Holiday gifts for the data nerd in your life
Every year, my family asks me what I want for Christmas and I give them some unhelpful answer like “World Peace” or “3-5 acres of arable land.” If you have a Business Intelligence and/or Data Engineering nerd in your life that is similarly annoying to shop for, here’s some ideas to get your started.
Note: Recommendations below are entirely my own. I am not nearly fancy enough to get kickbacks or perks from a blog post.
For their desk:
Featured: A small army of debugging assistants arriving by sea.
A rubber duck: Often when you’re trying to solve a problem, it
helps to explain out loud what you’re doing step by step to find the root cause. Sometimes a colleague is available to help; when they’re not, your gift recipient will benefit from a rubber duck.
The basic steps for rubber duck debugging are as follows:
In plain English, calmly explain to the duck what you’re trying to achieve.
Laugh at the general absurdity of explaining your (SQL Script/DAX Formula/Pipeline/Excel) issue to a rubber duck, thus releasing some anxiety and tension.
Walk your duck through each part, defining precisely what each step is meant to do. Discuss with the duck whether each step is actually accomplishing what you want it to accomplish. At some point in this step, you’ll generally find the issue—for me, it’s usually an extra comma or a missing parenthesis.
Repeat as needed.
There’s an astonishing variety of rubber ducks available; I’m partial to the firefighter duck as a troubleshooting partner. If you’re crafty, however, you could also make them a duck in the hobby of your choosing. I like this cute crochet pattern on Etsy: Amigurumi Ducky PDF Crochet Pattern INSTANT DOWNLOAD - Etsy
Emergency Desk Chocolate: Supposedly, Napoleon once said that he would drink champagne “…when I win, to celebrate… when I lose, to console myself.” Chocolate has that same duality. Unless your giftee inexplicably doesn’t enjoy chocolate, I consider this a foolproof gift option.
You need this game in your life.
Leslie, my Power BI DC co-organizer, introduced this game to me as “Cards for Humanity, but with charts”. It does not disappoint. Since the adults only version can be a bit blush-worthy, I’d recommend the “All ages” version if you anticipate your recipient playing it with family or colleagues.
This SQL Order of Operations coffee mug that I rather like
If anyone’s wondering, I’d like this one in pink please.
Or what about this Excel shortcut mug?! Oh man I would have loved this back when I worked in Financial Planning & Analysis. The classics are all there of course, but why not use this mug to expand your repertoire to include options like “Paste as formula” and “Cancel cancellation”?
Office Magnetic Poetry. This is more of a catch-all than a BI/Data Engineering-specific gift, but it still works. Every office is rife with some degree of business jargon, and this magnetic poetry kit does a good job of capturing that. If the Magnetic Poetry company ever takes me up on my offer to consult for a “Data & BI” magnetic poetry kit, I’ll update this post accordingly. In the meantime, this will simply have to do.
A Personal Popcorn Popper. Listen, I know that popcorn is a fraught subject in some offices, but I happen to have this and it’s the freaking best. This silicone popper lets you air pop just the kernels, meaning you don’t need to buy those popcorn bags with all the extra packaging and butter flavored chemicals that contribute to the smelly popcorn issue. After the popping has ceased, you just add on any additional butter, oil, or flavoring of your chooing.
Consider this an olive branch to your popcorn-loving colleague during your holiday popcorn peace accords.
For their bookshelf:
A few must-read essentials I can recommend from my own bookshelf:
Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic.
This is my data visualization bible. Personably written and full of beautiful examples of how to effectively get your point across with finesse, it’s is a great gift for newer and experienced BI professionals alike.
Power Pivot and Power BI: The Excel User's Guide to DAX, Power Query, Power BI & Power Pivot in Excel by Rob Collie and Avi Singh.
While I concede that this book is a little dated (Power BI isn’t really the “new kid on the block” these days), it’s still relevant and full of supportive, thoughtful guidance. As someone who started as the office Excel “expert”, this book was an essential roadmap for me to build on what I already knew to learn Power Query and Power BI. I still reference it and think it’s a great pick for anyone on a similar career journey. I will genuinely weep and/or hoard copies of this book if it ever goes out of print.
The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modeling by Ralph Kimball and Margy Ross. Power BI’s data modeling concepts are based on Kimball’s work. If your loved one wants to get good at data modeling and data warehouse design, this is essential reading.
For the road:
Traveling is a highly personal endeavor, and we all have our strategies for making do when we’re away from home. Here are a few creature comforts that make my travel easier (at least they do when I remember to pack them.)
A Bamboo Utensil Set: I really wished I’d had one of these in my hotel room last month when I ended up awkwardly eating my single serving yogurt using the makeshift spoon I fashioned from its foil lid.
If you’re buying a travel utensil set for someone who travels by plane for work, I highly recommend wooden or bamboo tools over metal to avoid TSA headaches. Technically, rounded metal butter knives are ok per TSA, but a) “The final decision rests with the TSA officer on whether an item is allowed through the checkpoint” (so who knows if the knife you’ll need for your bagel later is about to be confiscated) and b) even if they’ll let you board your plane with your butter knife, they’re still going to want to inspect it to make sure it’s compliant, which just adds stress…and might make your gift recipient miss their plane.
Their very own clicker for presentations (with a laser for pointing things out). Getting to the speaker’s podium only to discover there’s no clicker to switch slides is the worst. You can prevent this travesty for less than $30 bucks and it fits perfectly in a stocking. Bonus: it doubles as a cat toy.
Collapsible water bottle(s): These are a much better option than having to buy a bottle of water every time you’re thirsty and—unlike many reusable bottles—they fold down to almost nothing when empty. I like to strategically pack my smaller collapsible water bottle in an outer pouch of my travel backpack so I can refill it at one of the filtered water stations just after TSA. For the hotel, I keep a larger collapsible water bottle with a filter so I don’t have to make do with those insultingly tiny hotel water bottles. After a busy day, it’s great to have pre-filtered water in the hotel fridge instead of having to choose between going shopping for a case of bottled water or sipping from the bathroom tap.
Seriously, why doesn’t this thing come with a cleaning spatula?
A Travel French Press (+ a spatula to clean it): For the coffee (or loose leaf tea!) snob in your life that can’t stomach the hotel coffee bar, I give you the BODUM® - Portable French Press.
Being able to pick up some good local coffee grounds and brew your own fresh coffee can be such a luxurious upgrade from those awful Keurig things, and it can add some invaluable sleep-in time if the alternative is tracking down a coffee shop and waiting in line. My only caveat is that you have to gift it with some sort of small matching spatula (or several). Otherwise, your gift will turn into a headache when your recipient is trying to clean out the grounds or tea leaves.
A collapsible cup that can double as a bowl: Having a collapsible cup is great when you’re traveling because they collapse flat when you’re not using them and expand to fit a medium coffee or a bowl of Cheerios when you do.
If you’re traveling for work, you’re probably getting reimbursed for your meals but a) if you’re getting a flat per diem, this can help you save money and b) sometimes you just really want a bowl of Cheerios.
A really good eye mask, travel slippers, and good earplugs that match their personal style.
Not every hotel room has carpets of dubious cleanliness, poor noise control and a serious lack of black-out curtains. When you’re confronted with a hotel room that does, however, these three become essential.
Eye Masks:
These would go great with that SQL mug…
Slippers:
Earplugs
No-nonsense, corded earplugs
An extra car charger and car vent phone holder for their rental car. Is it possible that the road warrior in your life has these already? Sure. Are they so easy to leave in the rental car by mistake that it’s nice to have spares at home? Absolutely. Ask me how I know.
