 Hello, and welcome to My Career in Data, a podcast where we discuss with industry leaders and experts how they have built their careers. I'm your host, Shannon Kemp, and today we're talking to Frank Sorwin from Data Mastery. With a robust catalog of courses offered on demand and industry-leading live online sessions throughout the year, the Dataversity Training Center is your launchpad for career success. Browse the complete catalog at training.dataversity.net and use code DVTOX for 20% off your purchase. Hello, and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp, and I'm the Chief Digital Officer at Dataversity, and this is My Career in Data, a Dataversity Talks podcast dedicated to learning from those who have careers in data management to understand how they got there and to talk with people who help make those careers a little bit easier. To keep up to date in the latest in data management education, go to Dataversity.net forward slash subscribe. Today we are joined by Frank Sorwin, the Managing Principal at Data Mastery, and normally this is where a podcast host would read a short bio of the guest, but in this podcast your bio is what we're here to talk about. Frank, hello and welcome. Hello, Shannon. Good to join you. I'm so excited. Thanks. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. We've known each other for quite a while. Initially, I think we met at one of our Enterprise Data World Conferences many, many moons ago. Not too many because then that would make us older, but which were not. Speak for yourself. So tell me, okay, so you're the Managing Principal at Data Mastery. So what type of business is Data Mastery? What is it you do? Well, we provide consultative advice and education in the area of master data, specifically around customer, product, service, employee, asset, basically all the main subject areas of master data. Very hot thing right now, master data management. Yes, it has been. It's been a good career with just basically specializing in that area. I love it. So tell me, so what is it you do? So you're the Managing Principal. So you're the primary consultant of the company, the founder. So tell me, what's your typical week work like? What's it or when you're engaging with clients? Well, I mean, typically, it involves all sorts of data management disciplines. I mean, it's data governance, data quality, data security, architecture, database management. I mean, basically, when you're managing master data, it basically means that you've got to bring in all these disciplines because if you don't, you're not really managing master data. So, yeah. So it's kind of funny when sometimes I'll hear people say, well, I'm doing master data management, but I'm going to work on data governance next. It's like, well, you really aren't managing it if you're not doing governance as part of it, right? So tell me, for listeners out there who may not know, what is master data management? What is master data? Well, master data, you're basically your key subject areas. It's what I describe as the who, what, and where that's in any transaction, communication, or event. So that seems to basically ring true with a lot of business users when you say the who, what, and where. Because when I hear things like, oh, it's the key subjects, it's the core entities, business people don't talk like that, right? So, you know, and then the next thing, you know, you have to give examples, you know, because it's like, well, what does that mean, right? So if you say who, what, and where, I think it's pretty clear. I mean, it's about the who being, you know, a person or an organization, that the what's being a product or service, the where being the location. It's a lot of sense. Yeah, that's very clear. So let's back it up a little bit, Frank. I know some of your journey, but not all of it. Certainly, you know, tell me, when you were very young, you know, say six years old, you know, was this the dream? I'm going to grow up and I'm going to be a consultant in special who specializes in master data management. It definitely wasn't at six. Well, I think I think as old as I am, they were still using advocacy back in those days. So we weren't talking about master data yet. But yeah, but it was interesting. I mean, probably in high school early on, I wanted to be a photographer. And actually, that was my very first job actually in high school is I was a photographer for the for the village, for the town that I lived in. And I was doing all their public relations photography for the local newspapers. Oh, that's so great. Yeah, I was also the photographer for the for the school paper. So I had my own dark room at home. So you know, do my own processing too. So I really was into that. And I thought, maybe I'd go into that as a career. But then later, over the years into what I was still over the years, I mean, I was still like a sophomore junior in high school, I was selling cameras. And the manager of the department I worked in was a retired professional photographer who convinced me that the type of photography I do around nature and that sort of thing really is a tough business to be in. And so he introduced me to the term starving artist, you know, so this and that's what I decided I really needed to find something else, keep it as