Monday

CIKMconnect, AnalytiCup Finals, and interaction

My "Employer" registration at CIKMconnect gave me access to dozens of resumes from students and job seekers. Employers there were looking for people with expertise all up and down the data science stack, from infrastructure and methods all the way to the application level. Used the conference app to set up speed dates with several candidates with advanced degrees. Gave a short presentation on some of our current data challenges at work, and the students seemed interested -- got some good feedback on potential solution directions at the break. Swapped war stories with some other folks who are also down in the data science trenches. Caught up with a few additional promising candidates at the poster session. Great panel too!

Stopped by the AnalytiCup Finals long enough to see several teams' solutions to one of the Data Challenges. Those kids are immensely talented -- I'm using the conference app to set up a meeting with one of the teams tomorrow. Maybe our company should contribute a Challenge next year? Seems like a great way to find an excellent solution to a nasty problem, and generate some positive buzz at the same time.

Tuesday and Wednesday

keynotes, hands-on tutorials, case studies, and interaction

Started the day with an amazing keynote. Caught up with a couple of the promising candidates from yesterday at the morning break, and met with a few more at the demo and poster sessions. Spent most of the rest of the day in the hands-on tutorials, learning how to do deep learning and other analytics at production scale. I think I'm ready to try that stuff out on my own now, which is good because massively parallel deep learning seems to be where everyone's headed! Managed to catch a few of the case studies, too. Great to hear what worked and what didn't -- so helpful to learn from the experiences of early adopters.