Well, it's a little bit of an impromptu meeting this morning.
So and maybe brief so maybe just a quick 15 or minute 15 to 20 minute update.
And then what we'd like to announce is on Saturdays, I think we can start doing a cannabis
data science Saturdays statistics.
So that's when we can really get into the meat of things.
So I'll be putting that on the meetup agenda.
Just to let you know, today, I am here at MJ BizCon in in Las Vegas.
So yet again, it's one of those just ad hoc meetups.
But I thought I could at least talk with you about what the event events yesterday was
the Science Symposium.
And then we can just talk to him stay to science here for a minute, and then really get into
some real interesting things on Saturday with Saturdays statistics.
So so real quick, Eric, you're new to the group.
So just to kind of throw you on the spot.
You wouldn't mind maybe introducing yourself or maybe letting us know your background and
your angle and what you may hope to get out of the group.
Hey, I'm Eric.
Like you said, I am new to the group.
Basically my background, I've done everything from like finance to actual security.
I've been I guess in tech for the past, let's say 15 years, different aspects.
I was a network administrator.
So I worked mostly with hardware software.
Then I transitioned from that to development.
And now I've been doing data analysts at a current FinTech company in New York City.
And I've been doing that for the past year and a half, give or take.
So just new to data.
And I actually didn't even know I worked in the data field.
But I guess basically, all I thought I was doing was just reporting.
So like my company has me doing like the business to consumers like marketing.
And basically, I do the reporting for our entire organization that's located here.
Texas is our headquarters.
But we do basically if you pay on a home or a commercial real estate property, you're
probably paying your rent through us.
So I've been doing that for the past, like I said, year and a half, give or take.
Also, just bringing in these headphones just to get a bit better sound here.
No problem.
Well, it's awesome to have you in the group.
So what interests you about the merger of cannabis and data science?
Well, obviously, it's a growing field, because I actually used to invest in certain stocks.
And it's been obviously big for the past couple of years, especially with the legalization
of it across many states in the United States.
So just, you know, like, I'm new, like I told you.
So I guess I'm still trying to learn everything that's not just with cannabis, but many other
sectors.
Okay.
And you said your background was in cybersecurity.
I did cybersecurity.
But that was years ago.
That was maybe early 2012.
Okay.
And can you tell me how you got into data science?
So like I said, I started doing basically networking.
So we did firewall systems.
I worked mostly with hardware, creating servers, doing the whole virtualization.
And from there, I kind of transitioned into as a web developer or a software developer.
I used many different, so I used like Ruby on Rails.
Obviously it depended on where I worked and what technology stack they used.
So I went from that to like React.
Then they threw me into learning SQL.
So I did a lot of SQL stuff and Excel.
I actually never needed to use Excel, so I didn't even know how to use Excel, but now
I do.
Yes, you'll be surprised how often you come across companies using Excel these days.
But that's, I've heard a programmer say that that's often a prime opportunity for development.
But anywho, well, I'll tell you about myself.
So I started a company, Canlytics.
And so we principally got into the space to help out laboratories.
So we have experience building laboratory information management systems.
So that may be up your alley, software.
So that's how we got into the space.
And we saw that there was a big need for statistics and analytics.
So we're skilled at that as well.
So we thought we could maybe share our comparative advantage with others.
And statistics is something that we can do simply and easily.
So we thought there was a shortage, so we thought we could provide some supply of statistics.
So you do have any experience with stats at all?
That is actually quite interesting.
While I don't have experience in the cannabis sector, like I said, currently right now,
what I do for the company that I'm working at, I do all the marketing material for them
on.
So I take the statistics of basically our marketing campaigns.
And what we're trying to do is increase our credit card adoption fees.
So I collect data for obviously every month that we send out.
It's over like sometimes like 2 million emails, because we have many residents on our platform
that pay their rent via credit cards, checks, cash, money order, or now cryptocurrency.
So what we do, our company, we actually make more money when they use a credit card.