a hobby. So so tell me, then where did you progress to? Well, where did you move on to from there? So senior year in high school was in a math class, a calculus class. And we were starting to work with computers. I mean, this is talking early 70s. Yeah. So, you know, the way we would program the computers do remote job entry was actually punched holes in a paper tape, not a punch card, a tape. This was a long ribbon of tape with holes that had the instructions encoded in those holes, right? And then they fed it through a remote job entry station to to a computer over at the local college, you know, to do any kind of processing. And that's how we started. So I thought, hey, this is pretty cool. I'd like to do that. And my my senior year math teachers that tried to dissuade me said, well, you know, you're not real good at calculus, maybe you should think of something else. I'm like, no, this is what I want to do. So, fortunately, I didn't listen to him. And, and actually, two days after I graduated high school, I started college. I'm a workaholic, just by my very nature. So I didn't take a break. Everybody, all my friends thought I was nuts, but went first data processing class, as we called it back then. And yeah. And so, you know, that and basically, I graduated college. I was able to program in eight mainframe languages. I knew how I knew how to run a mainframe. I actually knew all the council commands. I knew how to read the the lights on the panels. You know, so, and actually, I came in handy later actually, as a consultant. Oddly enough, one time I was at a consulting, doing a consulting gig in the operator that show up to work that day. And the director asked if anybody knew how to run a mainframe. I said, sure, I do. So he said, well, here, go ahead, run it. Wow. But yeah, so, you know, so I graduated from college with the knowledge of, you know, eight languages. And there are there are that mean, at least that many with mainframe. So that was, you know, your, your typical cobalt assembler, PL one, Fortran RPG, and then some more obscure ones like GPSS, SAS, CICS. So basically covered, covered the most of the main languages at the time. And then two days after I graduated college, I started my first job. Again, I'm a workaholic. What was that for job? It was working for county government. So it was interesting because it was the lowest paying job I was offered. But I knew I could get a lot of experience quickly. Right. So here's your first day on the job. You know, we had a very small staff and my boss says, you know, Frank, the the 18th Judicial Circuit Court needs something, go figure out what they need, go get the requirements, design it, build it, support it. Good luck. And off I went. Yeah. So, you know, I didn't, I didn't need a lot of, you know, handholding, unfortunately, because that's the type of job you really couldn't get it if you even if you wanted it. Because like I said, there were only, there were only four of us that were the programmers. And we were working on multiple systems at one time. So, so I worked with the the court, actually, I designed and wrote the jury selection system for the county, work with law enforcement, work with the prosecutors. So it was interesting work, definitely. But just, but it was kind of interesting, too, because in the interview, this is the first interview here was fresh out of college. And they told me, they said, well, you know, if you're really, if you're really good at what you do, you'll probably only last about two years here. Because most people will jump ship. Well, turned off my last two years. And I left. So that's then I went into my first consulting job. And again, pretty much on my own, where, you know, worked at a university on their payroll system, and then went to a trade union and develop their medical benefits system. And this was all again, we were just, at that time, we were just going from batch to online processing. And since I was kind of like the CICS guru, as they would call it me, you know, I was doing a lot of that, you know, getting people to trans transform from, you know, running batch and designing batch systems to an online system where they were using terminals, you know, for the first time. So and then and then they actually sent me out to a steel mill. So I did a computer simulation of a steel mill in Indiana. So again, it was a very, quite, quite a variety of different, different things that got involved in there. But then I actually went and said, okay, consulting, I'm done with that and went to go work for all state insurance. And some of what I was doing at all state was actually in their telecom group. So this was data and voice communications. And doing some really, you know, leading edge work. And they had some of the smartest people I've ever known working there. And so we developed one of the first full motion video conferencing systems in the world. There were only three companies in the world doing full motion video conferencing back, you know, in the in the day of 19, like 1981. And we had a transponder on a satellite. We had two earth stations, one in Northbrook, Illinois, one in Menlo Park, California, at the Allstate Research Center. And, you know, I would basically design the system. And it was large equipment, you know, very