Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good whenever and wherever you are. I’m Malcolm Hawker. I am the host of the CDO matters podcast, and I’m thrilled that you are joining me today.

Hey. It is a special day, CDO matters community. It’s our fiftieth episode. Five o, nifty, nifty.

Look who’s fifty. And I know that’s saying because, I’m north of fifty. Don’t tell anybody.

I’m thrilled you’re joining me today, and I do not have any guests, because I couldn’t invite fifty people. That’s what I would have wanted to do. I would have wanted to invite all fifty and have clips from all the fifty guests. Although it’s actually slightly south of fifty because I do a number of podcasts where it’s just me. But you get my point. It would have been a very, very crowded room.

So it is just going to be me opining on our first fifty episodes.

Stay tuned towards the end. I will talk about some of my favorites and why.

But before now and then, I’m gonna make my call to action, my CTA, as marketers like to say. I’m gonna make it up front.

Usually, I make it right at the end as I tinker with my microphone.

Hello, YouTube.

How’s my video quality? It’s poor. Shocker.

We’re gonna talk about that in the section where I I mentioned all the things we need to improve, video quality being one of them.

I lost my train of thought. It’s a Friday afternoon. It’s just gonna be me. We’re gonna talk about, how we got here.

I’m gonna share some insights in some of my favorite episodes. I’m gonna talk about the things that I think we’re doing well to serve this growing community. I’m gonna talk about some of the things we’re not doing that well and we need to improve on. Kind of a start, stop, continue retrospective. This is what data people and IT and technical people like to do. So I’ll kinda do a little bit of a stop, start, continue before I dive into the to some of my favorite episodes.

You may hear my dog barking in the background. I am being a dog sitter today. Usually, they’re outside, but it’s a little hot today here in Central Florida.

It’s Friday for me. Fiftieth episode. Happy time. Happy days.

Let’s get into it. Oh, my CTA.

The number one thing that a marketer would tell you to do, and I almost forgot about it. Please, if you’re not already subscribed to the podcast, I would be thrilled if you did that and turn on notifications and bells and likes and subscribes and all of that stuff. But, yeah, subscribe to the podcast. If you get value from this or any other episode of the podcast, please consider subscribing. That would be awesome sauce.

So why are we here?

The CDO matters origin story as it were. We’re we’re well, we’re here because I’m passionate about helping CDOs. That is no joke. I worked for three years as a Gartner analyst. I’ve done I’ve been a consultant in this space. I’ve worked for some large vendors, and I’ve developed a passion for data people. I’ve developed a passion for this industry, for this field, and I’m honestly truly sincere about finding a way to help because there isn’t anybody out there, folks, that does not see massive potential in this realm.

We all talk about we’re talking a big game about, you know, data for AI. We were talking a big game about digital transformations and big data, and data is the new oil.

And data is incredibly valuable and data driven decision making and data driven cultures, and we just know.

We just know there’s incredible value in data. We know it.

And when we apply it, when we use it, when we measure it, heaven forbid, the benefits are tangible, and they’re very real. We can point to companies that have figured this out, like a Nike that went from ten percent direct to consumer sales to fifty percent direct to consumer sales, all on the backs of building better insights about their core customers. You can’t go and pivot your business model literally in the span of two to three years without a focus on data. And I could keep going and on and there are countless numbers of companies that are reaping the rewards of better data management, whether that is in Netflix figuring out what content do my subscribers actually really truly get value from. A Tesla that is building cars that drive themselves.

Right? Like, I I or or an Uber that is completely revolutionized, you know, how we are transported in large cities. I I could keep going. These are all data driven companies, arguably many of them digital natives, but data driven companies that are transforming some of the markets that they exist in.

It could transform in many ways how we live. So we see the we see the promise. We see it.

It’s on the tips of our fingertips.

Every day, we see the promise of data.

If we could just figure out how to better manage it, better govern it, better measure it, better ensure that it’s accurate and consistent and reliable, all the things that we do for a living, we know there’s value here. We know we can be the driver of transformation and the driver of value for our organizations.

Yet yet, and this is why I’m here. Yet, many of us continue to struggle.

As the data tells us, most of us continue to struggle. What does that mean? Well, there’s data to suggest that this is from a Randy Bean survey, not this year’s, but two years ago. Twenty four percent of companies consider themselves data driven. That’s gone up significantly in the last year, but I would argue that’s because of the promise of AI.

There’s Gartner data a CDO survey would tell us that only forty four percent of companies actually can, are forty four percent of CDOs believe they’re they’re providing tangible value for their organization.

And that’s that is that that that’s a self reported number, folks.

Right? The Dunning Kruger effect is very real. We tend as human beings to have a bias that makes us think we’re better at everything than we actually really are. So I suspect the number is actually far south of forty four percent of the CDOs that are think that they’re actually providing value to their organization.

