What Motivates Analytic Professionals?

There are many reasons why we love or hate our jobs.

Professional analysts: what motivates YOU the most? If you could design the perfect job in analytics, what is the key? 

For example, are you motivated by the nature of the work, the types of problems you solve, the financial incentives, career path upside, or something else?


Update End of Year 2010:

Hi fellow professionals -- thanks so much for all your comments on this thread.  We hosted this discussion both HERE and on the Fitzgerald Analytics page on AnalyticBridge. Both the number, and the quality, of the posts exceeded my expectations.  In about 1 week we are going to "close the window" on comments for this round, so we can plan and pursue next steps to research the topic further...and will be reaching out to all of you to invite your participation in that next round of discovery.

In the meantime if you have not commented YET, please do this week!  I'm super grateful, and will do whatever I can to make it worth your while as we pursue this further.
Cheers,
Jaime Fitzgerald
Founder and President
Fitzgerald Analytics

Semantic Web Technologies and Open Data Innovation

With my colleagues Kevin Cabral and Justin Goldbach, I attended and greatly enjoyed the latest event of the  Lotico New York Semantic Web Meetup which was about open data innovation, especially with a focus on Data.gov and obviously, the role of Semantic Web Technologies in making open data more accessible, more useful, and more valuable to citizens and businesses.

The speakers were incredible:

1. Gale A. Brewer, New York City Council Member, who is clearly passionate and experienced in the benefits of applying technology and data innovation to benefit citizens, improve public services, and enable non-profits to help more people
2.  Jim Hendler, Tetherless World Senior Constellation Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) -- a pioneer in the field and a fascinating speaker.
3. Deborah L. McGuinness, Tetherless World Senior Constellation Professor RPI -- gave a fascinating talk.  My favorite line:  "the government would like nothing better than to see private companies use public data to make money, create jobs...create value with this."
4. Peter Fox, Professor and Tetherless World Research Constellation Chair RPI. Wow.  A great presentation also, about "The eScience revolution: Semantic Web platform for massive scientific collaboration"
5.  

The implications of Semantic Web Technology, together with Open Data on the Web, including government data, creates incredible promise for innovation, transparency, and value creation.  The wheels are spinning.