large equipment, but fully automated it. And it was full motion, you know, compared to a lot of the systems at the time video conferencing systems were just snapshots. So it's just the like, you know, little snapshots coming up once in a while. So that was pretty cool. And I worked on a asset management system for network equipment that basically had integrated configuration change and problem management built into it. It actually became Allstate sold it actually. And it still exists today, it's called Netman. And there was two of us that actually did the initial were all the initial work on it. And we also had developed a data visualizations visualization system, which actually this was 1982, you know, and we were doing graphics on a mainframe. Which a lot of other companies would come to see our network control center and their jobs would just hit the floor because they said like, you know, you can do this on a mainframe, you know, it's like, yeah, well, all you have to do is learn how to program a dumb terminal. They're going, you can program a dumb terminal. It's like, they're not that dumb. So you can send commands to a dumb terminal and it'll understand them. So people didn't know that. But, you know, so it was really, you know, very, very bleeding edge type of technology that we were working on. But then my old boss, from the insurance group, kind of call me would call me every month, try to convince me to come to work for him. Finally, he used the right bait, you know, and asked me, you know, what are you looking for? I said, well, I'm looking for management. He goes, you know, you're a great programmer. Why would you be able to be a manager? I said, well, that's my degrees in management, one of my degrees. And he's like, well, gee, a manager, somebody who knows management and IT. So then he said, sure, you know, I need a manager. So brought me over. And that was part of the financial services group of Allstate, which then, at the time, Sears who started Allstate, so Sears owned Allstate Insurance, but Sears also owned Caldwell Banker and Dean Witter. So which a lot of people didn't realize that, you know, at the time, they basically divested themselves a bit later. But so they decided like, okay, we're going to take all the financial groups of Allstate, which was a large savings and loan in California, 110 branches, only California, and are the loan company that Allstate owned and the mortgage company that Allstate owned. And they said, now we're going to move you over to Dean Witter, all internal transfer, and create this new consumer banking division. And we're going to launch this new thing we're going to call this cover card. So I was in on the actual creation and launch of this cover card in 1984. Actually, the first card was issued in 1985. Wow. Yeah. So worked on a variety of things. My staff, we program the POS terminals that you see sometimes in stores, if somebody wanted, like a merchant wanted a customized logic for it, or they, you know, for a gas pump or something like that, we would program that program the terminals. We did merchant profitability analysis. I worked with ATM networks across the US for cash advance. So basically it was, you know, you're just starting from scratch, right? So like, whatever you need, you know, we would do it. Right. So then, then after that, it was a move over to first Chicago. It was the first National Bank of Chicago. That was 1988. And I was in charge of all of the customer facing channels of the bank. So my, my staff, we did teller systems, ATMs, a bank by phones of the interactive voice response system, safe deposit box, web banking interfaces to quick in and quick books, bill pay, electronic bill pay, that was all my group, all my development and support groups doing that, doing that work. Which, which is, which is where it led to, though, is I started to kind of look closely at the data and I'm going, well, you know, this customer data, it really is the same data. And so instead of building these separate systems, maybe I should create this customer hub. And that's where the idea, my idea for a, a customer master data solution came from. And that was back in 1989, wrote a white paper that suggested some management and management then said, okay, sounds good. Go build it. So we built it. They did file a patent on it. I'm the actually, actually the only one on the patent that was filed and I worked on the patent itself. So it was, it was interesting because when you work, when you're working on a patent for a design, it's a lot different than just handing over documentation that you would build a system with. It's actually very different because of the way it has to be worded legally, that somebody couldn't like leave out one step and call it their new invention. So there's certain words and certain terms you have to use, you know, so it was very interesting working with the, with the patents engineers, the patent lawyers to put that together. But yeah, so that the master data customer master data solution caught on real big when, when, when NBD acquired first Chicago and I had an office then in Chicago in Detroit. And they, they, they said, well, that sounds great. Put us on this too. Add us to this, which did and then bank one acquired first Chicago NBD. I then