 Hello, and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp and I'm the Chief Digital Officer of Data Diversity. We want to thank you for joining the latest in the monthly webinar series data architecture strategies with Donna Burbank. Today Donna will discuss why you need data management getting executive buy-in sponsored today by summer key. Just a couple of points to get us started due to the large number of people that attend these sessions you will be muted during the webinar. For questions, we will be collecting them by the Q&A panel. And if you'd like to chat with us or with each other, we certainly encourage you to do so. And just to note the chat defaults to send to just the panelists, but you may absolutely change that to network with everyone to open the chat and the Q&A panels. You will find those icons in the bottom of your screen to enable those features. And as always, we will send a follow up email within two business days containing links to the slides and the recording of the session and any additional information requested throughout the webinar. Now let me turn it over to Brett for a brief word from our sponsor, Samarki. Brett, hello and welcome. Thank you and welcome all of you out there. Great topic, one that we're excited to be participating in. So, Brett Hansen, I'm the Chief Growth Officer at Samarki. Samarki is an MDM platform player. I'll spend a few minutes talking about us in a second, but before I jump into that, I want to at least acknowledge this great topic. Obviously as an MDM vendor, we work with dozens of organizations, every quarter who are going through this very question, how do we get support for MDM. So we have a good perspective on how you can navigate your organization to be successful. What I'll start off with is what is the biggest impediment and I know everyone here knows this so I'll be very brief here, but overwhelmingly it's not the technology. Yes, that's difficult. It is the culture. It is the people. It is getting everyone on the same page and aligned on what it is that we're trying to achieve and ensuring that there is continuity around the business objectives. So we're engaging with prospects, many of whom by the way are individuals who have already launched an Indian project and that one was unsuccessful. We always start with the business. It's not the technology that's super important. Obviously we feel that way, but what's the business outcome that you're trying to achieve. Donna is going to go in this in much more detail, but I thought I would just share the five steps that we talked to our prospects about. We all start to the business need right what it is. Are you trying to achieve the second is ensuring that there's a business sponsor right. Many of the individuals come to us are on the technical side their data architects or data analysts and they're, they're looking for our help, and we always point back to who is the person who is going to derive the benefit from this project because you need them in the canoe with you. Third is making sure that you have a scope that's achievable. Fourth, can't stress is enough that there is an ROI business case associated with this. I would say the biggest difference between those who are successful and those who struggle or the ability to articulate a very clean business case. And then fifth, having an achievable plan that ties back into that business need. Those are the elements that we see, driving the success of Greenland Indian projects. So how does Samarki play in this. Well, for those of you have not heard of us, we've been around for about a decade. We are absolutely focused on securing that successful business outcome. And when anyone asked me like what makes Samarki different from the many MDM vendors out there. I always return to that. Well, how does that manifest itself. The first is our approach is different and this is that line line here, which is, we have a no code data product tool that allows you to deliver exactly what your business needs. Yes, we have templates that can help you get started. But unlike most of the customer other MDM players out there, we're focused on a specific set of requirements generating a specific set of application capabilities. And that's a big difference in allowing you to be successful with your stakeholders. The next is great UI UX. If the stakeholders don't like the experience, they're not going to use it and ultimately this is going to fail. So having a compelling UI UX that's easy to use, that's easy to get adopted is absolutely critical. And the fourth element is MDM is hard. It's complicated. There's lots of moving parts. There's the business requirements. There's the technology. There's all the different things you know about in terms of more data and more regularizations. We have a team of experts who have worked with literally hundreds of organizations like yourselves who do nothing but help them get things started. And we also have a set of assets, including something we call our rapid delivery blueprint, which we have built out that allows you to have really strong compelling direction on how to get started, recognizing that everyone's different. But having that focused direction can play a huge role. I think our approach really resonates in the industry. I'd call it the fact that the last couple of Gardner Magic Quadrants were top right. But to me, what's more importantly is we are overwhelming the people's choice in the Gardner peer insights. So I'm sure all of you have heard a thousand dinner pitches and they kind of all sound the same. I would say go out and check us out in Gardner peer insights. See what your colleagues say about us in terms of how we deliver on our commitments. So getting back to the topic I can, how can Samarki help? Limited time remaining. So I'm just going to hit the first two items here. We can offer a very customized demo. Again, because our approach is delivering a data application for you, we can put something together in a relatively short amount of time that can really help your business owners see the value. Pictures worth a thousand words, I'd say a demo is worth a million. Really can help them fully experience the power of the solution and get their buy-in. The second is we have built an ROI tool. It is a really great tool. It's built off of IDC quantitative research of hundreds of MDM implementations. So it's got hard data behind it. We have two versions of very simple straightforward 10 or so questions to get you started and then a much more sophisticated tool that you can build out as you're going through this process. So you can show your stakeholders, look, here's the cost, but here's the return on this. And I've seen it be amazing help in terms of getting buy-in. So I'll be here for the rest of this conversation. Best of luck in your efforts. And I will turn it over to Donna. Thank you so much for kicking us off with this great presentation and demonstration. If you have questions for Brett, he'll be joining us in the Q&A portion of the webinar at the end of the webinar today. And now let me introduce to you the speaker for the series, Donna Burbank. Donna is a recognized industry expert in information management with over 20 years of experience helping organizations enrich their business opportunities through data and information. She is currently the managing director of Global Data Strategy Limited, where she assists organizations around the globe in driving value from their data. And with that, let me give the floor to Donna to begin her presentation. Hello and welcome. Hello Shannon and hello team. Always good to join these and thanks for the demo, I mean the presentation earlier from Samarki. So to jump right in, because I know we're all here for the content. As we already mentioned today is all about that elusive or hopefully not elusive how you get executive buy-in. I know if you've joined my webinar before you know I run a small consulting company. And that's almost half of the questions we get of, you know, we're trying to sell our initiative and search initiative here, you know, master data management, metadata management, data quality, you know, and how do you get that sold up the flagpole, as we say, and we do a lot of that. And I