There’s no sort shortage of data here. We know we can do better. We know there’s a promise. We know there’s an opportunity. We know we can do better.

That’s why I’m here.

It’s literally why I am here.

As a partner analyst, I really struggled because what I saw day in and day out was that I was providing information about the things that we know work, that we know can provide value, that we know can help improve our businesses and improve decision making within our businesses. And I was providing a lot of those best practices, but, frankly, they were not getting implemented.

And I struggle to understand why.

I still struggle to understand why so many of them were not getting implemented.

But I came to the conclusion that there may be a better way of delivering the message. Maybe it’s not just about inquiries with garner analysts that are frankly pretty expensive.

Maybe there’s a new audience. Maybe there are younger leaders out there that want these types of insights delivered in different ways.

Maybe a podcast would help.

Maybe having an active presence on LinkedIn would help.

Maybe partnering with a company like Prophecy that gives me the freedom to create white papers and blogs and provide content in a lot of different ways, provide insights, provide best practices in different ways to help move the needle. That’s why I am here. I’m here to help move the needle. I’m working on upon growing a podcast because I think that there’s a generation of data leaders that prefers to consume their content this way.

Maybe you’re sitting right now in front of YouTube on a on a on a Thursday night after a long day at work. Maybe you’re taking a run-in the park and you’re listening to this on some headphones.

Maybe you’re driving to work right now for those of you who still drive to work.

Whatever it is, I wanted to be able to reach more people and provide what I know.

Because frankly, folks I’m pointing to my head.

This is real gray hair. I’ve learned through the school of hard knocks. I’ve run an IT function. I’ve run a data and analytics function. I’ve learned the hard way about what works and what doesn’t work.

And a lot of those insights were kind of hardened and, augmented through my experience as an analyst, through my experience as a vendor, through my experience as a consultant, and I’m here to share what I know because I don’t want you to have to make a lot of the same mistakes that I’ve made along the way.

That’s why I’m here. But I’m not gonna joke. Of course, I work for a software company. The goal, of course, indirectly, not primarily, indirectly is to build brand awareness for my company, Prophecy, of which I am eternally grateful.

They give me just immense freedom to deliver my message, how I want to deliver it, and to say what I want to say.

That freedom is is much, much appreciated, and I hope it makes for better content, and I hope it provides better insights.

Because that’s another reason why I’m here, which is there’s gotta be a better way.

Not just the medium. Right? Podcasts, white papers, blogs, not just using modern media, modern forms of communication, modern channels of communications, but a different message.

And I think that there’s something there because we’ve been doing the same thing over and over and over again.

I would argue largely largely for the last fifteen to twenty years, we have not fundamentally changed how we approach the business of managing data that much, if at all, for many companies. This beautiful piece of art, and I’m holding up the DM Bach, is an amazing accomplishment.

And the people who write it should be lauded and celebrated, and we should be very grateful that they do what they do because that is an amazing book, and it is amazing foundation. However, it is in drastic need of of an update. And I think that there are different ways that we could be looking at old problems. So Dien Bach, Dama, amazing organization, producing amazing content.

Yet at the same time, I know from firsthand being in the in the trenches, putting the shovel in the ground, doing the work.

I know that some of the things that are recommended there simply are not that practical, nor are they scalable for an an era dominated by AI.

So what do we need to do to adapt? What do we need to do differently? What do we need to go from forty four percent of us delivering value to eighty percent of us delivering value? What do we need to move the needle?

How how do we need to approach these old problems differently? Because approaching the old problems the same old same old way, we got it’s not working. It’s just not working. We have twenty years of data to tell us that.

If we want to be data driven, we need to take these things to heart.

So that was another part of why I’m here.

Providing more provocative, different, hopefully fresh, hopefully new perspectives on old problems. Right?

Frankly, a lot of the times, some of the things that I’m saying, I think can be, hard to hear.

Right? And this is something that I’m gonna talk about as as we get into the section about how to improve is that I’ve gotta be I’ve gotta find a way to tread a better balance between being provocative, suggesting change, yet at the same time being overly negative of the past. Because I know when I get passionate and I know when I get fired up about things, sometimes I can let the passion just kind of overwhelm me as it were, and I can come across maybe preachy, maybe a little overly negative.

When in reality, the history, the past is what allowed us to be in this position in the first place, and it is pretty good. We’ve got good jobs. We work at good companies, and we got a mountain of opportunity in front of us. So all is not bad.

That’s certainly not the message here, but but we need to find new ways of doing, our business. We need to find new ways to overcome these old problems because the old ways aren’t working. We just we know this. They’re not working.

So that’s another reason why I’m here.

Yeah. Just looking at some of the notes that I’ve taken. Yeah. I I I I I’ve got a lot to share. I’ve got a lot of wisdom, I believe. So do others. That’s the thing about a podcast.