had office in Columbus, Ohio and Detroit in Chicago bounced around between the three cities. They said this was, you know, this was great. Integrate our customers onto this too. So now basically you had to combine bank, the retail side initially, but then commercial side of the bank said, we want to be part of that too. So then we integrated the commercial side of the bank onto it too. So then once, you know, then JPMorgan Chase acquired bank one in 2005. And so this, this solution still exists. I mean, it's, it's still out there. Not sure how much they've changed since then. But, but yeah, that was my, my, getting my foot in the door around master data. And I mean, this was years before a lot of these, these off the shelf commercial off the shelf systems were even available. I mean, a lot of those companies didn't exist until 1992, 93, you know, that the first ones even existed. And here we had an omnichannel mass, you know, customer master data solution in, you know, that was rolled out by 1991 with full integration across all those channels I mentioned and call center. And yeah, and then they gave me some responsibilities too for customer analytics. So I also was in charge of that for as part of bank one. But yeah, then, then I moved on and, and onto something completely different at McDonald's, you know, different type of company, but they wanted to have a master data solution solutions as well. So I will launch, you know, customer master data and product and location master data solutions there. But they also had me in charge of database administration, data integration, data architecture, which actually I had some, I had that responsibility even at the bank where it was a point in time where I had 85 database administrative administrators working for me. That's a lot of DBAs. And that was only a lot. Yeah. That was only three business lines. That was only treasury services, commercial banking and worldwide securities. And five data architects. So I had 90 people as part of that group. Yeah. But, and then at McDonald's, you know, like I said, I had all those responsibilities. And then about six years ago, I decided, you know, coming towards the end of my career, I really wanted to do some consulting on my own. And so that's when I decided to strike out on my own. And fortunately with the network that I built over the years, again, now I'm approaching 47 years in this business, Shannon. So that's quite a while. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so I struck out on my own and with the network I built, actually, I never had to market them. My clients came to me. So I've been very fortunate. I can say fortunate, but I guess it was, you know, just the work I've done on all the previous years, the previous 41 years, you know, that they knew me. Yeah. Well, and I met you when you were working at McDonald's. Yeah. Yeah. Which actually was when I started there in 2010. So it wasn't that long ago. Compared to my career, it wasn't. Well, okay, so I'm curious. So you decided to go into consulting again after, you know, going away from it earlier. So what made you decide that you that this time was going to be different? And is it because you had that network? Yeah. I mean, that's why I decided to strike out on my own first because the first time I worked for a company, I was only a couple of years out of college, actually. But yeah, so I like to consult it. I mean, it's not for everybody. I mean, I know some people, you know, like to build that strong relationship with the people they work with and keep that over the years. Well, consulting, you may be there, you know, a few weeks, a few months, maybe a couple years, and then you're off to something else. And you may never see these people again. You know, because sometimes people even ask me, well, did they bother you? It's like, not really. I mean, I liked the variety. I guess I was always looking for something new and exciting. I had such a passion for this. To me, it was more the work that, you know, versus people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love that. I love that your first job, you took the one that was going to give you the best opportunity versus the biggest salary. I think that's so smart. And I think that so many, you know, in myself included, you know, try, you know, look at the dollar value first. But that's not strategically necessarily always the right thing to do. So I'm really impressed that you did that the first, you know, out of the gate. Yeah. And I was quite lucky that the consulting firm I found as my second job said, well, we don't, we don't just apply that, you know, to add 10% to what you made before. Because they said, you were grossly underpaid. I said, glad you realized that. And so rather than 10%, they gave me 50% more. So that was, yeah. So I was very fortunate there where it was like, okay, you know, you realize I was underpaid and you're going to pay me what I'm worth, not take advantage of the situation, right? I'll see your gamble seriously paid off. I love it. And the nice thing too was this particular firm paid time and a half for overtime. