If you want to move from an administrative role to a technical role, such as project management or marketing, start by learning the basics of technology with some free online courses:
1.       Computer Science 101: how computers work, from software to hardware.  No technical background required – a good starting point.
http://online.stanford.edu/course/computer-science-101-self-paced

2.       Intro to Databases – i.e. what databases are and how to work with them. It’s important to know what SQL is before you can learn more about NoSQL and “Big Data” platforms like Hadoop. This is a bit more technical but you can take portions of the bigger class (there are mini-modules) and use Google/Wikipedia for whatever is confusing.
https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/DB/2014/SelfPaced/about

3.       How the Internet works: a 12 minute starter TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_blum_what_is_the_internet_really?language=en

4.       Intro to Computer Networks: basically, how the Internet works, in a lot more detail.
https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/Engineering/Networking-SP/SelfPaced/about

5.       Human-Computer Interaction: A great intro to how user experience design works. Important for how you take technology and turn something like an algorithm or a bunch of working code into an interface that actual humans can use.
https://class.coursera.org/hci/lecture
 
Then find out what your company’s internal documentation is about the product. 

• Go through the company’s internal wiki (may require a VPN depending on your company/location).
• Find new hire training for sales people – since they have to explain the product to others.
• Look at your company’s YouTube channel for customer interviews/case studies, product demos, and whatever the PR department puts out.
• Watch videos from your company’s past conferences (if available).

 
Read up on the industry – ask colleagues or just search online for

• What conferences do people attend? Even if you can’t go to the conference, you can often watch a livestream or download presentations after the fact.

 
Meet people. 

•  www.meetup.com has excellent events in person by topic.  If you don’t have a lot of money and events aren’t free, contact the organizer and offer to help with setup or cleanup in exchange for a free ticket.  Often, event organizers are happy to have the help, and you can often attend for free!

 
Share what you know.
 
Take notes and write about what you learn.  
Start with word docs or google docs of interesting things you learn.  You can do this in a blog post on www.medium.com and publish your learnings once you feel like you’ve hit a milestone.  A good format to take is “how to do ___” or “10 things I learned about ___.”  For more ideas on topics/headlines, see here.
 
If you want to take it to the next level, organize an event and meet people in the topic/industry/area you want to learn more about.  You can start by finding an existing Meetup organizer and offer to produce an event for free for that community, for example.
 
The best way to learn is to teach, so if running an event sounds like a lot of work, start with explaining to a colleague, friend, or family member what you’ve learned.
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What tools or approaches have you used to become more technical?  Share with us in the comments.

There's a lot of talk these days about DATA. Big data. Private data. Censored data. Leaked data. People being seen as numbers. Companies collecting all your data and using it to sell you things. It seems that in today's world, one simply cannot survive without workin' the numbers! 

First and foremost, I want to say that people are not numbers. Ok? Ok. Got that out of the way. I'd also like to let y'all know that I am historically  *not* a numbers person. I might even say that I actively avoid numbers as much as possible. I can manage a budget. I can balance a checkbook. But if someone else wants to mess around in Excel, I'll gladly hand over the task. But alas, like I said, today's modern world and all. A girl (or guy) cannot simply bury her (his) head in the sand and pretend like the numbers don't exist. Obvi.

In my day job, I run PeopleOps at Disqus - we have around 50 employees, and a data-driven CEO. He and I get along swimmingly, but it can sometimes be tough to translate my warm fuzzy people projects into metrics-driven business initiatives. And heck, keeping the lights for all these people is no easy feat. We need systems and checklists and yes, data, to help us make good decisions. "BUT KIM! HOW DO YOU USE THIS 'DATA'? GIVE ME SOME IDEAS!" You got it, buddy.

Here are a few examples of ways my team and I use data to do our jobs better:

• Managing our office snacks program - When we first launched the program, we surveyed the team to see what they wanted.  We send semi-regular surveys to assess how folks feel about our offerings so we can make changes. Being able to say that 62% of employees asked for healthier snacks is a great way to back up your decisions to supply more carrots. 
• Launching new PeopleOps projects - It's one thing to rely on your gut and your boss to figure out what projects to work on. It's another to ask measured questions and present the data. We run engagement surveys twice a year, and we use the lowest-scoring categories to figure out where to focus our efforts in upcoming quarters.
• Improving our recruiting process - By using data like time-to-hire and candidate-dropout-rate (our ATS, Greenhouse, has excellent reporting built-in), along with anecdotal data from followup surveys, we were able to target specific parts of our interview process that could be tightened up. We improved the candidate experience by preparing interviewers more thoroughly and making the process move faster.
• Cleaning up internal tools - We're looking at usage data for the different tools and systems we use internally, looking at what we're using and what it's costing us. Understanding that only a small percentage of our team was using IRC helped us make the case to move to Slack, which appealed to a wider percentage of employees.
• Choosing Benefits & Perks - Leaning on our brokers, news articles, and the fine folks of OrgOrg, we've been able to pull industry data and review the benefits and perks we offer to stay competitive. We also survey employees periodically to see what's most important to them. That way, we're able to design plans that fit our company culture and position us well in the marketplace.

When I'm thinking about projects for my team, I look at past successes and known issues. When I want to make big changes, I back my suggestions up with data. 

Data helps you get a seat at that elusive table. It helps you feel more secure in your decisions (especially in a sort of nebulous or undefined role - I'm sure none of you know what I'm talking about!). It gives you something to measure against, so you know if your plans were successful. 

What are your favorite tools for collecting and measuring data? How have you found success letting the numbers be your friends?