 Hello and welcome to my career in data a podcast where we discuss with industry your leaders and experts how they have built their careers I'm your host Shannon Kemp and today we're talking to Doug Laney from West Monroe 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 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 Doug Laney the innovation fellow and data of data and analytics strategy at West Monroe And normally this is where a podcast host would read a short bio the guest but in this podcast Your bio is what we're here to talk about Doug. Hello and welcome Hi Shannon, great to be with you Likewise very well and you Very well. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for being a long time Dataversity friend No, new and met you at many conferences and your speaker coming up at enterprise data world. I am looking forward to it That will be covering monetizing data as as an asset and a little bit about data and analytics maturity as well Oh, very cool. I love that So tell me You're the innovation fellow of data and analytics strategy at West Monroe. So first tell me about West Monroe What is it? What's the company do? Yes, so West Monroe is a digital services firm. Um, that kind of brings together technology related expertise and business related expertise About 2,500 consultants focused mainly on North America. Although we've been Recently went in some projects across the pond. So that's good. Maybe Maybe we'll be expanding over there beyond our our london office, which focuses mainly on mna activity So, yeah, we can cover most most industries and Kind of again bring together data and technical technical and industry expertise For our our clients. We don't do time and materials type work It's very mainly project work and Deep relationships with the clients Very nice so What is it you do for west Monroe? What's your typical week look like? Yeah, so it was a innovation fellow. My role is really got three components. One is doing market-facing things like you instructing at a diversity and speaking at events and I publish in in Forbes and in cdo magazine and elsewhere I also work to develop new innovative offerings for west Monroe. So one of those That's now a core offering of ours is data monetization strategy and approach. So we help organizations Design conceive and design and develop and implement data products or even set up data Data product functions within their organization. We also do some data valuation work And we help organizations evolve to becoming more data driven by Really managing data as an actual actual asset. So I participate as a Senior data strategist on engagements. I develop new offerings and then I do these market-facing activities Oh, very cool So so tell me that so I've known you a while and you're actually really well known I don't know if you know this but you're really well known in the community you I'm sure he You were very popular so but so is this gonna make me blush This is what you wanted to be when you grew up when you were just, you know, six years old. It was just a dream when I was Probably the time I was six or seven years old. I wanted to be a photographer My father and I built a dark room in the basement and Shoot and develop photos and I would spend Two three four nights a week sometimes in the in the dark room Experimenting with different techniques or whatever and just kind of learning that learning the trade Smelling all those chemicals must have done something to me, huh? So but then my when I was 13 my dad brought home a A personal computer and I found it to be a much more powerful creativity tool And pretty much never stepped foot in the dark room again Wow So yeah, it was a it was a real quick shift learned to to to code and experiment around with the with the pc and Yeah, so that was kind of my journey and then You know, you talk about being known in the in the industry I remember sitting around in university with With friends and everybody was like, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be rich. I want to be famous. I'm blah blah blah I'm like, you know what I just want to be respected in my profession whatever and So, uh, yeah, that's I love that. So what did you end up majoring in? Well, there's a story I'll tell you the story So originally I was a math computer science major at University of Illinois And I got into differential equations in my second or third year And uh, and the first day of class the professor grabs a handful of chalk and it's one of those old classrooms with the The chalkboards that slide left and right and up and down, right? Like in goodwill hunting, right? Yeah, and um And he spends 30 minutes just writing this these formulas are Just scribbling on all the all the chalkboards and we're all looking at each other in the classroom What the heck is this and finally he turns around he says does anybody know what this is? And we're like, we have no idea So we start guessing any kind of what's called an NP complete problem an unsolvable problem So we were guessing in grandma's last theorem and Traveling salesman problem. He's like, no, no, no, this is the proof to the four color map problem So cartographers have always known you only needed four colors to color a map With no two borders, you know this this touch the same colors It was considered to be an unsolvable proof until this guy proved it in like 1968 or whatever and interestingly You can look this up on wikipedia of professor apple Did this and it's the first proof that was validated by computer Interesting So I was in very