I live and work in Johannesburg, and tend to play anywhere that a mountain top can be found.
I wouldn’t say I have any claim to fame. I suppose my most fame-worthy achievement was a live performance on KTV Power Edition, with my old band.
I've spent my whole career in digital agencies, so naturally, it's been quite fast paced.
I started as an intern at Quirk, where I started specialising in the data and UX space. Over time this evolved into more of a data and analytics role and I eventually left to head up the data offering at Joe Public Connect. I've recently joined Algorithm as the director of data and analytics.
Making music, hiking, an ice-cold beer on a warm day.
The data and analytics space is ever-evolving, with new developments on a regular basis.
This non-static nature allows me to keep learning new tools, tricks and techniques.
An average workday varies quite a bit but might include compiling reports, scripting API calls, building templates, spending time at clients or learning something new.
Healthy scepticism, an inquisitive nature, Excel, Python, R, PowerBI, Tableau, SQL, Google Analytics, Google Big Query.
Nobody has quite cracked this space yet. There are a number of great teams and individuals trying to figure it out, though.
There's a tendency to overcomplicate things. We have so much data available to us that marketers often include as much as they possibly can. Instead of providing actionable insight, this just results in more noise and indecision.We need to take a step back on narrow our focus to what's most important – simplicity is key.
Algorithm has just launched a new business division called Quant, with the purpose of adding a data analysis and business intelligence layer to the work we do.
I've been heading up the development of this data offering, building out a propriety set of tools to help drive and grow marketing efforts.
These are some of the buzzwords currently being overused:
I'm usually most productive in the early hours of the morning. From 2am to 3am seems to be the magic hour for good ideas.
I can juggle – badly.
Most definitely a technophile.
Reddit, Spotify, Netflix, Google Analytics, Excel, a whole lot of podcasts and books, and many, many photos of my few-months-old twin girls.
There's a high demand for data scientists and analysts, but a lack of skills in the industry.
Self-learning is crucial to developing those skills. There are a ton of resources online, and I've found that some of the most successful people in the industry are those that make use of what's available online to grow their skill set.
Simple as that. Follow Nieman on LinkedIn; and visit the Algorithm press office, as well as their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn feeds for the latest updates.
*Interviewed by Leigh Andrews.