Citizen data scientist program details and sign-up now open

Shay: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. Today we're having a follow-up podcast with Matt Bertram. Matt, how are you today?

Matthew

Bertram: Hey, good morning, Shay. It's good to be back with you.

Shay: Yeah, I appreciate you guys taking some time and effort to rediscuss, Chris. We're pretty excited about this citizen data scientist program and most importantly, maybe wanted to go over a little bit more of the information and map out, you know, what does this program look like? How can you implement it in your farm operation?, and, uh, just gonna dive into some of the details here. So Chris, I might let you take lead on this and then I'll just kind of fill in with you guys as necessary.

Chris: Sounds good. Well, we're excited to launch, uh, the Citizen Data Scientist program. Um, it's something that I think is gonna provide a, a massive amount of opportunities for the, a lot of the farms that we work with. We've already, based on the other podcast that we did, uh, what number was that again, Shay?

Shay: It was 496.

Chris: Go back to 496. Yeah, 496. So people can go back to that and and listen to more details than we'll probably give here. Because what we want to do here is launch and let everybody know kind of what it is, how we're going to do it, what the dates are, and then how to get signed up. And so with that said, we're pretty excited. A lot of people have already reached out. I think I told you that, Matthew. I think we talked offline a little bit yesterday and I told you, I said I've had a lot of people email. And we have a lot of farm operations that have multiple people that, you know, hey, we got 2 or 3 people in the operation that want to do this. And so there'll be people listening to this that have already, you know, committed, but they're going to need to go in and, and get signed up. And Shay will talk about that here in a bit.

But with that said, Matthew, why don't you go through real quick and kind of show everybody? If you're listening to this, you can kind of listen to this, but we will put this on YouTube as well so you can kind of get a visual of, of the plan and what, what's going to happen. So, Matthew, you can take it away.

Matthew

Bertram: Okay. Thank you, Chris. Yeah. So today we're all talking about the how this will work. And a good way to think about it is if you if you were going to take a, a class in college, a semester, this is structured a little bit like a semester. And so it goes across 12 weeks. And if you can, again, if you can see it, it's right here next to me. But if you're just listening to this, here's the way that it works. The first date, the kickoff date is going to be July 6th at 8 o'clock in the morning, uh, Central Time. All of the sessions that I'm gonna tell you, they all start at the same time, 8:00 AM. Central Time. And we did that for consistency so that you can do this before your day starts. All right. So the kickoff is at July 6th, 8 to 9:30, 90 minutes. And then we try to go on about a 2-week cycle.

And so session 1, where we start off with the overview, that's going to be July 20th. Then the, the next session will be July 27th. After that, it'll be August 10th and then August 24th. You see the 2-week cycle, then September 7th and then September 21st. And we specifically, Chris and I worked out the schedule so that by the time all of the, the fall season hits and you really ramp up operations, you will be done with the class. So the final session will be September 21st. All of these sessions start at 8 o'clock in the morning. Most of them go for 2.5 hours. The only session that goes for longer is going to be session 2 on July 27th. That's going to be 3 hours. You might think, well, what's going— what are we going to do for 3 hours? The 3 hours, that one is called Your Data Environment.

We have some special exercises where we're going to help you document and discover what it is that you have available in your farm operation. That many times turns out to be one of the most important sessions. So that's definitely not one to miss. Now, during the sessions, you might think, well, what's going to happen during the sessions? In before the session, you will have a couple of hours of videos that you can watch on your own time. If you're really good at watching a video while you're driving a tractor, I suppose you can do that, or you might want to watch it before or after. But yeah, Chris, can you watch a video and drive a tractor?

Chris: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew

Bertram: It's okay.

Chris: Sometimes it's Netflix, but this would be way more productive.

Matthew

Bertram: Oh really?

Shay: Yeah.

Matthew

Bertram: And drive straight. I mean, you can make a straight—

Chris: that's exactly why the auto steer is so important.

Shay: One thing that I would add to, you know, the importance of this wrapping up by September 21st is think of all the information that you, that you and farm operations have coming in at harvest time, right? So this is just a great time frame for you to capitalize on the year ahead, not only for the harvest season, but as you start planning for 2024 and beyond. And I would also add, it's not just for farm operations. So if you, if you run an ag business or you're a retail location or you're starting up a new venture, this, this data integration and some of the discussion might be just as valuable to you. Is that, is that fair, Matthew?

