 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 Ryan Owens from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana. With a robust catalog of courses offered on demand and industry leading live online sessions throughout the year, the Dataversity Training Center is your launch pad for career success. Browse the complete catalog at training.dataversity.net and use code DBTOX 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 be talking 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 Ryan Owens, the Senior Data Warehouse Analyst at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana. 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, Ryan. Hello and welcome. Hi. How are you today? Good, good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It's kind of warm down here in New Orleans, Louisiana, but you know, it's, if you can't feel it, then it's, you know, so I was wrong with that, but it's been, it's good out here. I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity to join the podcast today. Oh, thank you for joining us. And I have to tell you, New Orleans is one of my favorite cities on the planet. Oh yeah. It was great. Everything else is great too. Yeah. I love the music. New Orleans is the place to be. Oh yes. That's where it is. Indeed. It's been too long. I got to get myself back there sometime soon. See, I'm sporting my Mardi Gras tie right now. So, you know, I love it. Oh, I love it. So you're the Senior Data Warehouse Analyst at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana. So tell me what, especially for people who may not know worldwide. What is Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana? Yeah. So Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana is a health insurance company. And we have about 3,000 so employees. And one of our mission, our mission rather is to stay committed to improve the health and lives of the Louisiana Indians. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I happen so much to all of us. And as much talking as I do publicly, it happens to me all the time. Absolutely. And so, you know, and in the United States for people who don't know, health insurance is dictated by a state. It's not a federal thing. Right. Yeah. And Louisiana Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana is one of those. So, you know, we have the association and then it kind of by state. It trickles down to whoever wants that. So, so you mentioned that you're the scene. So we mentioned you're the Senior Data Warehouse Analyst. And so what's your, what is it that you do? And what's your typical work week look like? I work with a team of blue employees. So we call ourselves blue employees and some some contractors that come in and help us out as well and manage our intake and deliver, deliver a lot of projects that are from our internal business, which can, which can come from different departments and external business that could be from other vendors, partners and hospitals. And so we manage a lot of data that comes in and we may have some bi-directional deliverables, but I really try to work with our extracts. I work with our extracts rather than that's one of my roles. And we, what we do is we get all the business requirements from those internal and external business, business owners. And so I do my best to deliver as much as I can and as quickly as I can to those partners. Oh, very cool. So again, just, oh, that's got to be a lot of data that you are working with and delivering and managing and and extracting there. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of analysis as well. I mean, this is lots of data that we do have and, but it's good because you learn so much. There's so many different areas that you can learn about and data is just because data is everywhere. Why not take a look at it and why not learn all about the business? Indeed. Oh, I love that. I bet that takes some skills. So as an analyst, you're not just looking at numbers and crunching numbers. You're having to interact with the humans as well and making sure you understand the requirements and making sure you communicate it back out. It sounds like you're doing some analysis as well to let them know what their data is saying. Yes, absolutely. And trying to get them to the right data. That's the main thing. You know, you can have, you know, you heard the garbage and garbage out, but you really want to get everyone gets your, your business owners to the right data and especially those that will work with data. You want to make sure it's curated properly as well. And one of the reasons why I wanted to get into this analyst role is because I love people. Like you said, you know, I love to talk to people before I came in with a coding background. So I, you know, I had the software developing background and yes, it was good for a while, but it was good for me to work more with people, speak more to people, not just the team, but also on the enterprise level, think more of a leadership level. And once I've gotten to that point and I was advised to look into these roles by many people. Not just because of the personality, but because of the ideas and the vision that I had for myself. I decided to take this role and see what I can do with this. See how I can make it my own and see what I can own in this role. So let's back it up then. You're talking a little bit about how, why you wanted to get into this role. So let's back it way up. Brian. So when you were, you were just a little kid in what we, in the US called the elementary school. Did you, did you want to like say, when I grow up, I want to be a senior data warehouse analyst. Oh man. What was the dream? Well, shoot, I think