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you don't see that much anymore, you know, or at all, where you're having to have for overtime. Because what they found was that some of these companies would burn out their consultants. Because even if they were paying straight time, they said, okay, fine, we'll get what we need sooner. And if we burn them out, that's not our problem once they're gone. That's the, you know, the firm's problem. So this particular firm said, okay, well, we're going to charge you time and a half, which would make you think twice. You really needed that bad, that you'll pay the money. If you want to pay it and the consultant's spoken to it, great, you know, fine. But at least, you know, and it turned out, I mean, on a couple of the engagements I was on, I had to work a lot of overtime. And in some of the smaller shops, sometimes testing these online programs, you know, we had to actually work during off hours. So there was, you know, basically all the business people left. And that's when we did our testing. You know, so ended our coding during the day. Yeah. But it was interesting, you know, one where I mentioned the trade union work that I did trade union engagement, the actual IT people that were programmers and operators for this union were actually unionized. So, yeah, so I don't know if too many people who know have ever worked with unionized IT, but they were union. But because they weren't carpenters, this was carpenter's union, they weren't carpenters. So they couldn't be carpenters union employees, but unionized IT are members of the clerical union. So they're still all part of the ACL, CIU, but they're clerical, but they were part of the clerical union, at least at that time. Yeah. Yeah. And because I was changing systems from batch to online, and now these claims processing people, business people were basically it was kind of changing their role. You know, oh, I got to use a terminal now. Actually, I had to help go into union renegotiations for them because now that was changing the job title due to job responsibility. So it's like, okay, not only did I have to write a system, I also had to work with the union and, you know, helping them understand what the new responsibilities were so they could drop a new contract with these union workers. Wow. Yeah. It was kind of cool. That is cool. Visit dataversity.net and expand your knowledge with thousands of articles and blogs written by industry experts, plus free live and on demand webinars covering the complete data management spectrum. While you're there, subscribe to the weekly newsletter, so you'll never miss a beat. And I love how through most of your career, you really just, you know, you're an innovator and building these really cool things. Was it just something that came naturally? Was it curiosity? Is it just, you know, I have the skill that I can make anything happen with this mainframe? Is it, you know, where did that innovation come from? I think, I mean, having experienced with eight different mainframe languages when I first got out of school, I understand conceptually what's possible. Right. You know, when I hear somebody say, well, then that can't be done. And to me, what it means to me is, no, you can't do it. Doesn't mean it can't be done. Right. And actually, I've had some, you know, very intelligent people tell me it can't be done. And then they said, so what are you going to do? And I go, I'm just going to find somebody who can. And I usually would go out and be able to find it. Like, you know, I had one time where I was told by somebody at IBM that it couldn't be done. And it's like, okay, so then I found a engineer, a former engineer that worked for IBM who designed this particular system. And I said, here's what I want to do. He's like, okay, well, it's never been done, but I think I could pull it off. I said, great, let's do it. You know, so, yeah. So I guess, you know, I've always been involved in design. I mean, even as a hobby, I do woodworking. I design things and build it. You know, so I get, to me, it's like, I get to work in the physical world a little bit as well as the virtual world. But, you know, but I'll just, you know, I used to take long train rides downtown, to downtown Chicago, where, you know, a one-way commute is an hour and a half. But when you're on the train, you know, you could read, you could sit there and I just would sketch out designs and then I would build it, you know, when I had time. So yeah, that's very cool. So, Franklin, tell me what has been your biggest lessons so far in your career? Well, I think the main thing I can kind of pass on is that you have to take responsibility for your own career. You know, don't expect your management to do it. Don't expect your company to do it. And a lot of people, I see you do that. You know, I mean, I had staff come up to me and go, well, you must have sent yourself to school for that. And you didn't send me. I go, no, I didn't go to school for that. I go, where'd you learn? I go, I got it out of a book. Well, you didn't buy me the book. I said, I didn't buy, the company didn't buy me the book either. I mean, you know, it's like, heck, who paid for your college? You know, I mean, hopefully, you know, it's like, you took responsibility for your career that in your education. You know, so, hey, folks, you know, keep that same mindset and continue to learn on your own, you know, invest in your own future. Right. And