intimidated and I'm like is it too late to drop this class and I was really more interested in the business aspects of computing but back in this is 1984 at University of Illinois. There was no MIS degree So I created a individual plans of study program Submitted it to the committee That integrated business and computer science and it was unanimously rejected Wow They're suggesting that Why would anybody ever want to use computers for business? So A dean ended up helping me get it pushed through and so I ended up getting a degree in software engineering and business administration And then I learned that the next year they they used that That curriculum as the basis for a full-time MIS program at Illinois Oh, that's amazing. And now I'm honored to teach there So I teach my infonomics MBA class there each year Oh, I did not know that that's Cool coming full circle then full circle. Yeah, yeah true innovator Okay, so where'd you go from there? What's the first job out of college? So the first job was with talk talk about coming full circle was with Arthur Anderson back when it was Anderson consulting before it was Accenture and And interestingly westman row who I'm with now is sort of born from the ashes of Arthur Anderson After the Enron scandal when Arthur Anderson kind of blew up They had a business consulting group and four people from that practice formed westman row 21 years ago Wow, it's kind of like coming first full circle for me working at westman row Very cool. Yeah, so how did you go get from there to uh westman row I guess the quick story is Five years at Arthur Anderson building batch data data architectures mostly I'm working on methodologies I ended up going into the expert systems world because I had an interest in AI So I joined some early stage AI companies back in the late 80s early 90s working with natural language query and forward and backward chaining algorithms and crazy stuff like that And then I followed a colleague over to a company called prism solutions formed by a lot of your listeners Will know build the name bill inman The father of the data warehouse concept. So he hired me to run the consulting practice in the midwest and then in Australia would move there for a while And uh, and yeah, and then I was remember I was speaking at an event Whether it was like it wasn't data versus it was a dci event And someone from Gartner heard me talking about data warehouse methodology. We had built the industry's first data warehouse development methodology while at prism called iterations, which in fact IBM used for about 25 years after the acquired prism And um, I was speaking on on the top. I can somebody from Gartner came up Actually, it was metagroup back then came up and said, hey, did you create those slides yourself? And I said, well, yeah, why you said you want a job with metagroup? I'm like, well, sure So Move back to the u.s. Join metagroup meta was then reacquired into Gartner And and then I went back to Gartner after doing some other things for a while and pretty much Spent the bulk of my career as a senior analyst with Gartner helping to set up the chief data officer research group and Yeah You mentioned that you you built data architect art Data architects for For the initial company. Where'd you learn that? Did you learn that as part of your degree? Did you make that out like it's like how did you figure out how to do that? You know, my degree was was not as vocational Not as vocational as a lot of other degrees. There was a lot of theory At University of Illinois. Yeah, we learned to code and program and all that but it was very much more theoretical So we learned a lot about relational Irrelational databases and the theory behind them and that translated really well into Everything including data warehousing Like it so So Doug, what was the biggest lesson so far in your career that you use maybe daily or by Well, there's my father was it was an engineer as a world-class engineer several patents to his name and And you know when I started messing around with the with the PC He said, you know, it's good to know how to program But you know that may only take you so far He said, you know, you really need to learn to speak and write and that's what's held held him back in his career And so I really focused on my writing and and speaking The speaking kind of happened accidentally I Got a job as a comedian at university Kind of accidentally and I took that Did that for several years. So that got me really comfortable You're talking in front of any size crowd whether they're throwing tomatoes at me or not But yeah, I think the big lesson from my father, you know, what it was to You know learn to speak and write and that might never take me further than you know, just learning to code And then I think more recently it's been about building a personal brand using social media and networking And and then connecting my brand to the company is with whether it's Gartner or or west Monroe So I think everybody today should be thinking about how to how to build their own their own personal brand Networking is so important and those soft skills like you say like um, and I don't want to say that writing is a soft skill necessarily but um, you know, but speaking and I love that you're a comedian. I didn't know that I bet that was what was the difference between the first time you got on stage and at the end As a comedian. Yeah Well, I just did my little five minute act and then it led to being asked to mc at a club at a couple of clubs and Yeah, and then I actually at Arthur