that's, that's a hard no, right? But the first thing, I know I wanted to work in technology, definitely in computers. I know that way back, you know, even when I was in my mom and dad's offices, whenever I would go to their offices, I would, they would always have pinball, one of those computer games up there or solitaire, one of those first computer games up there. It's, you know, working on Windows 98. Brian. It was, you know, I wanted, I wanted to work in technology. I didn't know how far it would go. And even continuing, you know, from an elementary going into middle school and high school, you know, technology was always on my brain, looking at coding, maybe a little bit of database, some web design. I was all over the place. I never really knew where I could put my foot in and have it and be able to really enjoy that. And so once I got to college, if I can continue, you know, I didn't think I would like coding as much because there are so many programming languages that I had to learn and even learning systems and learning database and then going into cybersecurity is so many avenues, right? And I didn't see where I could fit in. So then at that point, I'm like, okay, let's just, let's get this degree. Let's figure out what we can do and let's get a job. Let's, you know, let's get a degree. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my degree was in computer information systems. Yes. And I can concentrate it in networking and a little bit of research as well. So it was, it was all over the place. And of course at my school at university, Northwestern State University, it was very interesting because it was split into three different majors. So all of my classes went to in the, in the business department, all my classes were from business administration accounting and computer information systems. So I had a mix of all of those. But I was able to join all of that and see, okay, I can match all these to any kind of business, right? And it's not just about a standardized, you know, business administration or standardized computer information systems. I can do so much with this because it's so, it varies, right? The roles and responsibilities and all the different majors that come about it, anything you do outside of graduation, you can make your own and hopefully something that, you know, will interest you later on. So once graduating, I got a job with a consulting firm and loved everything about it. You know, I didn't know that it was really consulting. That was all technology. But then I had to learn how to interview. I have remembered how to interview with so many different, yeah, for so many roles. And it got to my very last role. I was there for four years and then my last role, I actually became a data analyst and in a way a product owner. And that sparked a little bit of data management. It gave me a little taste of it. And I was learning a little bit about informatica and the software development side. And so when I left that consulting firm, I decided to go to Blue Cross for shield and take on a full-time role as a software developer. And so that's where my taste of that life cycle, the data life cycle really stuck in for me instead of doing so many different roles, a little bit of programming, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. So I wanted to be, you know, stable in a role for a while. And so this, that's where Blue Cross for shield Louisiana gave me an opportunity and I took, took heed and went straight forward. I love everything about it so far. I've been there for six years and three months now. Wow. Congratulations. Oh, I love that. So, so you started as a software developer for them. Yes. So then where, how did you move in and transition and grow into the senior data warehouse analyst? Yes, absolutely. So once, once the opportunity came about for this role and I think data governance opened up for me first. And so I kind of walked into the data governance role as a senior data, it was still a senior data warehouse analyst, but under data governance. And I loved everything about the role as well. I loved meeting new business owners, working with business owners, analyzing data for them, solving problems, creating solutions. And of course, trying to persuade in a way that I can build trust with them. And that was the major part of the role. I wanted to be able to build trust. And not just because of who I am. And, you know, with the role that I'm in, but it's because of what I needed to do to make them aware that they're right, that they're getting the right data, that they're getting the things that they need to do for their job as well. So with the advisement of some of my peers, they also persuaded me to go ahead and take the opportunity to get into this role. And I think about a year or so later, I kind of went into another side, even though I'm still the same, the senior data warehouse analyst, I am now working with product management and with product management. This is where I now own the data extracts for the innovative project. And then that was a, that was a great surprise. That makes a lot of sense. And that's so interesting that you first started under data governance because so many people and so many companies, we hear, you know, pushback, you know, the data governance is a dirty word, we don't need data governance and panelists don't touch data governance. I don't have anything to do with data governance, but I love this, that you have analysts within the data governance office, you know, we just came from the DGIQ conference and it was wonderful. And, you know, that was one of the things, why is it so dirty to say data governance? But you have to understand what it really does for your company, your firm, your enterprise. It's a good medium to where if you go to that, you know, obviously you have legal, that's totally separate from this, but data governance is what a company needs, right? To really move forward in a lot of things, to keep things standard or whatever you decide to use data governance for. Everyone uses it differently and I know for my company, we, our data governance is for our enterprise data warehouse. We also have an IGO, an information governance office that supersedes all of that for the enterprise itself. But our data governance is for the enterprise data warehouse, we service that. