March 9th was a proud day for The Classification Guru team.  

Bright and early on a Thursday morning, over 2000 women and allies from across the tech industry donned a piece of red clothing or jewellery and gathered at the stunning InterContinental London, O2. We were there for Women In Data, a flagship event that has been going eight years strong. 

We arrived super early to set up our booth, bringing the now infamous “data den” with us in all its wonderful sparkly glory, along with some TCG branded LoveHearts, rain ponchos and TCG webcam covers. 

Women in Data®’s flagship event for 2023 was just spectacular, the atmosphere was so friendly and welcoming. We all agreed you can’t experience anything close to it at any other event, and we have certainly been to a few events! 

And not just a great atmosphere, but truly engaged attendees, who were happy to come to our stand and just have a chat with us. It’s great people felt like they could approach us without fear of a hard sell. We were just happy to learn about each other and the wonderful things we all do. 

Throughout the day, we got to meet some amazing people, the majority being women (as you’d expect!) Thank you to those who attended our stand, we really enjoyed chatting with you all and hope you enjoyed your TCG goodies, you practically cleared us out by lunch!! We couldn’t have been better placed with Infoshare and Hertility as our stand neighbours, and close by was another data friend Nicola Askham with her stand. We can’t forget to mention the amazing view of the Thames we had, even if it was a bit misty! 

We loved the overall theme of support and reassurance at this event. Especially from Hertility‘s talk. Nothing feels better than being reassured with an awesome pun, and you know we definitely love our puns here at TCG! Dame Stephanie Shirley CH reminded us that we see a Steve in every lady we meet, strong, powerful, brave, and possessing the ability to transform this world. As Payal Jain said “continue to adapt and challenge the norm”. We can’t have change if we don’t challenge the status quo! 

Thank you to those who subscribed to our TCG newsletter, we saw a huge influx after sending out a follow up email. In fact, it’s the highest increase in subscribers that TCG has ever seen, so thank you!

And to those who bought our course Fixing Dirty Data – The Basics of Data Cleaning, we hope you are enjoying it. FYI – if you are enjoying and think your team would benefit, we are offering group discounts for organisations, so please share with your colleagues and HR department, they might have budget!  

The Dirty Data Workshop  

Thank you to those who attended our Dirty Data Workshop on how you can tackle and interrogate your data in Excel. It was a fantastic turnout! 

Susan Walsh, Founder & MD, said that it filled her heart with joy to be standing in front of so many enthusiastic women, ready to clean and fix some dirty data. In the session, she covered the basics of how to clean data in Excel, to get to know and understand your data in its basic form before jumping into using technology and being unsure if it’s working properly or not. 

In addition to this, she also covered off what dirty data is – you know it can mean different things to different people depending on what data you’re working with? No, us neither… And of course, she had to talk about making sure your data has its COAT on, sharing this philosophy far and wide. And for those that don’t know, it means your data should be consistent, organised, accurate and trustworthy. But if you want to know any more than that you’ll have to attend a session, or buy her course 😊 

Susan’s biggest takeaway from the session was that even in a room full of exceptionally skilled and experienced women, none of us know it all. There were tips and tricks shared that even the most seasoned pros benefitted from, and that was immensely rewarding for Susan. 

As the day drew to a close, with a celebratory drink in hand, we felt an overwhelming feeling of pride at what we as women in the tech industry have achieved. Like the amazing Martha Lane Fox says in response to the annoying question “Where are all the women?” HELLO, WE SEE YOU 👋 

Thanks again to the Women In Data team Roisin McCarthy, Emma Randall, Henrietta Sauleek, Payal Jain, Livi Arnold, Fiona Sweeney, Sue Hall, Cherry O’Sullivan, and Karen Jean-Francois.  

Here’s us saying, we’ll see you at the next one!