of your business. Reading between the lines, it seems you are comfortable (and doing fairly well) bringing data visualization to small political campaigns - do you want to expand that ambition? (e.g. in charge of real-time analytics for a large political campaign). Or do you feel like you want to tell people at cocktail parties that you are a data scientist? What would your dream job as a data scientist be? Do you want to be in a position where your job is access to huge data sets (Google, Facebook, Twitter) - for the ego and boasting of it? What do you think of OKCupid's data analysis/data visualization blog on dating - do you want to explore hypotheses and test them on large data sets? Is Edward Tufte's book(s) a coffee table book or do you flip through it when you are bored? You don't have his books? Did you want to enter the Netflix Prize contest but felt you didn't have the skills to compete? I've met some biostatisticians. It's hard to figure out what the heck they are talking about - but they really do enjoy their job (providing quantifiable evidence of drug efficacy). I've also met some actuaries. They get paid a lot. It's a very secure career. It's all numbers. Some of the best visualizations are not that complex. http://twistori.com
http://twittervision.com There is a $$ rather expensive test called the Kolbe test that you may consider investing in taking - it goes way beyond Myers Briggs to pinpoint your personal strengths and how you feel about them. http://www.kolbe.com |