My purpose: For all mission-driven, social justice-oriented people and organizations to have the confidence and skills to learn, use and love data & technology as part of achieving their missions.
When Real Data Hits, Things Get Funky
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Hi! It’s been a minute since I last landed in your inbox—thanks for sticking around. For one of my current clients, I’ve been deep in spreadsheets, systems, and the weirdness that always emerges when real people and real data meet. I just wrote a post about it: a behind-the-scenes look at one of my favorite kinds of projects (and what always happens, no matter how well you plan). Here it is: When Real Data Hits, Things Get Funky (And That’s Normal) A few things I’ve been up to lately…💬 Coaching: I wrapped a powerful pilot of my Defeating Imposter Syndrome Group Coaching Program, helping folks in data & tech roles move with more confidence and clarity. 🎤 Conference: At NTC’25 I co-facilitated a workshop on imposter syndrome and culture-building in nonprofit tech—it was a different kind of conference session, but it was an amazing experience. 🎤 Conference: I attended my first Small Giants Summit, and it was unlike anything I could have expected. 🛠️ New service: I launched a Fractional Tech Team offering for nonprofits—embedding as a trusted partner to build human-centered tech capacity. 🕊️ Dialogue training: I’ll soon be training with Resetting the Table to deepen my skills in facilitating dialogue across conflict. Thanks for reading. I’m looking forward to writing more regularly again—and I’d love to hear what’s going on with you, too. Peace, |
Emily Hicks-Rotella
My purpose: For all mission-driven, social justice-oriented people and organizations to have the confidence and skills to learn, use and love data & technology as part of achieving their missions.
Hi again, Ai, Ai, Ai — it’s all the rage. Those lowercase i’s I used here were out of lazy typing, but I actually kind of like it when I see it. It highlight's the Artificial part and names it with small i intelligence. I use some kind of Ai everyday, including using ChatGPT throughout my work days. I understand what the environmental cost of this is now and will continue to be. I’m not sure how to think about that right now. There are two Ai-related media items that caught my attention...
There are many people who have given voice to the dizzying pace of the “digital age” - specifically about the speed by which technology changes, grows, updates, enhances, is created and destroyed. Similarly, we have a lot of contributions of thoughts and opinions about how this speed infiltrates our lives and the consequences to our mental and physical well-being, which we are instructed to combat with deep breathing, meditation, mindfulness, digital detoxing, and dry January (but for social...
Many email newsletters we receive start with “Dear [NAME],” - and “NAME” is magically replaced with your name. Just today, I received an email with the subject line “made me think of you, Emily (offer info inside)”. Now this was very insulting to me. The person (but mostly their automation) who sent this email to me clearly did not think of me. Maybe they had some thought of the collective “me” because they thought about everyone on their email list as a general whole. But I felt that they...