It’s not just about me.

It’s about all the people that I work with and I surround myself with.

I spent a ton of time on the road. I’m out there talking with other thought leaders, other inspiring people, other incredibly smart people, whether those are at industry events or whether they’re with as Proficy customers.

I get equal wisdom from both.

And the purpose another one of the purposes of the podcast is to bring all these people together in one place and pro and to provide that as insights to you.

So maybe you don’t have the budget to go to a Gartner conference because they’re not cheap. Maybe you don’t have the budget to travel around the world and to go to d g I q and CDO I q and enterprise data world and you name it.

Maybe you don’t have the budget for that, and that’s okay. But that’s another big goal of what I’m trying to do here is to bring those level of insights.

Right? The level of a Gartner. And and I mean that. That level of insights to everybody. Right?

Because that’s how we’re gonna move the needle.

We’re gonna move the needle together. And whether you’re a CDO or a manager or a data steward, it doesn’t matter what level you’re at.

If you want to help your company, if you wanna grow your career, if you want to become a CDO, the goal here one of the goals is to share insights and share content that you would only get at kind of top tier data related events.

It’s a big part of what I’m doing here. I wanna bring the Gartner experience.

I wanna bring the CDOIQ experience to everybody regardless of your ability to pay for it because, hey, this stuff’s free.

All you gotta do is click.

So those are the high level goals, and I and I and I honestly and truly and sincerely hope that we are we are meeting them.

I hope we are making a difference in the in the CDO and the and the data net of this community. I I honestly do.

Alright.

I’ll take a breath, if I may. By the way, you won’t see this if you’re just listening on one of the podcasts, but I have T shirts now.

I have merch.

Check it out.

We’ll find a way to share those with the community.

We just like, I literally just took some out of the box in a closet in my quarters yesterday in Atlanta. So I’ve yet to figure out how we’re gonna meaningfully distribute these and share these with the community, but we’re going to.

Because they’re not doing any good sitting locked in a closet in Alpharetta, Georgia. That much, I know. So we’re gonna share the merch. We’re gonna share, some of these T shirts.

They’re kinda fun. I love the color. I I don’t know what to describe it. Kinda seafoam green, maybe.

Kinda yeah. I love the color. So that’s cool.

And they’re one hundred percent cotton, and I got a bug on my shoulder.

Maybe that was leftover lunch. That’s very attractive.

Yeah. So I got merch. That’s exciting stuff.

So what’s working?

You heard the vision.

You heard the why. My raison d’etre as it were. What’s working? I think we are building a community.

I honestly believe we are building a community.

What are my indications of that? What are the data that I have to say that we’re building a community?

Well, I’m seeing more and more and more people approach me and say, hey.

I really value what you are doing through CDO Matters. I listen to your podcast all the time.

I was on a call late last week with a prospective client, obviously, who will name nameless.

But two of the people of the five from on the client were like, oh, yeah.

I listen to your podcast all the time. I was like, you’re kidding me.

That’s humbling.

That’s humbling for me, and I got a pretty big ego, and that’s still humbling.

But to me, what the the the larger story here is that we’re starting to build a community. And and in terms of how we improve, I wanna find a way to enable more networking and more peer interaction to leverage the community for the benefit of everybody instead of just, you know, more subscribers because that doesn’t matter. I don’t I don’t care about that. What I care about is people being able to low grow and learn and develop and become better at what they do.

So we I feel like we are we are building a real community here, and that’s cool. We are building a brand as well. And I think that there’s value in that because we can build community around it, and it’s going to it’s going to resonate. Because the more people are aware of the brand, the more they’ll be aware of the community and why we’re here and what we’re doing, and the more they will see potential value in it and engage with it.

And I hope that’s a good thing because see my previous comment about actually making a difference.

I hope we are.

Believe we are.

So I feel like we’re adding value.

I feel like we’re helping. I feel like we are doing a reasonably good job at bringing new views and new perspectives and new voices to the table.

Right? I do think that’s an important part of this as well. I I’m doing my best to have a diversity of voices and a diversity of views expressed in the podcast. So I think that’s important as well.

I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job at that.

What’s not working? What’s the stop of our start? Stop. Continue.

My production value sucks.

Sorry.

It took me up until episode forty seven, I think, to get to a microphone that didn’t sound like I was speaking from the bottom of a Coke can. This is a Shure, s h u r e, microphone, and it has drastically improved.

You get what you pay for. I was using a Blue Yeti microphone before, and it just was just horrible. Right? It’s supposed to be reasonably good mic, and if you ask me, it’s just horrible.

This video, this drives me batty. The video quality is very, very low.

I have done so much testing.

I’m quite certain it is a recording platform that is compressing the video because I’m using a four k camera. It’s not a DSLR, so that’s something I’m gonna I’m gonna tinker with is using a DSLR. So you get what they call the bokeh or bokeh, b o k e h, where, you know, it’s all blurry in the background. Not that you care about my foam pads on my wall, but the video could be better.