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, we work, we work directly with our information governance office. Yeah. And that goes in and then it comes out. And I wanna touch on another thing that you called out too, that you really work to earn the trust of the people that you're working with. You just don't throw numbers at them and say, hey, this has data quality behind it. There's some, it's marketing and communication skills and they need to trust you as much as, you know, and just not, and you need that trust versus just throwing numbers on a piece of paper to them or, you know, in an email or PowerPoint or whatever. Right, absolutely. And it all starts with, you know, how are you, how can you be an effective communicator? I can say back in college and I still work on it today. I'm not perfect at this, you know, back in college I was a leader in a freshman orientation leader. And so with that, I had to be able to effectively communicate with parents and with students, the potential students that were coming to the school. And so if I didn't know something, I needed to also say, okay, well, I don't know this but let me figure it out. And so that's, even though you may not know the answer to something, you know, going back to that, you will have to go and figure it out and you should because that is a job, that is your role. And if you communicate that to your business owner even though you don't know the answer, it's important to them to say, okay, well, I'm glad that he doesn't know and let him go find the answer and then he'll communicate that back to me. That's building trust as well, especially, you know you don't wanna know it all. Even if you do have a know it all, it's fine but you know, you want someone to be human and say, you know what, I don't know, but let me figure it out. Oh, I really appreciate that. It took me way too long to figure out that lesson. I will have to say, I was taught that you should, you know, be authoritative and know it all and but you know, you just don't, you are human, right? Absolutely. And I love that you say, you know, you're not perfect in your communication. Nobody is, you know, we've been talking about it a lot at a diversity about progress, not perfection. Absolutely. Always working to get better. More and more companies are considering investing in data literacy education but still have questions about its value, purpose and how to get the ball rolling. Introducing the newest monthly webinar series from DataVersity, Elevating Enterprise Data Literacy where we discuss the landscape of data literacy and answer your burning questions. Learn more about this new series and register for free at dataversity.net. Absolutely. That's a major, I think that's a really good rule of thumb. You have to, you know, it's a premise. You know, it's a marathon out of sprint. Right. Honestly. Absolutely. So let's talk about that then. So what has been your biggest lesson so far in your career? What's been a big aha moment? Nothing is ever going to be the same. Technology and decisions will change frequently. The, it's happening, it's happening at my enterprise. It's happening all over the country. Technology is going from, it went from C++ to, you know, Spark and all these other types of technologies that you have today. I mean, we used to have COBOL. I used to program in COBOL. Right. And use COBOL now. I mean, I know some banks do and all, but now you have, you know, you have Python. You have all these different programming languages, all the different technologies and software is coming out and, you know, and it's coming in and very high frequencies actually. It's not as low as it used to be, but now because of the different research and the different genius, the minds of these, of this new generation, right? It's so much that's coming about and you have to be able to learn something new. And that's the major thing for it. You know, you have to learn something new and take it as an opportunity to learn new things to enhance your dataset. That's, I'll stick by that. Oh, I love that messaging. And things are constantly changing. We cannot expect things to stop. Absolutely. And decision will always change as well. You know, you can't, it's not going to be the same all the time. You know, and companies are actually starting to adopt that, right? So, you know, that agile methodology, you know, when you have to be able to work with change in no matter what, it's not all gonna be waterfall anymore. Everything changes. So how do you keep up with a change and how do you keep up with a new tech that you need to use? So I'll do my research. That's key for me. I have to do research and if something were to change within the next week, I just need to be aware of where I am in learning that one thing first before it changes. I know that I lean on our management and leadership to make those decisions for us. And of course I do my due diligence to ask the proper questions and to be in the know when it's, you know, when I need to know, especially, you know, in those times, but there