The other day I was at the doctor's office and watched this incredibly brilliant MD—someone who literally brings life into this world—struggling with basic Google searches.

It reminded me of a consulting project I did with the police force. I delivered this beautiful PowerBI report and kept explaining features by saying "Just like in Excel..." until I realised the sergeant hadn’t used Excel in his work. You don't need pivot tables to catch criminals. Duh.

Here I was, after years in finance and data surrounded by Excel wizards, making the silly assumption that everyone speaks spreadsheet.

The Room-Reading Reality Check

This experience taught me something crucial: technical brilliance means absolutely nothing if you can't translate it for your audience.

I watched another data scientist at that same police project use the most complex technical jargon while pitching his ideas. The pushback was immediate and harsh—not because his ideas were bad, but because nobody understood what he was talking about.

There's no need to sound smarter than everyone else in the room. In fact, I think the ability to translate complex concepts into language that even a 10-year-old could understand is an art form.

My Personal Translation Rules

Here's how I adjust my communication:

Top Management: Executive summary mode. Give me 2-3 high-level numbers and tell me the revenue impact. That's it.

Non-Technical Teams: Zero jargon. Tell the story of what you discovered, why it matters, and what changes because of it. Don't mention the tools, models, or techniques unless they ask. If they're interested, they'll ask follow-up questions.

Fellow Data People: Go full nerd. These are the conversations where you can dive into the methodology, discuss model performance, and debate whether XGBoost or Random Forest performed better.

The Secret Advantage

Remember when we talked about non-traditional backgrounds being superpowers? This is exactly why. If you came from teaching, retail, healthcare, or any other field, you already know how to speak to different audiences.

You've had to explain complex concepts to confused customers, frustrated patients, or overwhelmed students. You instinctively know when someone's eyes are glazing over.

Your Action Plan

Before your next presentation or meeting, ask yourself:

• Who's in the room?

• What do they care about?

• What's their technical comfort level?

• What decision are they trying to make?

Then adjust accordingly. Your brilliant analysis deserves to be understood, not lost in translation.

Trust me, if people want to hear more details - they would ask. And it is a great feeling seeing that your work sparks conversations.

Keep pushing 💪

Karina

I am working on something exciting….

A 14-day Data Portfolio Challenge where you'll analyse realistic Facebook ad data (not another Titanic dataset 🙄).

Here's what makes this different:

• Realistic, messy marketing data that every business uses

• Daily step-by-step guidance (no more "figure it out yourself")

• Use ANY tool you prefer - Excel, Python, SQL, Power BI

• Applicable to any industry (finance, e-commerce, healthcare)

• Walk away with a complete portfolio project

Early bird pricing: $99 (regular price will be $129)

Join the waitlist - link

Nano Banana

You might have already seen AI images generated by Google's new image model, nicknamed "Nano Banana" (officially called Gemini 2.5 Flash Image).

This model differs from other AI models because it excels at editing existing images rather than just creating new ones from scratch. What makes it special? It can maintain character consistency—meaning when you edit a photo of yourself or your pet, you still look like YOU, just in different scenarios.

The cutest photos I've seen are when people upload a baby photo of themselves and combine it with a current adult photo, so their adult version is hugging their younger self. There's also something deeply touching about people using it to create images where they can hug a relative who is no longer with us.

Below are 2 images generated by Nano Banana from scratch:

Prompts credit: @mobileeditingclub 

In order to access Nano Banana, go to Gemini app or web version upload photo(s) and a prompt, and that’s it. Also, it is free.

Beware. There are some fake Nano Banana websites floating around that want to charge you for image generation.

Python tip

If you've ever had to combine multiple CSV files (monthly reports, sales data, etc.), you know the pain of opening each file and manually copying data. Following Python code can save you hours of your life:

import pandas as pd
import glob
import os

folder_path = "/Users/karinasamsonova/Downloads/sales"
pd.concat([pd.read_csv(f, low_memory=False) for f in glob.glob(os.path.join(folder_path, "*.csv"))], 
          ignore_index=True).to_csv(os.path.join(folder_path, "merged.csv"), index=False)

In this example, I want to combine all csv files located in sales subfolder into a new merged.csv file saved into the same directory.

Grab your freebies if you haven’t done already:

Data Storytelling Guide

Data Playbook (CV template, Books on Data Analytics and Data Science, Examples of portfolio projects)

Need more help?

Just starting with Python? Wondering if programming is for you?

Master key data analysis tasks like cleaning, filtering, pivot and grouping data using Pandas, and learn how to present your insights visually with Matplotlib with ‘Data Analysis with Python’ masterclass.

Grab your Pandas CheatSheet here. Everything you need to know about Pandas - from file operations to visualisations in one place.

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