Matthew

Bertram: It is. And Shay, I'm glad you said that because part of the live sessions, the whole point of the live sessions is that you get to talk, you get to ask questions. If you think of the, the recorded videos that we provide to you, that's where we get to talk and expose you to the concepts. In the live sessions, that's where Shay, someone might be able to say, hey, I have this set of data, or I have this kind of problem I'm trying to solve with data on my farm operation. How might I do that? And we could discuss that there. That would— that's exactly what the live sessions are for. Awesome. What I also do is I have exercises that we'll do, specifically things to begin to get you thinking about how do I apply what I've learned to my business.

Shay: Very good. One thing that I wanted to ask too before we move on here is when you, you know, you mentioned Chris at the beginning that you might have 1 or 2 or 3 people in an operation that are attending this. So Matthew, could you just kind of reiterate, you know, you mentioned going to college and some people are like, well, I drank beer and didn't go to class in college, so I don't know about that. But, you know, there's all different levels of sophistication in operation. Of course, people have different roles. Who's a good fit for this? You know, which people should be participating in this program? And when you think of data, sometimes it can be a little intimidating because people are at all different levels. Absolutely. Some people that are doing great integration, there's some people that are just getting started. So can you speak to that for a minute?

Matthew

Bertram: Absolutely, Shay. Yes. So in order to get started, this class is specifically designed for people who are not data scientists already, who are not programmers, who are not— do not have a high level of technical proficiency. That's who it's not, you know, really built for. Who it's best built for are people who have basic computing skills. Shay, think of it this way. If you can, if you can make your way through an Excel spreadsheet well enough, you know, and make some basic, you know, make some, you know, calculations, and you know how to a spreadsheet, that's enough technical knowledge. That's who we've designed this for. So that's one thing. And on the technical knowledge, the other thing is, is you want somebody, a good fit for this class is somebody who is curious and who has the ability to learn.

Because if, if you're just able to, you know, absorb knowledge and you're able to be able to apply yourself to this, that's all we need to be able to do. There's no special requirement for being able to attend.

Shay: And Chris, I think you can probably, you know, be a testament to this, but there are so many operations out there that are curious and do have good data and can navigate Excel. But I'll tell you, we've seen some— lovingly, we've seen some ugly farmer spreadsheets out there to where it might work for you, but what data are you getting out of that? And have you overcomplicated it? So, you know, Chris, I think that's one of the main reasons too that we wanted to pursue this program. And give people that interest and give them an avenue of approach to have that self-development in their operation.

Chris: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think the big thing is, is that we have a lot of people that are listening to this have a ton of data, but it's like, okay, well, what do we do with this? How do we have this data make us more money? Bottom line, right? Like, how do we, how do we take this and aggregate it and figure out what it is that we need to be looking at? And how do we learn to do it better? How do we not overanalyze. I mean, because we spend a lot of time on data as producers, and are we spending the right amount of time on the right data? And that's really what my expectation for this is that people will get out of this, is just a way to, you know, really become much more efficient at decision-making. And by using this type of tool, I think it's going to be huge.

Shay: And, and Matthew, I was wondering if you could just real quick for those who aren't looking at the screen, just read off the session overviews and kind of what the emphasis will be, you know, as you go through this progression.

Matthew

Bertram: Sure, absolutely. So session 1 on July 20th, we call that the purpose of data activation. And you think, what is data activation? If you, if you think of data where it lives, for example, it's out in the different, you know, computer systems that you want to be able to draw data from. How do you get it from there down to a dashboard or down to a place that's providing insight. We talk about just what the overview is. Then the second session, which is on July 27th, your organization's data environment, that gives you the ability, we're going to help you discover what is, what is available in your farm to be able to make use of. Session 3, which is on August 10th, that's analytics. And here's what you can think of as analytics. You've got your data. What can you put on top of your data to, it's called enrich your data.

For example, that might be a forecast, or that might be, you know, a calculation that allows you to have an insight beyond just looking at the surface data. For example, in the farm, think about answering the question, when is the best time to plant for my field? Not for the whole region, but for my field. That would be in a way of enriching the data by being able to answer a question like that. Awesome. Session 4, storytelling. Yeah. Storytelling. I love storytelling because you can think of it this way. Insight is worthless. Persuasion is priceless. The ability to change people's decisions using data. That's what we're going to talk about in session 4 on August 24th. That's one of the most important.

And here's what I like, because if you take, if you spend all the time and money to get the data, move the data, put it into a dashboard, you've done all of that, but you haven't changed people's minds, but they haven't accomplished anything. That's why that session is so important.

Shay: And I'll tell you, there's a lot of younger operators out there that are like, yeah, I keep trying to tell Dad that we need to make a change. I don't know how to make a persuasive argument. So I think that'll be a great one.