think hopefully a lot of you in the call have had success so that it can be done and more and more it very often is done. So if you're feeling like there's a challenge, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Also, if this is the first time you've joined one of these webinars. This is a series of diversity is really good about keeping all of these in perpetuity online so if any of these earlier webinars or ventures you can go back and get access. Speaking of getting, you know, kind of buy-in and interest, AI and machine learning hasn't been hearing about that so that's next month and then we'll get into some of the other fundamental stuff we often talk about like data quality and metadata and all the good data management stuff. And can folks still hear me because I just got an error message cutting in and out. Yeah, I apologize. We'll just keep going if it gets. All right, I is that any better. Yeah. And if you have anything open that you can close to that might, that might be helpful, but yeah. If it continues, I am also I tend to. Oh, yeah, it's continuing. We just lost you. Get excited and move. I will be right back. I'm going to stop my. Yeah. Hold on folks. Apologies. Technical difficulties will get you in just a moment. Yep. If it continues, we will do a plan B. Okay, is that any better. Yes and no. It is. Okay, great. Okay, so onto the topic at hand and please do chime in if because I also have the bad habit of starting to pace around the room and I have my laptop so but something basic like that I'll fix that. So again, today we are talking about becoming a data driven organization. Probably again why you're a lot of you are here and and you know I I've been doing this for a long time now, and I always say you know back in the day I remember going to the conferences and webinars and one of the topics was always you know we're not getting the attention from the business we're down there in the server room and no one cares about us and I said you know be careful what you ask for because now every company or organization or even nonprofits are looking to become data driven. What I find is sometimes a challenge and not again not insurmountable which is why we have this webinar it works all the time and it can work, but often that subtlety of data management and all of the stuff you do behind the analytics and behind AI and machine learning and digital transformation getting that sold up can be more difficult and again we'll talk a lot about this so I don't want to steal my own thunder but it's not necessarily that the management doesn't care they probably just don't understand one of the main questions I get all the time again as a consultancy is you know I know I need to be data driven I don't really know what that means or I know I know data governance and I need it. But what is it like what is it or I know what it is but I don't know how to get there what's the roadmap to get there right so those are the questions I get. And so I'm going to hopefully help you kind of sell or explain that same thing and it's not crazy you know you might know, I don't know I need to lose weight though you don't need to tell me that how do I do it what's the best plan right so you're almost the advisor to your execs or you know I, I know I need to I don't know, you know, keep my car maintained, or my bike maintained what do I need to do right but we all have those same questions so just apply that to data management as you're kind of selling that up the platform but there's definitely interest this idea of being data driven, you know, we were seeing it everywhere so on that note we are seeing it everywhere. So these are, you know quotes I like to share. And if you look, these are mostly data business, you know, periodicals right Forbes, Harvard Business Review Wall Street Journal, you know, CIO Journal yes, but they're all talking about being a data driven business so if you have an executive asking you how do we be more data driven, because they're hearing it everywhere and I feel like all their colleagues are doing this as well, and they don't want to miss out. It's a great place to be, perhaps a frustrating place to be as you're trying to explain, you know, some of the data of the details behind this. If you've heard me present a similar slide in the past, you know I get very bitter about the data scientists being the sexiest job of the 21st century, not that any of you are data scientists are not incredibly sexy I'm sure even though the cameras are not on, but it's not data quality the sexiest job or, you know, metadata management the sexiest job of the 21st century right. Although I did have a coworker I was talking about data governance, and I've been talking about data governance probably for close to 30 years now. And it was a younger individual and they said I know you're like use these sexy buzzwords like data governance that I had to stop in my tracks I'm like I have become the sexy buzzword. The sexy data governance is now the sexiest job of the 21st century because I am hearing more and more, but my point is that often it's the analytics and the data science and AI that of course is top of mind because that's what people see, right that literally is the face of data, and we don't always look behind the curtain which is a lot of what data architecture and data management is all about. Quick before I keep going are we still good with sound Shannon. Yes. Yeah, you're so good. Made me nervous. I did once for a client an entire hour and I learned to ask for questions and I was done and I dropped after about five minutes and I'm talking away. So yeah I don't want to give me another call. Okay, anyway, so this is the again, why we are having this webinar and why you're probably on it because more and more people are looking hey I want to be the next Amazon calm I want to be the next Uber. I'd be data driven no matter what industry, either for or nonprofit or government. And on that note, I like this slide from the world economic forum again I use a lot of you know data driven slides and you know quotes from diversity and similar pre articles is not too crazy to have diversity say data is important right, but when the world economic forum says something like this, and they did an analysis. If you look at the market cap from the main, you know, companies across the globe your exons and your Walmart's etc. Whereas in 2013 the main focus of the top market cap companies were products, you know that Walmart sells the best and cheapest and fastest next on has the best market share. Now, in 2018 not not that companies aren't selling products, but it's the data that's more valuable than actually those products right so some of these companies are pure data companies alphabet that's Google, right. So they are a data company. So we'll talk more about that what it means to be a data company. Some are product companies like Amazon, but what makes Amazon so one of the things that makes Amazon so great is their use of data. You know the recommendation engine you bought this would you want to buy this or you know that how their product data is their good old master data and how you know product data is organized on Amazon I've had customers that are one customer got a million designs from Amazon because their master data wasn't organized enough to sell their product effectively so these are very real world tangible things that are all data driven and World Economic Forum is saying it and I'm thrilled because we've been saying that we data people. If you're data people on the call have been saying that for a long time. And now the rest of the world is also saying it in force. So, I talked about this just now, what it means to be a data company and I've been, I like this slide because it kind of talks about the difference between being a data driven company and full on being a data company. So, what does that mean so being a data driven company you might argue we've been doing this since the beginning of time, you know, I'm a big old data nerd but I went to, you know, Egypt years ago was looking at the, you know, the pet, you know, hieroglyphs and things on the walls and what are they doing they're counting grain, you know, it was basically numbers it was