are, it can be hard. It can be hard to keep up with those things. I will have to say, but do you do diligence to stay alert with all the new technologies and also be aware of what, just be aware of what could change, you know, because it's not always gonna be there. I love that. I love that you keep learning. You know, I've talked to so many people, you know, I think, you know, too, as growing up, especially for my generation, I think I'm a bit older. I won't say how old. Oh, you're young. I can see you're 25. Right? Yeah. But, you know, that you get to a point where you know everything, you've learned everything and you're just, you know, sailing, you know, the rest of your way. But, you know, learning is so fun. Oh, yes it is. And if we stop learning, then we just, we really age. Well, and here's the other thing too. I've learned so much being in this role, being at this company. And, you know, we're a big family at Blue Cross Michelle, Louisiana. We want to build others up and put people into positions to where you can achieve whatever goal that, you know, you see fit. And I love how our management and leaders really take a look at us and make sure that we are in the right place. Because if they see something that's not right with us, they'll ask about it. You know, we have a lot, you know, our one-on-ones. That's key for our management to have with their employees. And when they see that there's something not right or they see performance, you know, they want to make sure that their employees are in the right spot. You know, are you sure you're okay? Is everything good with this? How is everything with this project? How is this research going? You know, they're really concerned with their employees and I absolutely love it. And that's why I'm still here. You know, I love everything about the role and the data that we collect and the data that we are able to put out for our business owners, honestly. And I learned so much from, you know, the diversity and the conferences and they send us the conferences. That's what I really love too, because I learned from, you know, I network with, you know, not just the sponsors and not just the people that are participating, but those that are actually presenting. You know, I network with them. I try to figure out what they're doing in their companies so that maybe I can bring a little bit back to mind, but if we don't take it in, then maybe it's something that I can learn for myself to where eventually down the line, it could, and if it does change and it does fit into what they want to do later on, then it will work. You know, this is one of my favorite parts about our community and the data management community is the networking and how much, I mean, I get inspired every day. Every webinar I produce and conferences I go to, just I'm in awe of how kind and how giving people are of their time to each other, to learn from each other and talk to each other and help support each other. It's just, it's great. It's really very great. Absolutely, absolutely. And of course the destinations are great too. So. Yeah, you can't go wrong with San Diego. San Diego. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And I went to ADW World as well at like 2019 before and all. Yeah. We're back in person finally again. Yay for ADW in fall in Anaheim, California. We're gonna be doing this next. And I really want to get to that too. That's where I first fell in love with the sort of our data management professional certification. Oh, that's cool. Well, let's get into that here in a, well, tell me about the certification first before I get into the next question. So since you mentioned it, I think it's the finest for those listeners. Yes, absolutely. So the certified data management professional certification is focused on data management. All of the, I believe it's 14, forgive me pillars of the data management, the DOMA wheel, all of that. If you don't know anything about it and you want to learn about it, I'm not sure if you can see it or not, but go ahead and get this, this, the Dembock version two. It is a data management Bible, about 600 so pages worth of it. And it's amazing. I love everything about the book and I use some of it today. There you go. Yep. I use it today. I didn't plan this, but here's my copy. You got everything there, see? And I love how you have all your tags. It's wonderful. But the test was, when I took it in 2019, that was the first time, that was the first conference I've ever been to, the management conference. And when I took the test the first time, I did not pass. And I was a little upset by it because I finally found something that I felt that I could focus my career. And I was about two years into Blue Cross Michelle, Louisiana. So I was like, you know what? I need to really get this and focus and really study hard for this exam. Because I had three chances to do it. So those other two chances I did not pass it, but then last year I came to DGIQ and my main goal was to get this certification. I studied hard for the last three years and tried to, I wanted to wait because I know we had COVID. I tried it again, while virtually when I was at home and I didn't pass it then, but then when I got to DGIQ last year, my goal was to get this certification. And the first day, first try, got it. Yes, I'm so excited. I was like relieved. I could relax for the rest of the day. My mind wasn't boggled with all the terms and it was just, it was too much. But I really, really love this book. I love everything about the university bringing this to life, partnering with DAMA and making sure that they introduced the foundation of data management to all of the participants and honestly to the world. Because