Matthew

Bertram: That is a great one. Session 5, Mashups. That's on September 7th. You can think of mashups kind of like a chemistry set, or imagine, because I know that, you know, when you're fertilizing your field, you've got so much potash, you have, you know, so much, you know, the different materials you're trying to mix. And you might think, well, what if I change the ratio a bit? That's a bit like mashups. Now you're doing that with data. Part of being a good citizen data scientist is able to take different sets of data that have not necessarily been joined together before and say, if I bring these together, for example, if I look at my crop yield and the weather patterns that are in my area, if I bring those two together and I look at it, does it give me some kind of special insight?, right? That would be the, an example of doing mashups.

And that's an essential part that, that, that curiosity part is essential. Finally, session 6, Chris, this goes back to what you were talking about. Automation, September 21st. Automation is a big deal because think, imagine you've got your set of data, you've got a dashboard, but let's say every morning you have to spend some amount of time putting data into it and publishing it out so the people around you can see it. That just eats up your time. How many of those could you do before you say, I can't do anymore, I don't have time to do anymore. Automating the ability to automate your reports, the ability to automate so that they, they just take care of themselves and they run. That's a key part of being able to be able to go and create additional insights. That's the first part. The second part, Shay, on this is what we call data surveillance. Think of it this way.

How do you make sure that, let's say you don't run out of diesel. Like who's watching your diesel storage levels, right? So what do you, what do you normally do? You normally have one person or a couple of people who go out and they're, they check the gauges every single day. And when it gets low enough, right? That's an example of data surveillance and that's very costly when you have a human do it. Well, there's ways to be able to have a, a, a report, a computer, a program, be able to go out and check those things for you. And think about how many hundreds of things how many little pieces to watch. You could have a computer go watch for you. So, you know, okay, I've got something that's going and watching it for me. Those are the two parts of automation that we're going to talk about across all the six sessions.

Shay, something else that I want to point out is that after you get through this, this gives somebody the mental framework to be able to know how to use data, the whys, the entire, how to design the process in a way so it really works for their farm. But yet now that's kind of like teaching someone how to farm, right? You could teach me everything that you know about farming and how to be good, but until I go get Chris, until I go climb into the tractor, I'm not actually farming. All right. Well, that's what the next module is, right? And we have not scheduled this one yet, but here's what the next module is. We actually have a lab and this is a follow-on. Chris and I are still working out the dates. We are going to mentor you through 3 projects in a lab. So you get to choose the projects. They're real-world projects that are going to work for your own farm.

And then we're going to work through those and we're going to do 3 of them. And they're going to take about 2 weeks each. This part takes about 8 weeks. The first, the first module, the first set takes about 12 weeks. And Chris, I don't know, are we going to have time to do that this year or is it going to be, you know, when in the winter season, which is what we're talking about, did you want to do this?

Chris: Yeah, we'll do this sometime, you know, probably probably starting in that, uh, you know, possibly December time frame, but probably more likely in January, you know. And we'll be able to get that through before spring starts, so that'll be— be the timing would be great.

Matthew

Bertram: Perfect. Yeah, that's good to know. And so that way what we'll be able to do is take everything that you're learning about being a citizen data scientist, it will actually work with you through real projects so you can get started building your own insights. And then from there you have not only the knowledge but also real-world skill.

Shay: So, and things that are creating— sure. Yeah, I want to make sure, and thank you for the overview. When you talk about kind of these first 6 sessions, the end state is how do you think about data, how do you use data, and giving the, the producer, the farm operation, the business operator, the ability to manage their data better and to make decisions. Which, by the way, I'm, I'm so excited for this because I think it's, it's going to be of huge value to so many listeners. And then, then you move into that lab and say, okay, let's generate 3 real-world examples that benefit you in your operation to make applicable. And for that, you know, continuing education, I guess I would call it. One question I know people are going to have is, you know, what contact do we have with the course facilitators, with Shea or with Chris, kind of throughout this process?

Can you maybe speak to that a little bit and what that would look like?

Matthew

Bertram: Absolutely. So throughout this, throughout this course, I'm going to be teaching a lot of the course. And so if you have questions during the course, you're welcome to reach out to me as well. Chris, I am sure you're available if people have questions for you as well. But if— and also Shay, along with this, I want to point out is that throughout, throughout the first module, when we're doing the foundations, Part of what we're doing in some of the, the offline work is I will have them, for example, get started with Power BI, at least just get set up. And if you don't know what Power BI is, don't worry about it, but it is simply a way to be able to build a visualization. It's actually be able to build a dashboard and a chart. Microsoft is, it's, you can get, you can get started for free and it's very easy to be able to get up and running.