basically early dashboard, or you know you go to a lot of the ancient cultures they've been counting things for a long time why so you can sell more sell cheaper sell faster and and a lot of those types of things. So, using data to either improve efficiency and reduce redundancy manual efforts or grow revenue or support your patients better or whatever optimizing your organization is that what I would call business optimization data is great for that. And this also, I would say this is growing and maybe didn't exist so much in the past of actually being a data company and I'm working for more and more clients that you know on the wall is we are a data company, or we're looking to be a data where data is more the product or you're monetizing your data for new value or you know it could also be research and things like that open data sets from government and things were really your first order job is data or something like maybe an Uber right or a Google where you're not just literally selling data but you know Uber is built off really good data and yes they're I guess a taxi company, but really that's a they were almost a data first idea. Now can we take data from airplane and arrivals and traffic patterns and get to get the right person at the right there at the right time and that really is a new business model. And that is your true digital transformation, where data is really driving the business so hopefully that's helpful some. I worked with a lot of companies on the left. Not everybody needs to be on the right. And I worked with one manufacturing company that wanted to be in both right they did a lot of manufacturing for the building industry, which tends to go up and down based on the market and they wanted something to mitigate that so they, they actually took data from the trucks they had big trucks that were delivering data in rural areas in Latin America, and not, not a lot of people did that but the people who did really needed that information of kind of truck of this week over this bridge or under this tunnel and things like that. And they sold that to some other people in the industry almost like Google maps for shipping and transportation of big trucks. And that was a, you know, was a massive part at that point of their revenue but it was a new revenue driver based on the data they already had under the hood in their own company because they had their center. They were using central data on the left to improve the efficiency of their drivers, how fast do they drive how much gas to the use, do they get there on time and then they said, we're optimizing our business with the data can we also now use that to be data driven so that was one example, but they are kind of different things, but but think when when your boss is saying we need to look at data or your executive, you know which one is in their head or can you suggest ideas maybe on the right that the folks haven't thought of right so that's kind of why that's important to this conversation. So we talked about the data driven business, and I will now quote, I quoted the World Economic Forum I'll now quote the diversity. And go with the strategy and the diversity do it every year now. Kind of a trends and data management report, which is always fun. And I like some of these analytics which is, you know, definitely over half of folks are look seeing data as a strategic asset. I would say, little nuance to that question if you said do we want to be data driven it would probably be higher. I think asset means are you treating it in a way that's managed effectively which is why isn't probably 100% it's a little lower there right. But if you look at the why and we'll go more into that a lot of folks want that good old fashioned reporting analytics right that's tends to be the face of your dashboard, I mean of your company. You know, are we increasing sales are we helping our patients and our students and are we saving costs and that kind of thing which leads us to the second, you know, trying to be more efficient. This is a big reason why folks are kind of looking at data and dashboards and data management is great driving that efficiency. And the digital transformation is a big part of that and that's another buzzword what does that mean we'll go a little into that. But I think it makes a lot of sense again. I want to sell my product data online. I was a brick and mortar store. I want to go digital to a digital transformation. I don't have my product data organized in a, in a great way, and I don't have good master data for my products. I can't sell it online right or I want to do all digital marketing campaigns and we did this for a big insurance company. They didn't have email address for their customers and they didn't have. They really couldn't do some of these digital campaigns that they wanted to so some of the key drivers that might be interesting. So it isn't more about digital transformation I use a lot of definitions in my presentations because we're data people and we love our definitions. This one's from Gartner. I just thought that was a good way to kind of clarify that you know there's a lot of different definitions out there but really, it really is how do we optimize our existing organization to be more digital. You know, syllogism there but I do differentiate a little bit and I would differ when they are pushed back on them a little bit when they say it's used as public sector organizations for modest initiatives like putting services online, or legacy and when they went through one of those are kind of big deals and every time I renew my driver's license online I thank the person who went digital in Colorado because actually that those are but they can't go digital online if they don't have a good good good view of their citizen data right and is it protected and is it secure and all of that. A lot of digital transformation is driving data man. That connection to your execs of why and hopefully I gave you some examples now why digital transformation is one of my webinar. We're losing you a bit Donna. Yeah. Is it better now. It is. Okay, thank you time in again if it happens again. I don't know why this one is particularly germane to this conversation. Is it really time when again because we do. I do this day in and out and why I have an unstable connection right now is I'm on my wifi. We're literally in a workshop on this right now they stepped out of where really aligning first that business strategy with your data strategy and that seems so trite until you actually do it right if once you get execs to understand that yes, I want to sell more products and do that. I need metadata management, right which probably is on top of mine when your execs said, unless I've done it at another company, which is more and more common. And often a lot of these drivers that we see that support your business and data strategy like governance, like master data like data quality, when execs ask for them. It's because I've done it successfully somewhere else where we're at company a selling widgets. And they're at you know they said well when I was at widget company be we had mastered it and we had to in this stuff worked why don't we have it here. They're often your best advocates and you'll probably find them somewhere in the organization so that's nice for us as data professionals that the best sales for data is that work somewhere else right it shows that the product is good. Every, you know, every industry has failures and not that everything is per every data governance initiative is perfect right, but when it works well, people come back asking for more why because that makes them more efficient. Again, just stepped out of a workshop now we're trying to argue what do you even mean by total revenue and are we all saying it the same way across the globe and how can we run our business unless we all agree. So that is, you know, business driven data strategy. And that's an easy way to sell up to execs and the execs are on the call and they were the first ones to chime in of why we were here in the morning right, we can't run an efficient organization and sell more stuff more efficiently and help our customers. Unless we get our data right through governance and that was the, you