Hello Internet
The first post on my 2012 data science blog: what I believed about SQL, statistics, Python and data teams before it all changed.
First published on blog.mattalcock.com in December 2012, when I was leading data analytics at NaturalMotion. The original text and code are kept as written, with spelling fixed. What's changed since is in the 2026 note at the end.
The obligatory first post. I'll be honest I've been meaning to start and commit to a blog for sometime. After some false starts covering my broad spectrum of interests I've decided to focus on writing about my thoughts as a Data Scientist. I'm hoping people will find this informative and insightful. If there are any thoughts, feedback or collaborations that come from this then the blog will have been a success. So please let me know what you think.
I've been working with data for 10 years and my job title has jumped around from Developer, Data Analyst, Quantitative Analyst, Team Leader, Product Manager, Warehouse Manager, Head Of Analytics, Lead Analyst and Data Scientist. So what am I? I'm not sure everyone fits into role buckets but one thing I am convinced of is that everyone's interests and expertise is different. I enjoy managing small technical teams, I love working with large amounts of data and I have the expertise to apply statistical and scientific methods to my work.
Below are some biases and opinions I should mention before I start. I'll explain these in more detail over the coming posts but they're four personal and somewhat subjective opinions I wanted to share from the outset.
- I love the power of modern NoSQL data stores but still feel SQL is an amazing tool for analysis that's hard to beat.
- I think data can unlock questions and give insights into almost every area of business but also I understand it's not the silver bullet. It should be used with creativity, lateral thinking and domain expertise not instead of it.
- I love the concise power of statistics but realise they're frequently misleading and often poorly presented and explained.
- I'm program language agnostic but love to use Python
The blog will contain, thoughts, tools, projects and some book reviews. If there is anything you'd like me to talk about or review please drop me a mail.
I hope you like what's to come.........
2026What I'd change now
Thirteen years on, the job titles kept moving: product analytics at NaturalMotion, product director at Zynga in San Francisco, a company of my own, then AI in consumer fintech at Cleo and Plum. Most of the four opinions above survived. SQL is still the best analysis tool I know, and data still works best alongside creativity and domain expertise, not instead of them. The newer writing is on the blog.