And so we're going to be able to do some of those things in foundations so that we've got all the pieces in place moving into the second module. But yeah, I'm available, to answer, to go back to your question, Shay. And then there's also, but part of why we're doing this as a community is so that there are questions and ways that you'll be able to interact with each other. And so there's that cross-pollination effect of saying, well, hey, I'm trying this at my farm, or you get to hear another participant who said, hey, I tried this and this really worked for me. There's that. The third thing, Shay, is that we'll have a portal that we'll set up. That when you log in, everything relative to the class is there. So if it's, you know, late at night and you have a question, you want to question, then you can have all the flipped classroom videos.

All of the resources that I share as part of it is going to be available there, all of our notes, you know, so you'll have that on demand as well.

Shay: So to me, for those of you that went to college a long time ago or maybe haven't had a virtual learning experience, this is truly set up like essentially a college class with college dashboard and forums and interaction, except I would argue, uh, done well, as opposed to, you know, some of those college classes where things just, you know, it's the university running it. Nothing against that, but I, I, I really like the format. I really like the forum. Chris, I want you to speak to the fact that unfortunately, uh, we have to put a limit on this. So, you know, what does that look like for the listeners here?

Chris: Yeah. So, you know, we're probably— we're thinking about 25. And so kind of the first operations that can get signed up. And so it is really going to be a first come, first serve type of a deal. We could maybe go 1 or 2 above that 25, but we don't want to be too much more than that. Is that about right? And so that is— yeah. And so we've had quite a bit of interest. Go ahead, Matt.

Matthew

Bertram: Yeah, Chris, let's talk about that. Why is there a cap? Why don't we just say, you know, 50 or 100? And the reason is, is that in the live sessions, we give people a chance to interact. As a matter of fact, it's not just one way. I mean, I will interact with people. For example, Chris and Shay, if you're in the meeting, it is like me throughout this to say, all right, well, we're talking about this type of, you know, bias and how data can fix it. Chris, what do you think about this? How does this work in your firm? And I'm going to have you come on and talk. And the goal is to get everybody to be able to have a chance to interact. With the time that we're dealing with, that's part of what really causes us to have a cap, because once you get much past 25, it becomes hard to be able to let everyone interact. Mm-hmm.

Shay: So one thing I want to mention here, for those of you that are interested right now, you can go into the show description wherever you're listening on the podcast and we have a Google form set up. Click that link. We have 5 basic requirements. We just need to know who you are, what your operation is, where you're located, and who you have planning to participate. And if you have any interest at all, even if you don't want to sign up or if you don't have the ability to sign up for this first session, whatever it is, I'm pretty confident that we're going to fill up this class quickly. And so, you know, if and when we decide to do a secondary class on this, which I think we probably will, you guys will be on the top of that list. So even if you don't make it in this first 25, it's all right.

The reason that we're doing this, and Chris, I want to refocus on this for a minute, is we feel that this is not only an underserved area from data analysis and integration and usefulness in agriculture and ag businesses, But we, we want to be able to provide that resource, which is where the collaboration has come in here. And I think most, most folks that have worked with us or listened to us know that we don't collaborate or partner with anybody loosely. We do it because that's what we believe in. And so the values and the integrity match up between our businesses with FuturePoint of View and Ag View. And that's why we're so looking forward to this. So Anything else that you want to add on there, Chris?

Chris: Yeah, I would just say that, you know, there's been a handful of people, I think 7 or 8, that have reached out to me and said, I definitely want to do this. I just want to say to those people, if you're listening, go in and sign up on your, your, your Google sign up there. And then I will, I will be texting everybody that did kind of originally reach out to me to here yet today. As we record this here so that, you know, that, that they're signed up and for sure get priority because they had reached out to us ahead of time. So, but, but I do need those people to get signed up. So if you're listening to this, please do that ASAP because it's going to fill up. And so we just want to make sure we get everybody in that reached out early as well.

Shay: Yeah. And Chris and Matthew, kind of to wrap up here,, you know, in, in full transparency, let's talk through what's the cost of these first 7 sessions and then, you know, the lab and, and kind of how, what, what do producers need to be thinking about? How do they budget for this? Uh, if you guys can speak to that.

Chris: You want me to take that, Matthew?

Matthew

Bertram: Yeah, go ahead, Chris.

Chris: Okay. So basically what we're doing is, is like Shay said, you know, uh, in partnering, um, here with Future Point of View, um, essentially when you sign up, then we will have your information. You will be receiving an invoice. The invoice for session for this first 6 sessions is $1,500. And so you'll be receiving either via email or mail. I think it's probably going to be emailed out to you. And so you'll just have that invoice or go ahead and pay that invoice and we'll be good to go.