know, the chief financial officer that kicked off our call so if you doubt that this stuff happens it does, and hopefully some of these tips here. Yeah, I was long winded on that slide a little. But again, the more you tie your data strategy or your data management with the bit with the organization of the business and I've used very kind of retail type e examples but we do this all the time you can't help your patients, unless you have a secure patient portal and you can't help your students if you don't even know the definition of a student, is it online students or just, you know, just or folks that go on campus right so any industry we can't be a nonprofit unless we understand our members of the nonprofit and how we can help our constituents and things like that isn't just retail it's just kind of easy to think of products and widgets because we all think of that but right so hopefully throw this example. And we'll talk of different ways but examples always work to write data quality seems really nebulous until management sees that the numbers are wrong where they see how data quality affects their bottom line etc etc. So, we'll kind of refer back to some of these but use this all the time and it kind of helps stress some of these examples also. So, once you get this right you may show this type of thing to a an exec, and they don't have to know all the details of what I don't know data quality management and the dimensions of data quality they just kind of know that they need it as a pillar to support all the cool stuff they want to do right so getting that right level of, you know, conversation to the right people will will talk more about as well. Moving on, and that kind of talks to that balance and so, you know, data management, sometimes and we are all to blame, I think data management can get a bad rap of just being oh we can't do that, you know, data management is just going to take too long and it's too unwieldy, and you use these big words I don't understand. And maybe I mean, in the day, you know, do you need a fully attributed enterprise logical data model. Before you can put your products online. No. Do you ever need one of those but you did a data model to know your product hierarchy. Yes, and that would argue how you know Amazon is going to have a good data model right and you have to map to it if you're going to sell. So yes, you need data models. Do you need to take three years to build them know, do they need to be relevant. Yes, right, because if you're too academic and nothing gets done and I've worked for these companies they have a, you know, perfect enterprise architecture and data architecture and everything's documented but no does anything. They're just documenting it. Not great, but probably even more common. You don't want to do nothing right and just say oh no we got to go sell stuff so we can actually plan anything we just got to go run. And that's chaotic as well so the right answer is the right and this is big but the right amount of data management that offers the right business value and it really is different right are you selling widgets, and you need good product data and you can need data and suppliers and already that's getting big right, or are you, I don't know a medical device testing company, and we really need data accuracy right or top secret, you know, military development thing that we absolutely can't make a mistake. Then maybe maybe you're going to be a little bit more on the left or you are an academic organization and you need a lot of level of detail right so I can't answer where you need to be exactly on that spectrum you can. I think when you're wondering, and then I always, you know, if you've been in one of my training courses or you've been one of my clients I always say you know when people say well, so what or why do I need this, rather than getting frustrated by that answer it. And I've done that myself do we need to be doing this if not, let's put that off but you know, often the answer is yes we need to be doing this because this is core to what we're doing so kind of a maybe lighthearted way to think about it but often in your own head. You know, I tend to lean towards the left because I have left up to the point that's beyond the topic of this call where I sit there but you know in terms of being really heavy on the data management, because that's what I like to do but I even in my own company and like do we really need to be cleansing all this data or is it good enough fit for purpose for what we're trying to do. And again, more often, we often see people not doing enough. So you want to get you know and making that case which is why we're here. The other thing to think of and again a lot of this is on selling how do you sell how do you present how do you convince other people so we're putting on our, you know our marketing hat really here. You're either your organization, or your audience. I'm thinking more offense of, I'm a Silicon Valley startup and I'm in growth phase, and what are the folks talking about and profitability revenue we're going to be big ring over the best customer satisfaction we're going to win. Definitely offense you don't want to go in and go, well, you know there may be some data type errors and your customer mailing list, you know, you gotta be, they're going to push you out of the room right. In the same token, you might be a very defense type you might be a highly regulated financial industry or you're working with patient data or students or insurance is another one that tends to be very kind of defense oriented and be like well yeah I know we just secured customer patient data for, you know, cancer research on the, we'll just put on the web and share it all with people's names and so security numbers like that's crazy to right. So, and you just want to think and then sometimes even within the organization right me that Silicon Valley startup that I talked about that wants to be big and grow. The legal is probably a little more in the defense or you know, the different, but maybe sales is more than the offense right. So you might be very, you know, conservative insurance company and sales might be more in the offense right so just think of that because not that I've ever made a mistake but had I ever made a mistake in a presentation is that you might tell by my tone of voice I tend to lean on that left side of things here of being more on the offense. Oh, we're going to be big and data's fun and all that, but you don't want to, again, you know, the little some of the serious, you know, fines and regulation and things like that and that's often where data management kind of fits so just think of that as you're giving your voice over for why we need data management. You know, is it all about we want to improve profitability and revenue and customer satisfaction, or is it. Hey, we just had a breach or hey we need to protect our citizen data. You know, student data and we want to get that balance right, etc. Or, you know, there's HIPAA or sorry, it's actually your, you know, it's purple, you know, etc, etc. Just think of that and you're probably somewhere in that purple zone where it's a little bit of offense and a little bit of defense just think through that as you're giving your kind of your pitch for this. So, the other way of thinking of offense and defensive. Yeah, I like to say is that that carrot and stick right. And the carrot is hey, I think of all the opportunity we're going to, again, I'm using retail again but, you know, sell more widgets to customers because we'll have great campaigns and we know product usage because it's internet enabled because we've been digital and we can see which products customers use and remember huge or is it defense, you know, well yeah but you know we have GDPR and we can't use certain information or it's student data is it is it moral to be sharing, you know, students grades or you know social issues with somebody else or, you know, and we should be more cautious. So, I'm going to bring up another day diversity this is still that trends and data management. We actually asked that question why are you doing data management probably a good thing to ask in the survey. So probably no surprise we've talked a lot about