look and think beyond even the technology. I mean, after a while, when I was in management, I wasn't reading technology books anymore. I was reading psychology books and marketing books because you're always in marketing. You're always trying to sell something. You're selling an idea. You're selling a new concept, right? You're selling, you're trying to sell management on buying a new tool, but you're selling. And, you know, it's so I really would advise people to go out and start reading marketing material, reading how to brand something, right? I mean, sometimes, you know, that was like some of the success I had with the master data management program is I branded the MDM solution. I gave it a name, and we call it Starbase. And everybody, wow, that sounds pretty cool. And then I had shirts made up for the staff or I had these denim shirts, the logo that, you know, I designed, and suddenly everybody else that wasn't on the team wanted to be part of the team. They're going to like, you know, like shirts like that, you know, yeah. So really kind of, you know, gave them some kind of identity, you know, and gave the system identity. So people excited about it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and things that have an identity, companies hate to kill it. Like, especially the MDM system, okay, we're gonna kill Starbase, you know, like, oh, no, can't do that. I love that. That's so, that's really good advice. You know, we hear a lot, or I've heard a lot in the podcast, you know, to keep learning, you know, as really as a good lesson, you know, just keep learning, which is part of the advice that you gave there. But I also love that, you know, take the, take charge of your career, because it's very true. Yeah, right. So to not wait for somebody else to do it for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I always, and I'd say always look, look to the future because a lot of what you're doing now actually will evolve to the future. I mean, look at where video conferencing went. Look where we're on now, right? Now we're doing it. Right. But back, you know, back in 1981, I was doing a very large equipment. It was an AquaStar projector and oil that had to spread, it had to heat up for 45 minutes and spread across the platen. I mean, it worked, you know, but that was kind of like it evolved. That's where the future was coming from the past. I mean, artificial intelligence is no different. You know, AI is new. I mean, the term AI was coined in 1956. Right. So it had a few, what they call AI winters in between, you know, where things slow down. But sometimes some things just have to come together like, you know, like hardware, like, well, with AI, I mean, what AI really launched AI was the cloud number one. So now you had storage, right? You had big data and be able to store it. And the introduction of the graphical processor unit, the GPUs that people found that they were invented for gaming machines. But that's what you needed, you know, to do a lot of the, what you needed was, you know, the kind of the algorithms, right? The hardware, you know, to, for this to all come together. Well, speaking of looking into the future, you know, do you, I mean, that's a great segue to just, you know, ask, you know, do you see the importance of data management and the number of jobs working with data increasing or decreasing over the next 10 years and why? Yeah, I think certain jobs will increase. Some will decrease. And I mean, you know, when you look at, you know, and even I think one of the questions I know that you had was data, like what is data? And it's so hard to define. I mean, I guess because of all the variety of things I worked on over the course of 47 years, I also had trouble with, you know, like terms like structured data on structured data, nothing is unstructured. It's a different structure, but it's not unstructured. So I mean, I work with audio, right with interactive voice response back, you know, in the 80s, I worked with, you know, with the images, but I did basically the mainframe data visualization solutions, you know, back in the 80s. And so I saw the structure, right? And so, you know, I guess I always had an issue with people saying, oh, it's unstructured data. So it's just a big blob. I was like, no, it never was, you know, you just have to look closer. It's different. It's not rows and columns, but it's different. Yeah. So I'd say from that standpoint, if people kind of open their minds to that, you know, that data is anything like that, right? It's text, it's images, it's audio, you know, it's, you know, an attribute with a value too, you know, which is what everybody automatically thinks of data as, you know, and to say, look at it and say, okay, there's lots of opportunities there, you know, artificial intelligence, I think is going to take some of that where it can do some of the analysis and look for patterns, because it's very good at pattern recognition, which is a lot of the analytics I worked on early on was pattern recognition. That's funny when I'm reading a lot now and I'm going, oh, yeah, we did that. Like when I had to investigate debit card fraud, you know, of some individuals, what did I look for? The patterns, you know, to find a culprit, you know, pulling it off. So, you know, and