Capturing & synthesizing unbiased insights from users, your open source community & yourself w/ James Campbell #209

ABOUT JAMES CAMPBELLJames Campbell is the co-founder and CTO at Great Expectations, the leading open-source data quality product. Prior to his life at a startup, James spent nearly 15 years working across a variety of quantitative and qualitative analytic roles in the US intelligence community, ultimately serving as Chief Data Scientist at CIA. He studied Math and Philosophy at Yale, and international security at Georgetown. He is passionate about creating tools that help communicate uncertainty and build intuition about complex systems.This episode is brought to you by Clipboard HealthClipboard Health is looking for the next generation of exceptional software engineering leaders, not just managers. They’re a profitable unicorn, backed by top-tier investors, and they take the craft of engineering management seriously.Clipboard Health matches highly qualified healthcare workers with nearby facilities to fulfill millions of shifts a year - revolutionizing healthcare staffing with a fast, flexible, and user-friendly platform.Learn more & browse their open roles at clipboardhealth.com/engineeringSHOW NOTES:The origin story of Great Expectations & James’ founding journey (3:28)Pitching / validating your idea through community (6:24)Transitioning from federal government to co-founder of a company (9:20)Recommendations when considering the founder / collaboration path (11:30)James’ experience starting with open source & getting 10k stars on GitHub (13:15)Engaging with your audience to drive growth & share your product’s message (15:17)How open source impacts Great Expectations’ marketing / communication (16:58)Navigating the tension between product vision & product roadmap (19:21)Where that tension showed up in Great Expectations’ early days (22:11)Capturing & synthesizing insights from your users (23:54)Strategies for removing biases from product-related decisions (25:37)Finding the balance between your perspective & community insights (27:13)James’ perspective on different levels of product analysis (29:54)Lessons learned from Great Expectations’ phase changes (31:22)Takeaways from the org’s latest experience / transition (34:51)Defining the “Heilmeier Catechism” & how it impacts James’ leadership style (37:07)Rapid fire questions (40:40)LINKS AND RESOURCESCIA Guide to Analytic Tradecraft - Primer published by the CIA to assist analysts in dealing with the perennial problems of intelligence.American Prometheus - Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the iconic figures of the twentieth century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb for his country in a time of war, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of scientific progress.This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.