Right now we are in the midst of Data Citizens ‘22, our annual gathering of data innovators that is close to my heart. We call it Data Citizens because everyone needs and uses data no matter what your role is – and you are a data citizen, too, even if you don’t think of yourself that way.
Being a data citizen comes with important rights and responsibilities as we define the future together. This is our third and final day of Data Citizens, and I am loving the energy and learning. This is a relatively new profession that is changing every day, and of course, Collibra is unveiling new products and capabilities to make the journey easier.
I’m super excited about all of the customers who are here to share their own journeys: Cox Automotive, Silicon Valley Bank and dozens more. I’m eager to hear from them all. Every year, people ask for more use cases and more networking, and we are delivering that this week here in San Diego, Calif.
Our sponsors are sharing their experiences and key learnings, too. We’re hearing from Google Cloud, Infosys, Snowflake and nearly two dozen more companies that are embracing data strategy and shaping their industries.
Check you my podcast episode to learn more about what it means to be a data citizen.
Strategy and monetization
I was on the mainstage yesterday with Dr. Barb Wixom, Principal Research Scientist at MIT Sloan, to talk about how it all starts with data strategy.
If you’re going to have a data strategy as a CEO or CDO (and you should!), you must make monetization part of it. Data leaders today really have to think, “How can I turn data into money?” Most people immediately think that means directly selling their data.
What we have been talking about here at Data Citizens – and overall at Collibra – is turning data into products. That is the key to monetization. For business stakeholders, data products are the shortest conceptual distance between the data and the dollar.
The CDO is a relatively new executive role, and the earliest version was a defensive role, sort of the data police for regulatory compliance. That’s just one aspect of the CDO role and that’s why I talk a lot about its evolution: you have to put value in your strategy to succeed. Today’s best CDOs know the key to unlocking value is developing a fully data literate organization to put everyone on the same page, speed adoption and fuel innovation.
A data-driven culture is qualifiable, and Barb is the expert on benchmarking and measuring the value of your data to convert it into financial returns. I love talking and presenting with her about building data cultures that deliver ROI.
Data intelligence maturity
I have also been speaking this week about optimizing data intelligence because that really will determine winners and losers over the next five years.
I led an interactive session with a great data tinkerer on my team, Alexandre t’Kint, who is a data scientist at Collibra. The goal was to help people assess their organization’s data maturity because we know those with the highest maturity are also delivering the best business results. And it really isn’t even close: we are talking about three times the results.
Data intelligence is the ability to understand and use your data in the right way. So we took people through our Data Intelligence Maturity assessment tool, which anyone can use. Scan this code, and you can take it, too.
The assessment helps people understand where they are in the process of developing a well-oiled data product machine. And every time you create a data product, your organization matures in monetizing data. And that is what you want: increased revenue, decreased costs, stronger compliance, speed to market and higher productivity.
Products and innovation
I have also been watching faces light up and seeing people taking lots of screenshots as we introduce new products. This is our biggest wave of new products in two years, so it really is exciting to be here right now and feel the energy.
Everyone is on a continuous search for value, and I am especially proud of our Data Marketplace which really makes finding data easy for anyone in your organization. They don’t have to be an expert to use it – finding data now is as easy as buying a book online, and there has been great customer feedback about it as we tested it.
Our Usage Analytics is another one I am excited about because these are great metrics and measurements of success. These are out-of-the box capabilities so customers know which domains and communities are most popular and useful.
And Collibra Protect is something that completes the end-to-end shopping experience. With Data Marketplace, anyone can easily find, understand and collaborate on data. Collibra Protect is very much about giving people access quickly while simultaneously keeping sensitive information secure at scale.
We also have several other new releases that customers are loving, so it has been a great gathering of data citizens from around the world. San Diego, Calif, is not convenient for everyone, so know that we have been taking Data Citizens on the road as we continue the data journey together.