So what I'm doing is I generate these reports from the data from Microsoft SQL, but they
want me to present them basically in like spreadsheet format.
And I use that in a dashboard to give to the marketing manager so he can change his marketing
strategy so we can have a higher credit card adoption rate across, you know, our campaigns.
We're a big fan of showing the data.
So your managers may like this.
So have you ever presented any figures or charts or graphs?
Yes, yes, I have.
Okay, so may I ask, what's your favorite way to go about creating charts or graphs?
So mine's with Python, but it's that's just my tool, but which?
Yeah, it's mostly Python.
Oh, interesting.
Awesome.
We also do use here, they have several different tools that have dashboards.
So we have developers and they sometimes I don't even get to choose that.
They just tell me to basically give the data to our developers and that they're going to
create a dashboard for it.
So it kind of depends on what team is requiring what data and at what point.
Sometimes we use Tableau or there's the new, I guess, like Microsoft BI.
So it actually kind of depends.
And like some people I know, what is that they use like Panda Pandas or something like
that.
But I haven't I have no experience with that.
Yes.
So we can show you a bit of the work we do, so we'll use Pandas to wrangle data now and
again.
So if you want some examples of some of the code, you should check out the cannabis data
science repository.
So they can put the link in the chat.
So we'll have all of the work that we've done over the past several months.
We'll see how we use Pandas intermittently to read in data to clean the data.
So there's a lot to be done there.
Well, thank you for that.
And essentially I was thinking, yeah, so essentially maybe the meetups here on Wednesday can maybe
be a bit more of a, you know, just a back and forth meetup.
And then on Saturdays, we can really dive into.
So if you'll look at the code examples, we, you know, that that so that way on Saturday,
that'll be the more program intensive statistics heavy day.
And then Wednesdays, we can just talk about cannabis data science and what people's interests
are, the latest developments in the field, you know, what have you.
So there or we can mix it up.
So so I just thought I would put that by the group and see what people people prefer.
But today it just happened by happenstance because I'm here at the convention and it
actually really kicks off here at nine o'clock a.m. Pacific Standard Time.
So I'll need to conclude here in about eight minutes or so.
But so normally we do a longer session where we really dive into statistics.
But unfortunately, due to circumstance, just have to keep it short today.
But the plus side is I can fill you in about some of the things happening at MJBiz and,
you know, some of the topics at hand.
So for example.
One of the big things going on right now is the hopslee in virory.
So this is a big risk to everyone in the industry.
Right.
So you've got a bunch of.
Right.
Oh, we've got a new guest.
But but I'll really pin these things up next time.
So, you know, some of these interesting developments.
We've got Miguel.
So welcome to the group.
So we're doing a bit of an impromptu meetup today.
So welcome aboard.
Happy to have you.
And essentially thought I would tell you about we've done this kickoff Saturday statistics
on Saturday.
So would any of you have a good time in hand that you may be interested in doing statistics
on Saturday if that's something that any of you are interested in?
Eric or Heather.
Oh, Miguel.
Oh, cool.
Well, I was thinking sometime in the morning.
So we could stick with the same time.
Eight thirty a.m. Pacific Standard Time.
And then that would be eleven thirty a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
If that would work for everyone.
That works for me.
Also, so then we can rendezvous and.
Awesome.
Oh, welcome in.
Welcome back.
So today we're doing an impromptu meetup from MJ Biz.
Then on Saturday, we can get back to essentially we were merging economics, economic theory
with some empirical data and seeing if we couldn't estimate some models as Heather can
attest.
We weren't really able to estimate one of the economic models we had.
OK, luck with the second.
But, you know, it led to a lot of doubt.
Right.
So, you know, if the economic theory doesn't pan out in one case, yeah, it just makes you
kind of wonder.
So long story short, we're going to revisit this on Saturday and maybe extend the data.
So we were looking at Massachusetts and we could potentially add a couple of new states
such as California or Colorado to the mix to sort of do a comparative analysis across
the states.