I mean, everyone needs to know about, everyone knows about data, but they don't know how to use it. They don't know why it's all over the place. But in order to organize the data, these concepts, these principles are extremely important for those to understand as they move on within their careers in data management for their companies. Oh, that's some great advice and thank you. And so I'm gonna, since you worked so much with data and now that you're certified, congratulations. This is awesome. So what is your definition of data? I struggle with that, you know? I would say it's very simple, right? The definition of data is information. You look at all of the information that you collect about for instance, a person. My name is Ryan Owens. I have a social security number. I have a birth date. I have an address. I have all these characteristics and things about myself and all of those things pertain to me. And like I said, I know that this might be extremely simple, but it's really just information about something, not just about a person, but something. How, what makes that thing happen? What is it? And how can I organize it to make it something that I want to look for later? And I feel like that's what a lot of our CEOs and out of our higher leadership wants to look at data. They don't know what an analyst really does with it. They don't know what's really in a file, but they want to see how they can turn this file into a dashboard to where they can really use that data. It's all about how you can use it. That's what you want, because you can take a raw file that has information about something. But what can you do to use that data? Is I think where it has to, which goes to the next question of that. What is data, but then how can you use it? Yeah, I love that a lot. And you work with data a lot. So as someone in a career at data management, 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? I see it increasing. The reason why I say that is because we have a lot of AI technology. All this automation is coming into play. I love automation. I love making things easier, quicker for a very simple task to do. But in order for, and the reason why I say increases, because even though we have all of this, we still have to have people that understand it. Because if you don't understand the build of it, the background code of it, and technology, even though technology getting smarter and smarter, even on its own, learning these machine learning models, all of this, if you don't understand it, then how can you manage it? And you have to be, because we see all of these iRobot and all of that, they're doing all the things for us, but there's someone that really understands the model, someone really understands how it's learning. And if you can learn that skill sets, you'll be able to manage those automated technologies. And that'll be extreme for that one or many individuals that get into data management now. Oh, that makes so much sense. We've seen a lot of companies try to stand up, machine learning and AI machine learning, especially, and then suddenly realize, oh, we forgot the data prep, we need a data model. Yeah, you have to start, you have to, what's your foundation? How do you look at things from a, how can I say this? What is the high point of where you see something that's so little, like a small raw file go? How do you see the AI technology and how can you manage that stuff? It's one of those things that I feel that, a lot of people look at it from a surface and they don't really understand the big picture later. So how can you look at it from the big picture and then try to be able to manage that big picture, starting from that very small thing? Ryan, you've given a lot of really great advice already. So is there anything additional that you would give advice to for people looking to get into a career in data management? Yeah, I'll just go back and reiterate, just do your research. There is so much out there to learn from, there's so many books, a lot of people write many, daily management for dummies or any type of data management or leadership related book to learn about your data because every company has data. So why not be part of that? Why not be able to be part of something that you can manage, right? And not just be a software developer because even with a software developer you still have to manage data. You're transforming it into something that's more visible for someone else. There are a lot of blogs, the working groups and even programs that are out there that allow for you to learn about data management. So I would say continue to do your research and even try to network with those that are in different roles within your company or look for partnering companies that do that as well and just try to look into those roles and see what it is and how can you see yourself in that role one day. Such good advice. Well, Ryan, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Oh no, thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you to DataVersity. I enjoyed every bit of this and I would love to be back again one day and hope to see you all soon at the next conference. Yeah, I can't wait. I look forward to seeing you again. It's so nice to be back in person and seeing and chatting with you today, so. Yes, absolutely. And say hi to New Orleans for me, because, you know, again. I sure will hope to see you in Mardi Gras next year. And to all of our listeners out there, if you'd like to keep up to date in the latest podcast and the latest in data management education, you may go to DataVersity.net forward slash subscribe. Until next time and stay curious people. 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.