Shay: And I wanted to revisit that when you think about the time dedication to this, Matthew, you can speak to this. So Yeah, you're, you're 2 hours, 2 and a half, 3 hours every 2 weeks. What can they expect for time commitment and dedication in between? What do you think is maybe normal for a business?

Matthew

Bertram: Across the entire, from start to finish, Shay, you can expect to spend about 50 hours spread across those 12 weeks. And so let me break that down a little bit. About 2 hours every session. Those are going to be the on-demand videos. So you can watch those while you're on the tractor, while you're doing other things, you You just need to be able to, you know, really listen and pay attention to the videos. So there's that. Then we have the live sessions and those live sessions are about 2.5 hours each. And then those, you do need to be able to participate. Chris, I'm not saying it's impossible that you couldn't attend a live session from a tractor, but I would just say that I, I would have a hard time believing that you could actually keep up.

Chris: The beauty of the beauty of starting on, on the 6th. And we have guys in wheat harvest and doing, you know, different areas of the country and stuff. But yeah, I don't, I don't think anybody is going to have any issue with, with being in the office. The, the operations that we work with, and Shay can attest to this, are extremely executive-minded, and they're going to, they're going to commit the time to this because of the importance of it. This is just as important as is planting or harvesting. You know, we always talk about the importance of working in your business and working on your business, and this is, this is one of the best opportunities I think we've been able to present for operations to work on their business and, and really impact their bottom line.

Shay: Yeah, as always, our goal is to provide, you know, value and perspective to the listeners. That's why we do this podcast. That's why we do the work that we do in our business, and more importantly, to help people and businesses thrive. You know, that's our outlook here at Ag View Solutions. And FuturePoint of View is definitely taking that to the next level and making it exceptional. So Matthew, I'm gonna leave it with you here for a minute. Any final thoughts, anything to wrap up? What have we not covered? I'll let you take it to wrap things up on your end.

Matthew

Bertram: All right, thank you. Well, first of all, I'm excited that people in the ag space are looking at how they can increase their operations with data. It is time. It is absolutely time. I can tell you that I've been in data for 25 years and the tools that are available now versus the tools that were available then, it is a wonderful time to be again getting into data and be able to use that in your organization. I would say any questions that haven't been answered, feel free to reach out to Chris, because I know you've got to be able to, you can, you can contact Ag View and then if necessary, Chris can put you in touch with me. I would be happy to answer any questions. For example, if you say I have a special situation, with my farm, I don't know, or with my people. How does this work? I'd be happy to discuss that with you. That would be fine.

Shay: Great. Chris, final thoughts?

Chris: I just, think, you know, get on this, get signed up right away if you are interested. It's going to get full. We are excited to do this. I'm going to do it. I'm going to participate. I'll be there as well. I think, Matthew, you guys kind of had to twist my arm a little bit because I'm like, I'm already doing that stuff. And it's like, no, you, you need to do this. And I know I need to, and I've got a couple of guys in our farm operation that are definitely going to do it as well. And so, like I said, it's, it's a, it's a huge opportunity. We're super excited as Ag View. Um, like Shay said, we're excited to partner with you guys and, and provide this awesome opportunity for operations.

Shay: And to your point there, Chris, you know, whether it's, uh, the Ag View Executive Business Conference or being part of a peer group or people going down to TPAP, one thing that we always joke about is it's hard to take this information and correlate it back to your business because you look at this data and I know people are going to get excited and they're going to be like, holy cow, look at all this stuff that we can do that we didn't even know. And then you're going to go back to your team and you're going to have 47 ideas and they're going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's maybe do 3.

Yeah, but my point there is if you have multiple people in your operation that need to hear this information, get them board, you know, have them take the time, dedicate the time, invest in your business, because I'm telling you right now, this is going to have an impact in what you do in your operation. And, and for the guys and gals listening, uh, you know, get on that Google form, fill out the information. If you have any additional questions, reach out to Matthew, reach out to Chris, you can contact myself. We're here to get you guys on board, to get you into the program. And help elevate your farms and elevate your businesses. Guys, with that, if you don't have anything else, I think we'll close out. Sounds good. All right.

Matthew

Bertram: And thanks for having me on today.

Shay: Yeah, absolutely, Matthew. I really appreciate everything you guys are doing there with Future Point of View. And as a final reminder, go back, you can listen to episode number 496 on the Ag View Pitch to get a little bit more information. We're looking forward to this. We're excited. And thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. We will catch you next time.