Anderson my manager caught wind that I was doing stand up on the side Just just you know, open mics and things like that And back in the days when we could only wear white shirts and had to wear your jackets in the elevator He said listen that this is this hobby of yours is unbecoming of a young consulting professional and I was dissuaded from Oh But yet it served such a good purpose in being able to communicate It did it did. Yeah 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 That's awesome. That's amazing. Yeah, so um So tell me that having worked with data for so long, you know, what's your definition of data and how do you work with it? Oh, wow definition of data. I guess it's just a digital representation of something an event or an observation or Um, or an entity of some kind. I guess that's a little technical But it's it's really just a digital representation of of something, right? Yeah, so how do you work with data in your current role? Um, really really most of my work is around helping organizations generate ideas for creating new value streams from their existing data assets and it's really been kind of a Focus or journey of mine since I first kind of came up with the infonomics idea this idea that that information is an actual asset And started thinking about all right. Well, what do we do with assets? Well, we we we manage them, right? We measure them and we we monetize them or generate value from them So a lot of my work really has been around helping companies move beyond just building pretty pie charts and bouncy bar charts and dashing dashboards to to really put data to to work build data products from it that others can use and Do things that are much more, you know diagnostic and predictive or prescriptive with their with their data and help them come up those ideas You know when I rejoined Gartner, they said, um, you know, hey, Doug, you're the you're the big data guy you came up with the three v's of big data, right and uh, and so we want you to cover that for our clients and the the questions initially were around what is big data, you know back in the those You know around 2010 or so and and then the questions quickly turned to You know, how do we do big data? And then what do we do with all this big data? Which led me to start collecting use cases on how organizations are using data in innovative and high value ways that really inspired me as well and dozen use cases and stories turned into 50 turned into 500 plus stories That it used to inspire clients to to do more with their data than just report on it, right? And then I was compelled or cajoled by some colleagues to Put this into a book So my latest book after infonomics is called data juice and that's a compilation of 101 stories of how organizations are squeezing value from from data so Exciting Yeah, so that's really what my focus is on not anything too technical, but really helping business leaders and data leaders Do more with their their data assets Okay, so I have to ask what's your favorite story in the book? Do you have one? Oh, I can remember which one is in the book either all sorts of just Great examples. I remembering this Well, here's one that I actually inspired Was speaking at a conference on and I was talking about dark data And someone in the audience raised his hand and he said, well, what dark data could we possibly have and of course dark data is data That's unused or underutilized data And I said, well, you're you're with uh, he was with one of the big four consulting firms And I said, well, your your goal is to run successful projects if you ever thought about Analyzing the project communications on projects to identify where there are issues leading issue You know leading indicators of issues on projects like scope or budget or personnel or technology related issues and Someone in the audience will behold wouldn't took that idea Someone from from Lockheed Martin And so he actually spoke at a Gartner event several years ago showing how they analyze project communications and other documentation To get leading indicators of project issues Well before the traditional method of typing up status reports right and sending them upward and then Aggregating them and so forth So they they claim they have three times greater foresight into project issues now and are saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year On the product line where they've they've applied this so that's one of my favorite stories because it's one that I think I inspired so Oh, I love that story. Yeah that's uh I have a lot of practical reasons are use of cases for that mm-hmm for sure Wow, so Then 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? yep probably increasing the commensurate with the The you know the volume and velocity variety of data that we see out there Plus the drive by organizations to leverage their data more than they already are and layer on top of that um The the new wave of AI and generative AI which puts even more importance And value on a company's data assets I also think that and I wrote about this in infonomics. I think that Many organizations treat data as kind of a second-class second-class citizen they talk about Data as an asset, but they don't really manage it with the same discipline As other assets as their financial assets or their physical assets or even their human capital and it may be because it's not a balance sheet asset And until the accounting profession recognizes data as a balance sheet asset, I think It's going to be difficult You know to see for many