going to be I analytics and AI, being the face of data management because that's kind of what people are using to literally run their organization. Absolutely number one. I mean, I think we've been doing this six or seven years now it's always number one. Again, that's probably no surprise. People are looking to data to drive decisions. And, and we talked about master data in the beginning of the session, you know, things like operational data like master data really help one of the number one ways to sell master data management is that once you get that right you are so much efficient. Your product data runs your customer data runs your suppliers are known and you don't have risk. Absolutely a great way to sell that as well as everything else right so there's also that operational component. We talked about digital transformation. And then there's that you know, complying with regulation and risk those are definitely kind of the stick. You can read some of the others I actually like how some of these are bubbled up. And some of these are not just selling more widgets but things like improving outcomes we have better education or better health outcomes for our, you know, situates and things like that so that's nice to see as well that it isn't always just about selling more widgets or you know nothing wrong with selling widgets because we all use widgets but it just shows that data management is now across so many industries now. Everybody's everybody is doing it because it's valuable. We're going to talk a bit more about I guess I'll name the kind of the Burbank carrot stick index or indices that we can kind of go through each year and see but I found it interesting that this was from folks that said what is driving their business. And I just kind of did what would be considered a carrot, and what would be more of on the stick side so I think complying with regulations and reducing risk. So it pretty much clearly a stick, no one gets up really excited and goes you know we're going to comply with regulations better than anyone in the end I mean you might but it's not really this forward going thing, maybe saving costs and increasing efficiency. You might say is a stick but I don't know I that sells a lot for even just when I'm trying to sell something like master data management that can be really complex and sound hard and sound. Kind of academic or obtuse or whatever. I talk about the efficiency play to a company that is that Silicon Valley started trying to grow. They get that Oh, I can't grow faster I can't be more efficient without something like master data like that's almost the easiest way to sell master data management and it is true it also helps reporting and analytics. I don't know how to report on customer growth but I don't know who my customers are blah blah blah. So, both of those so you could maybe argue that saving costs to the stick but I definitely see as a carrot, because that's definitely a carrot to execs that are trying to, you know, grow maybe costs could be you know we're downsizing we need to, you know, save costs, but being more efficient definitely helps with growth. So why do I talk about this other than I like my little pictures of carrots and things. This is a mindset, and I've noticed this and maybe I'm being a little judgy, but different personalities kind of generally go to different jobs right so think of a sales person they by definition are full on carrot. Everything's big everything's bold and you know because who wants to sell by something from someone's like well, our products kind of crap and you don't really probably want to buy it but you could you know just by definition because I need to be very, you know, we're going to be bigger and we as it and I'm putting myself in that category or data management are kind of paid to find and fix problems right so we sometimes sound like the Debbie downers of. Well, I know you want to be bigger and better but have you thought about GDPR and this data quality issues and I'm not saying you're not right, but that's often how we come across. And when you're selling to management, or your execs are getting buy in the more we can kind of add that carrot flavor because that's off again, think of your company again if you're if you're talking to your regulatory board or you're talking to legal or, you know, think of what kind of company you're in, you may very well lead with, hey we're going to get a fine if we're not you know complying with the regulation that is a fine way to sell data management. And often, even with that, you know people get more excited about the carrot so if you find yourself kind of being the, you want to be also realistic and we'll talk about that when we get into the roadmap. But I just, I thought this kind of talk to it as well. In that, tend to kind of lead with the carrot, you know why are you doing this is kind of the fun stuff right that reporting and analytics and saving and forming and digital being more digital and that kind of thing. So on that note, you know, what I sort of talked through, what is your perspective when you think this do you maybe have to temper that when you're giving your presentation do I tend to look for the problems because that's what my company's paying me to do is find data quality problems, and you can lead today to quality is often a very good way to send sell that, but is that sometimes projecting that I can look at like a glass half empty instead of the glass half full type of person and if I'm selling to sales. Maybe I want to do that glass half full type of thing with some realism. So, just something I've noticed as we present a lot and sometimes coming in, talking to management they kind of almost have that bias of you guys are the ones that are always telling me it's too hard to whatever or I'm doing something wrong or I'm bad or I can't can't can't. We just want to be careful we're not kind of doing that, or are we jaded because we tried this before. It's one of my clients that had kind of been jaded, and they were going to sell and I just we were talking freely and openly and we always have to do the event by ourselves. And I just kind of cautioned them and it did work of. Are you letting a little bit of that it's been tried too many, you know, temper or Jane your presentation that you know now that you've tried it me kind of have to put all that behind you and sound positive again. I've been to probably too many sales training in my life from previous jobs. It's always that you know how many doors have been slammed in your face and then you got to try that one more customer who's going to buy that's like that's how they're trained. So yeah, maybe you tried MDM selling or data quality selling last year. Think of how you can sell it now, and just keep that positive. I'm feeling luxury so I'm going to move on to the next slide but something I've noticed and I found myself is, you know, I'd be back in the days when I was doing way more hands on stuff you know I spent all night trying to get the day warehouse right and and you have the dashboard ready. And there was that one thing that wasn't working. And I'm giving the presentation of this new great awesome thing and what do I start with and I would kick myself the thing that wasn't working because that's what was top of mind because I was just, and we do that right because I was like so involved and how do I fix that problem. And I had to learn that myself Donna stop that and focus on the 90% of the cool new stuff this rain right and focus on that so it's just kind of a casualty of what we do for a living. So, on that note, if you are that kind of data driven professional who wants to be more on that on the quote, the business side and have a seat at the table and all that stuff we were talking about being data driven and digital and and being part of those cool projects like the time is now for you like again I do this for a living so I get this kind of naturally, but people are, I found execs are dying for someone who can explain this stuff to them in a way that they understand and wouldn't we all like just life is complicated. Folks say now this adulting right, could somebody when I have a legal problem explain a lot of me in an easy way or cost that