so basically now it's just automated. So like I said, a lot of what it can see going, you know, in the future, you can look at the present and kind of extrapolate that and say, this, this is where it's going forward. So I think, I think the jobs are, will be different. Some of them will change, you know, because some of them can be automated, but there's going to be a lot of new opportunities. As long as people have the aptitude for that, that's the thing too. It's like, it doesn't mean that somebody can easily switch jobs, but you know, build up that aptitude so you're ready for it. You know, that's even, you know, I mean, I was in transition one time too. And, you know, and I've always thought you kind of, if you had your eyes open, a lot of times you see it coming, right? You kind of have a hunch something's going on, you know, and, you know, people in a particular location, they don't want you anymore there. They want just, you know, if you're not, you know, back in headquarters, then hey, then yeah. So I think you just got to keep your eyes open too, to those opportunities and to what's going down around you. So it sounds like a lot of the jobs that you say are going to be keep going and growing are the ones that really innovate how data is used. Yeah. And data quality. I mean, data quality is a tough one. I think business a lot of times thinks, well, the data we have is good enough. And that's probably true for the business purpose they're using it for today. You know, it might be true, but not for going forward. You know, a perfect example that I've given time and time again has been, you know, when I worked at McDonald's was, you know, when you look at geo coordinates, the latitude and longitudes of a location like a restaurant. Well, you go three places to the right of the decimal and that was good enough for analytics, but not a good enough for a smartphone app where it's a restaurant locator for customer, you know, where it's telling them you've now arrived at your destination and they can't even see the golden arches yet, you know. So you got to go forward places to the right of the decimal. You know, so that's the thing too. It's like that fit for purpose is something that is subjective. That's a subjective quality dimension, not as objective. Right. So it's like, when you say, oh, I have 100% data quality, maybe for the business functions you're doing now, but maybe not the ones for tomorrow, you know, just like example Gabe, was soon as they wanted to roll out some new business, you know, initiative like that, the data wasn't good enough, wasn't good for purpose for that purpose. Yeah. So then, Frank, what advice would you give to people looking to get into a career in data management? Well, I mean, I personally have found getting a variety of experiences was a huge, huge plus. You know, like I've used them all. I mean, you know, we're, you know, we're working with data, you know, managing database administrators, data integration, being an information security, you know, those, all those experiences gave me a very holistic perspective rather than a very narrow, you know, myopic perspective of this. So, and it's, it's funny too, it's like, even, I mean, I consider application developers being in data management. Now, a lot of people might disagree with me, but you know, think about, when you're thinking about data quality, for example, you know, where, how, where's a lot of that quality enforced in edits or the edits in the applications? Who's doing the applications? Developers. Right. So how can you say they're not, they're not a part of data management, you know, and having spent half of my, almost half my career as a developer or managing developers, you know, I realized that. So I walked in this thing is working with the development groups, because a lot of times in data management, your, your, your roles are kind of put into as a service, like your servicing applications, right. And they come to you for a service. So I'd say learning service management too is important. So if anybody's interested, like in ITIL, the IT Infrastructure Library certifications, they talk to, they basically address services and how to, you know, what a service is. So that certification helped me getting a Six Sigma Green Belt helped me, you know, how many people will be working in data quality have that, right. But so, so that, that kind of thing is where companies saw that recognize that, you know, knowledge. And by the way, that Six Sigma Green Belt, I just went out and got it on my own. I mean, no company paid for it. You know, so, so that type of thing is look for those certifications. You know, perfect, perfect example is another one where, you know, and, and don't just, you know, think, oh, because I got certifications, I'm an expert. I mean, I think you really need to have the, get that experience too, because I've met a lot of people with certifications as long as there are. And I've tossed them out of the company that I brought them into, you know, because they just weren't cutting it. So I think you really need to know how to apply that knowledge. It's not just having the knowledge. If you don't know how to apply it, you know, what good was it, right? Yeah. And it's so often, it's not until we apply it that we really