organizations to rise to that level of managing and Measuring their data as an actual asset, but I think there's an imperative to do so and especially with This new wave of AI In particular unstructured data is really coming to the fore Very nice. So then what would advice would you get give to people looking to get into a career in data management? Yeah, again, there's always going to be room for people who are technical and you know learn how to You know set up your databases and data structures and do data modeling and handle master data management and implement data quality functions and and all of that but I think There's a lot of value in people who are able to connect the dots between Data and business value and there's there's still a big gap there. I think We often refer to it as data literacy, but I think it's more than just literacy. It's really getting organizations to treat data as an actual corporate asset not just talk about it like one And whatever kind of role that takes or what kind of roles that takes to help an organization get there I think those are going to be the ones that are really important one one example would be You know, most organizations have an entire department dedicated to procuring office supplies Right, but they don't have a single person Dedicated to procuring data supplies, you know, they're only thinking about data within their own four walls And not really recognizing That there's this wealth of external data out there or maybe they're they're aware and they go to a data broker or Or a data marketplace, but they don't really have a defined function Dedicated to identifying potentially valuable data and determining how to license it and integrate it and and leverage it So that's you know, we talk about the data scientists being the sexiest job of the 21st century I think I think a data curator or or something like that is is important if not Equally important if not sexy That's really really good advice and and very great that it's so important so, you know Doug I would be remiss if I didn't ask how people would find you at westman row or look up westman row Oh, yeah, we're just at westman row.com. We actually had to buy that url from a town in louisiana or mississippi I think I forgot what louisiana bought the url from them a few years ago So it's westman row.com and everybody can find me on linkedin And I usually post everything that I post on linkedin. I usually put the hashtag in phonomics So if you don't want to follow me you can follow my content on the phonomics. I also publish in Inforbs and cdo magazine and elsewhere I love it. So how many books have you written? Oh, so, um, we had two and a half We we published a book while I was a gardener on big data It was a new book through the financial times and then I published in phonomics On my own after that and then last summer published data juice Yeah, even though my wife told me if I ever wrote another book it would have to be titled how I use big data to find my next wife I am now working on a third book No I gave my my mba students a An assignment to pick any economic model and apply it to data. Yeah, and Explored does it doesn't work would they revise it? How would business and data leaders actually use that that economic concept like supply and demand or productivity frontiers or marginal utility? And so I have I have Hundreds of papers from students and I'm thinking about how to compile those into Into the next book on that really gets into the economics of of information No, I love that we get to that question all the time. How do you how do you monetize it? How do you show the value? How do you create that roi? Especially for the jobs needed to to manage the data For sure. It's a great place to be great a great time to be in in data and information And if somebody wanted to find your books Um, they're all online booksellers amazon Walmart whoever yeah Perfect. Well, actually data juice is only available on amazon. Yeah, I self published that one. Oh, very nice. Yeah Very nice, um and a little bit more about infonomics and then The book there Yeah, infonomics. I published while I was at uh a gartner And it's about how to monetize manage and measure data as an actual corporate asset So it's kind of three books in one and then data juice as the Is meant to be meant to it's 101 stories of how organizations are using data and innovative ways or squeezing value from data in innovative innovative ways And um or high value ways and most of them have a value proposition associated with it So the that book is meant to really inspire or or shame organizations into doing more with their their data than than just again reporting on it Very nice. Well, Doug. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. Thank you, Shannon. Real pleasure We'll see you at uh upcoming events Yeah, yeah, I'll see you in and I am and uh any plans to go to disney world or disney land Fantastic Yeah What ride are we going to go on together? I don't know we got to think about it I'm too sharp for roller coasters I I meet the height limit, but barely And there's like a foot between me and the top of the uh shoulder pad. So like it's so scary Like I feel like I'm gonna fall out every It will go on some kitty rides then Yeah, exactly Probably all of my inner inner ear can handle anyway I love it Well, Doug, thank you so much and we'll make sure and get all those Links posted to the page when it gets published. So and for 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 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