if it's going to a Roth and a traditional 401k that doesn't make me feel stupid I just don't know that yet because I'm new and I've never had a 401k before or something right, or my car or my, you know, new piece of digital equipment or something right we all don't want to feel dumb and there's a lot of things. I would love to have that person that could explain everything to me and so data because it is can be complicated, and is so important and execs want someone that can have that become almost their trusted advisor so if this is something you want to do great time for you, because it's a lot of people who want to hear what you have to say. And so I am being a little luxury today. But again, I'm talking half to myself because I hopefully learned a lot of these things myself. We, if you're a data architect on the call you can you can maybe insert other data, data professions here I just think the architects are kind of unique in that we're very, I'm putting all the same for myself very nerdy and love the technical stuff but also are kind of verbose and want to talk about it. So I really think my friends want to hear about database being a third normal form, and I get all excited and I use all these techie terms like oh please I want to show you my data model and all the detail. And in the guy in the middle, who just needs to quote a done like that lady or that guy that with a beard is pretty weird might wonder what about that picture right but it's like the person on the sidewalk saying the world's going to end. You know, and they're walking around with a sign, and he, he may be right the world is going to end according to astronomers the world will end walking around with a sign on your chest is not going to convince people they don't think you're weird. And sometimes when we get so into the tech and talk about things like normalization and dimensional models and, you know, all those techie words. We lose the business right now that we're not right, you know that it's not important. So how do we go from a data architect or data management professional data scientists today to engineer insert your role here. To more of a data advisor, right and that's kind of the point of this presentation of, you know, rather than saying your language third normal form, you know, whatever. Be more of a data advisor how can you help them what is in it rather than get frustrated with all those sales wants to know is what was in it for them, I say answer. What is in it for them why is what you're saying important so hey, we could like your customer data with your product use and stats we could help you increase sales. Oh, that's interesting tell me more. Well here's how we could join this data with this data and slice and dice and that's still facts and that's not the most or most dimensional right. It's techie stuff, but you're saying it in a way that means something to them, and that's just it's just kind of a mental switch and I still catch myself after doing this for about 30 years. Jumping into the tech is what I love, but starting with what they care about and then adding the why super super important. And before you judge people for not wanting to be more data literate and all of that. It's the same thing. Right, so here's the guy with you know third normal form sign on the sidewalk telling everybody. And he's paycheck is late so he goes to the accounting department. It says I need my paycheck and they're like, well, you know we recently switched from cash based accounting to a cruel based accounting to opt out he's like I don't. I don't care nerd, I just want my paycheck right same thing the business just wants to dashboard, they may need to know a few things to build that dashboard, we don't need to teach them data management. I was at the DJI Q conference a couple weeks ago or whatever it was one of Shannon's car. And I listened to a really good session on that and what the speaker said was, you know, the data literacy is fine, but but don't turn it into we have to teach the business what we do for a living. We're still there to enable the business and I guess that's what the slide and maybe more facetious way says of, you know, accountants, they do a lot there's nerdy as we are full on a lot of accountants go to data management there's a lot of similar thinking. On the last person that really want to know what they do. I want the books to be right, and I want my paycheck and I want, you know, I know I have to submit my time sheets. And that's about it like that. Yes, maybe I'm a finance steward because I submitted a, I'm sorry expense report. Right. I don't really need to know much more than that so similarly your data stewards or your business or people like that don't necessarily know everything you need to do. You need to simplify just like finances for you. We don't know everything they do and I honestly don't care. I'm glad they do care. Right. So that's probably how most people feel about us the data management. So, she had always kind of teases me about my elevator pitch but everything in life, the older I get is an elevator pitch you're always selling something to someone. I literally what in my first job had this thing happen to me where the idea of an elevator pitches you meet the CEO in the elevator, and they ask what you do or you're trying to sell something. What happened to me. That was about 22. I think my answer was, you know, made a fool out of myself I just I was so nervous I didn't probably say anything and probably tripped over my feet walking out but the idea is you meet the CEO in the elevator and you want to sell her on your new product and, you know, start this new data management. Right. What do you do, Joe. Well I'm working on a project and rationalize metadata across data sources to a certain you've lost her board nerd get on my, my, my elevator my left right. But if instead, you took that opportunity and you've done your research, and you know what is important to the company. Hey, if to support your big online marketing campaign, I'm working on a project to get more complete view of customer now she's it now she's bought and then maybe you bring up the metadata or master data word right, but you what what what changed. One change and we all do this is instead of putting our project first you put her project first right she's working on a marketing campaign. I'm working on data to support that and it's not necessarily that yourself is just this was top of mind our own stuff. Like think of that example when I was trying to fix the dashboard late at night that was on my mind I wasn't a bad person, but I forgot to think from the other person's view. When I if you've done a workshop with me I always do it sounds like a little mini shark tank I do. And people give very good presentations but 90% of people. All we start with, we're going to do a data data warehouse or a data lake or a data mesh or data whatever to support. And I think my original slide actually had that too if we think of what we're doing. First, no one cares. They want to think what they're doing first it's just even just doing that flip can help you want to do this person a I'm going to help you do it by the things that I do well. And again, these are all maybe obvious or little things, but the combination of all these things is how we have successfully sold a bunch of stuff to the two execs so just hopefully some of these tools in the toolkit will be helpful to you. So, moving on again these are all just kind of things that again have helped me if one of these things helps you as you go. So I talked about, you know, I'm a big fan of you've noticed a lot of these slides are similar this that balance how do I balance the conversation is it. The offense is it defense. Is it really academic data management heavy data management light data management was just enough the other one is it is a heart or verse, or is it a head. What does that mean, we all love and it was all of examples right, but there's a spectrum there as well. Right so I am a nonprofit and I'm trying to help children who have cancer. You know have a place to stay while they're in the hospital or something like that if I'm trying to sell to that CEO and I'm like well we could save more money and