learn, really can make those learnings click, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And tools kind of same thing is like, you know, you can learn tools, but you got to learn how to use them. I've always said any, any tool could become a weapon in the wrong hands. So, you know, and we used to have a saying back in the day when we had what was called case tools, computer assistive software engineering, we said a fool, a fool with a tool is still a fool. So, yeah, so it's like, yeah, so just because you know how to, you know, you know, the tool, you need to know how to use it properly, right? You know, and apply it to the right problem, right to the right situation. For sure. Oh, Frank, this has been so lovely to hear your full story. It's really, it's really impressive. I have to say I'm surprised that that of the cool things that you've done, I mean, not surprised, but just, gosh, I don't know. I mean, I know you have from working at MDM, but I didn't realize like you were innovating that and that's just amazing. And the other thing maybe too, or that I might mention, you know, too, whoever's listening to is, you know, if you really want to understand something well, teach it, right? And so I got involved and I was first doing training in CICS. I mean, I was the CICS, you know, online guru back in late 70s, early 80s. And so I was teaching after work, you know, I was doing two classes a week. And I basically had developed two different courses and six sessions for each course, and was teaching that. And so that helped me understand it better because when somebody asks a question, like, well, why, why does it work that way? You know, you start to think, yeah, why, you know, I mean, you sound like your kid if you go, well, because, you know, so, yeah. So I was like, hmm, I wonder why. So, so I would dig into the design manuals of IBM, for example. And why did they design it that way? You know, and then I came out with a lot of other things I was very useful on how to apply it and how to do things that people told me wasn't possible. That was the other thing was like, that's where I learned what was possible because I knew I could learn the internals, all right. And same thing with, you know, with the diversity training, you know, with the diversity training and the EDW sessions that I, you know, presented at is, it really makes you think, you know, about, okay, why does it work that way? It puts things in perspective and kind of, you know, you kind of reflect on, you know, what you've done and how it needs to be, how it was applied and things. And you learn a lot by putting together courses and teaching it. And by the way, I got over my fear of public speaking that way too. So. I love a multifaceted approach. I love that. That is so great. And we are so grateful and very fortunate to have training led by you in our training center. So thank you very much. So. And I should mention to you that the diversity training, learning plans that are available, diversity training, learning plans that have developed, there's, you know, the one in MDM and actually a second one coming soon. And, and then the building a career in data management where basically I kind of go through even more than what I discussed today and kind of reflect on my career with some of the little, you know, hints and tips on things I've learned along the way. So. Yes. And it's great training and thank you so much. I really appreciate it. So I'd be remiss if I didn't ask Frank, if somebody wanted to reach out to you for advice and consulting, how would they find you? They can contact me at my URL for business at frank.sirwin at data mastery inc, sciency.com. And I'm happy to help. I mean, having been for a short time, unfortunately, in transition myself, I learned a lot, including marketing. You know, that's the other thing too, was, was that kind of even, even when you're in transition, you're marketing, right? You're marketing yourself, you're the product. And, and, you know, and I met a lot of IT people, I've done, done mentoring, I've kind of paid it forward and helped a lot of these, these networking groups that I was part of have sent IT people my way to help them, you know, look over their resumes, give them, you know, some suggestions. And, you know, a lot, a lot of people said, well, I mean, IT, I don't, I don't do marketing. They go, well, the good news is you only have to make one sale. So, you know, you won't have an annual quota, because if you have an annual quota, that's a problem I can't help you with. But that's the. And, and I, let me just to clarify, it's, it's F R A N K is in kite and sirwin C E R W I N. That is correct. Oh, Frank, it's been such a pleasure and so much fun chatting. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. This was very enjoyable. Appreciate it. And to all of our listeners out there, if you'd like to keep up to date in the latest podcast and in the latest in data management education, you can go to dataversity.net forward slash subscribe. Until next time, stay curious, everyone. Thank you for listening to Dataversity Talks, a podcast brought to you by Dataversity. Subscribe to our newsletter for podcast updates and information about our free educational webinars at dataversity.net forward slash subscribe.