And so, Eric, I believe you said you were doing state by state comparative analysis.
And if so, are there any particular states that you're interested in?
No, I wasn't doing a state by state analysis.
I said that I was working on that was more for our own company, not a Canada sector.
OK.
So, long story short, we'll really just look where there's data to be found.
So that's what we'll really kick off on Saturday.
And then I can report back to you and fill in my notes to you about, you know, all the
developments here at MJBiz.
So that way, you know, you know, OK, what's happening here in the ground floor?
What are the latest topics at hand?
What are people talking about?
So a big topic at hand these days is quality assurance.
So just to give you a brief history here in the last few minutes of quality assurance
in the campus industry.
So as you know, so essentially things really kicked off right in 1996.
So this was when I was a wee child.
And so this is when California permitted medicinal cannabis.
This went on for, you know, not much change for many years, for a decade or so.
And then in 2000, really when things really started moving quickly was in 2012 with the
legalization of cannabis in Colorado and Washington.
And so that's when, you know, stories started making it into the news.
There is the, you know, the cannabis tourism in Colorado.
So this is when cannabis really started to become mainstream and get onto people's radar.
Well, it's an interesting story because you can almost tie it to this obsolete and by
road.
So as you know, cannabis is proliferating, right?
You're growing the crop in this monoculture and, you know, you're inevitably going to
introduce viruses.
Right.
And so these are can be impactful on agriculture.
So the example given is the virus that wiped out the Roe Michelle banana.
So they're not inconsequential.
So this virus cropped up and it's proliferated.
And, you know, this has driven a lot of concern by producers.
And so this, I think, may have been not the reason, but maybe a factor towards, you know,
the movement towards quality assurance.
So they were seeing the need to, you know, start testing for microbes and, you know,
started making sure you've got a clean facility.
So around 2015 or so, you start seeing the first, you know, testing labs and you just
see, you know, the development through 2018 where, you know, more and more labs are coming
online and I think there's just wide variance in how everyone's doing things.
And then really through 2018 to 2021, there's been a lot of progress where the industry's
really come around where it's, we're finally seeing that, okay, you know, we're really
seeing the emphasis on good manufacturing practices, quality control slash assurance
programs and good laboratory practice for the labs.
So there's still room for development.
I'm not saying we're there.
So for example, in the lab space right now, people are interested in testing for heavy
metals in vaporized products or concentrates or flour or what have you, edibles.
But there's a lot of development that needs to be done there.
So from what they can say that it's not, you know, it's not as precise as would be needed
for, you know, production style quality control testing.
So there's still work to be done, you know, particularly with heavy metal testing and
really across the board.
But, you know, everyone's moving in that direction.
So I think that's, you know, a brief history of, you know, the quality control and assurance.
And so that's, you know, just a brief summary of yesterday.
I'll flesh it out and perhaps introduce maybe a first writing, like a first blog post or
a blog post for the group.
But you know, today was a bit more of just a talk.
So you know, now I'll be, you know, heading over there into this mayhem, you know, that
is MJ Biz.
And so I'll report back and I'll see you all at 8 through D a.m.
Pacific Standard Time, 1130 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Saturday.
And we'll do some statistics.
And so that way, you know, we can really sit down.
We can, we'll fire up Python so you can follow along, learn some pandas, we can create some
figures.
And for everyone, we can always just talk Canvas, you know, Canvas data.
So that's just here to have fun.
So anywho, hope you all had a fun time, even if it was short and impromptu and ad hoc.
But until next time, I hope you all stay productive and I'll see you on Saturday for Saturday
statistics.
And I look forward to talking with you, Eric, Heather, Miguel and everyone else.
And I've got to dash.
So I'm going to go ahead and end the recording here.
It's been it's been fun.
So thank you all for attending.
And then we'll really dive into things on Saturday.
Thank you.
Take care.
Thanks, Miguel.