I don't know. Maybe that would just feel tacky yes you have to be but but if it was more he can help more children and think of Johnny we help last year and his family and you know that's just it's a mission driven organization, or even a product company my widget we're going to have the best widget editor and they're just so really bought into their widgets that's really what drives them it's the heart of passionate emotion, or you know I don't want to judge any company you know you're a I don't know. I'm a I do, you know, I'm an under underwriter or you know I something or I'm the finance team and I need to really focus on profitability, kind of talking about the heart about that or even someone who is, I was with an academic organization, it was a university, and I was telling anecdotes and gosh that was the worst thing to do they said you know they were the, basically the evaluation team and they said anecdotes, you know, everyone has an anecdote we go on numbers right so I kind of made a fool of myself because they wanted to see numbers right am I representing the finance. Right, or the, you know, the insurance team that you know the pricing the policies, or am I talking to the head of, you know, client support for an on profit helping children with cancer right you really want to think that through. And everyone likes the stories, but what what, because the budget how much and then need to be backed up by numbers right and you don't want to kind of go. You know, the other end of the spectrum as well if it's a bank, you know, and yes you want to probably help people who get your loans and things but I would I would assume a financial institution is very much more going to be in those facts figures than numbers and yes, hopefully we can help more people get loans and have houses and things but starting your whole, you know, pitch on john who just bought a house and, and how his family's happy and all that you might look kind of silly if they're really want to see backs bigger so again just another thing to think of probably like every other organization you're somewhere in the brown, you know the most mission driven nonprofits still needs to, you know, one nonprofit there mantra was you can't do the mission without the margin, you know you can have a mission you can have numbers, and then even company even, but you know companies that are very numbers driven, or all have a mission as well. Right, or to help understand those numbers use an anecdote or story. You just want to back it up, but again something to think through. Other thing is to think about the talk to a lot of different people. This is a slide picture one of my books. But when, again, when we come in as a consultancy. We talk across business we talked across it one of the first questions we asked is let's see an order chart, and we're talking to finance and marketing and analytics and product development, etc, etc. And then across all levels from execs down to people, you know, in the field hands on, because you're all going to get different perspectives and they all care about data, but different ways and then you'll see people who don't usually it's a smaller percentage, but you can tell by body language whether they bought in or not, are they going to be an ally or something else so you really need to get that perspective and have. Again, what the CEO is going to talk about think of did you read the annual report you know what they care about, you know the person trying to put data and SAP do you understand SAP and what their challenges might be with drop down lists and things like that right. So we really need that holistic view. The other area and this is human nature again I'm feeling judgy on this call, but it's just advice that I've all done my by mistake myself. When we're trying to push our data management initiative, we all kind of want to win like this is our thing and I just won because I got buy in for a big new data initiative for the rest of the year. So much better if somebody else either comes with you, or you want the team to be winning right so team sport data management is a team sport, one of my most successful presentations to sell to the sea level. I didn't give right I was a consultant, I came in one of our big supporters was marketing, we had marketing give the presentation and they said our campaign to be so much better. We support this, I didn't say word, we got the buy in right because it showed that somebody else care so think of that of who else can be your voice. We work for a big oil and gas company was Jim used to be out in the rigs, and he talked to all those guys and he and gals and he knew their language. And he was the best advocate we didn't say words so you know the more you get it right everyone's going to be talking to the day to talk so don't feel like you have to quote on it. All right, this should be other people really embracing it. The other thing is you look for your business value what are those levers or levers right what are the high value things at a boss that always said you know don't rearrange the deck chairs and the Titanic. You know should be what is the big thing that everyone's caring about that you can kind of tie into this should be obvious and how good data really be the fulcrum to help that better marketing campaigns through customer etc. In general, having done this a lot your business case is going to fall into one of these four categories in some way decent decreasing costs we talked a lot about that. Maybe we don't give ourselves enough credit for our people doing manual efforts that's probably the easiest one right. And if you didn't do that you save their salary into doing things more productive. We can save that money or inefficient mailings or whatever all that type of thing. Inefficient processes for master data management is a big one. So, so much easier in a lot of ways to show that decreasing costs you can also quantify increasing revenue price optimization better marketing campaigns. Some of we had one a better grant writing or better we did a data cleanup. And we were able to show the next day and next year the donors of those cleansed addresses gave $100,000 more and that was like direct from data cleanup. I think I do it ahead of time because it's hard to quantify after the fact when you didn't have the before case. So, you know, get some of these numbers so decreasing costs increasing revenue. Absolutely. Reducing risk do we always think of that. You're not only the regulations we talked about DPR HIPAA et cetera, but we work with a food company and if they can't track the lineage of where that data came from which was data. It could be sued or litigation or health and safety or privacy right that's another big one. And just for protecting reputation who's gotten a, you know, you know, Donna Boo banks, you know, you're a valued customer or you know my name wrong entirely or insert customer name here and quotes, you know, and you've, yeah, I might still buy the product or, you know, it's, it's hard to quantify but we all know that you kind of lost trust right. In the same sense if you really understand that customer and you really get that customer loyalty. So those are kind of the four cases don't forget though the risk of doing nothing. Often when I, you know, as books what's the biggest challenge you're going to face to like apathy right status quo inertia, but often you're showing and that's why also doing that case on the before. How much do we you and wait on wasted labor wasting it you know how much revenue are we not getting how much could we have risk, you know that we could get with the GDP are fine or how silly are we going to look up for in the newspaper, or send out a mailing or some email that doesn't make sense right. So definitely include that as well. And don't forget to align with the organizational vision and when I was younger maybe I was just jaded as younger. You have these quotes on the walls of and I'm like, God, that's just, you know, just, you know, corporate saying things well maybe that's the main thing everyone's thinking up right and I often get when I say align with the business strategy people are saying well we don't have one. And I would question that have you read the annual report generally, I know my consultants get sick of me saying that yes don't we run the annual report, they bullet out what their goals are for the years about growth or growth in Europe or growth in Europe or whatever right, or you can just kind of, if they don't have a formal data strat a business strategy, maybe because you are a startup, they don't have time for that we can probably figure it out they're trying to sell more product. So you know or I don't know they're really busy because we're an on profit we're trying to help more kids with cancer like about it. So, yes, it might not be a formal business strategy, you often do have you looked for it. And then, if not can you kind of infer kind of what what the business is looking to get with the organization. Maybe a funny picture. I kind of got this one from a customer who, you know we all want to be that you unicorn right and you know I'm the definitely the class half full of what cool stuff can we do. We don't want to be the dinosaur, because you know that kind of outdated you're the old mainframe product that people are trying to migrate off of nothing wrong with mainframes. And I said, he's like, well what about, you know, keeping the lights on and what they say about cockroaches, you know, even even with a nuclear winter cockroaches are going to be there right so the more that you're just known as an operational we have to actually have it as needed in order to have our product being sold, you know, maybe the cockroaches, not as sexy but definitely the place to be and that's kind of your BA you are business as usual, not a bad place to be. So, when you other thing I found when I'm trying to sell to my execs great I talked probably too much and told that about the vision and the mission and buying and I will, I'm not talking too much about the visit I just talked too much in general right but that's probably the most important thing which is why I spent a lot of time on it, and what also helps sell and you don't spend a lot of time on it but just showing the management that you've put the roadmap together because they've got the buy in great how long is that going to take right. And so you have to show not only the vision I'm going to climb Everest. Yes, I'm all psych we're going to be the first day to management professionals to separate summit Everest, then how do you get there. And if you do get the excitement for management and then then show you don't have the plan, you lose some credibility so what I always do is have the presentation with all the buy in and just kind of quickly show. And we have a project plans probably going to take six, eight months or whatever it is. And if you are go ahead we've thought this through just adds a lot of credibility. So, you know, make it realistic are there other initiatives to do things are there other initiatives going on you want to tie into here we're going to have a big marketing launch also means people are kind of busy. But, you know, I've had several projects this in this year, where people initially said, Oh, we can't start this because we're doing a big digital transformation. And people are too busy. And we flip that script and said how can you do a digital transformation without data management. So we're here to help. And again, a lot of this in my all the stuff I'm talking about might be stuff you're already doing. Is there just a tweaking to the wording. Like, yes, you're busy. We're here to help. Can be much more, much more better cost much better than hey with another project you need to start. Right. So just think that through. Definitely have this though in your back pocket or front pocket if you're trying to kind of get buy in. Culture each strategy for breakfast. This is going to be initiative. What is your culture are people already bought in. Or do you have to go into what's called almost an organizational change management. What we tend to do is data people jump right into knowledge. Right. Let's talk about cost based versus accrual based accounting or version of that data management. No one cares until you make them aware. Right. All this stuff I talked about in the beginning. Because you want to sell more product or help more patients. That's why you then you go into the knowledge and a lot of us myself included jump right into the data model or right into the data quality statistics or whatever it is. Before you do those first two are people even aware. And why would they be interested and excited. So to summarize, you're in a great place if you're interested a lot of people want to be more data driven. But you to explain that to people who aren't data people use their language have a clear selling point and a clear plan to get there and don't forget the people side is a big as much of a culture changes anything else. So please join us in the rest of the sessions this year. We do this for a living if you need any help. And with that, I'm going to open it up for questions over to Shannon. Then we have just a couple of minutes here but I wanted to get one to that came in. Well Brett was speaking. So on MDM. Can we have a master model definition planned well before implementing MDM. It's one of those where you can start by understanding what's the data that you need a master, what are the domains that sits in what are you trying to achieve. And then from there you can actually implement so there's nothing wrong with starting off with that plan as a starting point before you actually get a full implementation. Awesome. Anything you want to add there Donna. No, I agree. And I sort of ended on that you know having a plan is half the selling point, right really understand what you need to do. So yeah. I'm going to slip in one more question here just so we get some time into in decentralized operating model does the data management and data strategy lie within the site, the decentralized unit. Yeah, that's a big one. Both, I suppose I guess the risk of the risk of centralizing everything is that it feels like everyone needs to make that central decision. You definitely want to decentralize model have some decision points in the spokes, I guess of the hub. So that's a good model. I think there's like master data have to go through that center because they're used by all the spokes, I guess is the biggest thing and so I think there's a bit of a trend lately to kind of over decentralize, and that's a risk to so getting that right balance is probably the key thing, but but anything you want to yeah I mean balance is key. What I would say is, we find a lot of different functions who are running their own MDM projects. They're doing so in collaboration with this initialized organization so it's not dropping disorderly, but given, you know, marketing has a set of discrete needs and that CMO needs to get those met. They can necessarily to get in line behind all the other projects that the central data organization has to know for operations to know for supply chain to so that's, that's a definitely trend as long as there is that collaboration and coordination. You can definitely run those enough in an independent organization. So there is a lot of the companies that we work with, they might start with the street function, and then grow that project across multiple different domains so they might start with a logistics project, and then they might move into something around supply chain or inventory management and so there's certainly as opportunity to start small and grow in scale over time. And I've seen that as well maybe it might be supply chain that sponsors it and as long as they understand and get some input from finance or whatever so you're not building something that doesn't scale. Yeah, that'll help you scale down the road so yeah agreed there. Well, that is all the time that we have for this webinar Brett and Donna thank you so much for this great presentation thanks to some of our key for sponsoring today's webinar and helping make these webinars happen. And thanks for attendees of course for being so engaged in everything we do just a reminder I will send a follow up email by end of day Monday for this webinar with links to the slides and links to the recording. Thanks so much everyone. Thank you. Appreciate it.