Just the overall I mean, a little more slick production.

I think I if you remember the early versions of the podcast, I had bought well, my company had bought on my behalf.

This neon sign.

Is it, like, CDO matters neon side that would have been, like, hanging, like, right here over my what is that? Right shoulder.

And, turns out it wasn’t actually neon. It’s LED.

And if you if you go back to early versions of the podcast, you’ll hear me whinge and opine about the sign, which the the the neon sign, which became kind of the bane of my existence for the first, oh, ten episodes or so because, neon signs emit light.

They pulse. It’s not a constant beam of light.

LED, I should say. Not neon, but LED. They they they they have what’s called a frame rate. It’s on, off, on, off. Think of it like an animation.

LED lights operate largely as an animation. They’re on off on off. By the way, this is a reason why there’s a lot of people who kind of do not recommend any anybody, be before an LED screen before they try to sleep. Because apparently, the on off on off is it kind of excites your brain.

It makes it harder to sleep. So there you go. Fun tidbit number one, and my wife swears by this, by the way, is, no screen time an hour before bed.

Just makes it harder to go to sleep.

That’s not my problem. I can sleep like a rock, like, anywhere.

But if you do, you’ve got problems sleeping, then maybe no LED. Anyway, I had this light, this LED light c, CDO matters kind of look neon.

And cameras, digital cameras, this thing, capture everything in an animation in a frame rate on on on off on off on off. Right? They capture everything. And if the frame rate of your LED sign is not the same as the frame rate as the camera, well, it creates this visible throb. It looks like you’re like, it just it was just horrible.

And I went through whole bunch of cameras, tinkered with the sign, distance of the sign.

I couldn’t make it work.

And to this day, the sign is just sitting in a closet. Now if I was doing this over Teams or anywhere that allows a fake background, I actually took a photo of the sign, and it’s my fact fake background for my internal meetings. But this video platform that we use for the podcast does not allow fake backgrounds for whatever reason. Hello, Goldcast. If you’re listening, please.

Fake backgrounds. Come on. It’s twenty twenty four.

Yeah.

I’d be using a fake background if I could, but the side is sitting collecting dust in my closet.

So production value could be better.

I’m gonna invest in a camera. We’re gonna get a DSLR. We’ll see how that looks. Maybe we’ve got, like, fun bokeh in the background, and maybe you can see more of my skin imperfections or growing wrinkle lines or whatever it is. Who cares?

But I think it could be better. The audio the audio, thank goodness, has improved.

At least from a set perspective, what you see is what you get. I’ve got a really, really small home office, and I’m unable to change that in the short term. But, you know, I don’t know. Maybe I will alternate the colors of the panels or something so they look fun.

And a lot of people do, like, neon lighting and back backlighting, and maybe I could do more of that. I don’t know. We’ll work on the production value. It’s on it’s on my to do list.

I think writ large from a guest perspective and views perspective, we’re doing pretty good, but I would like to focus on on two things.

More practitioners, more CDOs, more people that have a story to tell about how they overcame obstacles or barriers or challenges.

I think we’ve been we’ve been doing a reasonable job with that, but I’d I’d like to focus a little bit more on that. Another thing I’d like to focus on is is guests that have my Canadian just came out. Did you hear that? Have.

Oh, wow. Why did my Canadian come out?

It’s so strange.

Every now and then every now and then, it’ll just pop out.

Interesting.

I would like guests that have.

So strange, our brains.

That that have more interesting kind of insights outside of data.

I’ll talk about that a little bit more in terms of some of my favorite episodes, but I really like the idea of sharing insights around maybe complementary areas that aren’t necessarily just about data that would be useful and would be helpful.

Maybe something like organizational theory or how to motivate people. Right?

Or how to how to how are are, you know, more kind of sociology or fill you know, philosophy or other kind of adjacent areas where where you could see how applying that to data and analytics or the or to team leadership or to mentorship or to whatever else that we do as data leaders day in and day out, how that could be helpful.

So I think I think I’d like to do a little bit more of that because, again, I think that will bring more of the kind of the Gartner like, maybe even a TED like field to this podcast by focusing on some things that just don’t aren’t always all data all the time. Hopefully, that makes sense.

So that’s it.

Those are some of the things that I look forward to doing.

We’ve been great in our cadence. We have not missed. We’ve been publishing every two weeks for two years straight and have not missed. Well, once. We missed once.

That gets to the what’s working and to the quality of support that I have at Prophecy, the quality of support that I’m getting from, Manesha, that I’ve got from others, that I get from Ivan who edits these videos.

Thank you all. Amazing job. We have not missed a beat. To me, that is like, that’s incredible.

Really incredible.

What are we gonna focus on a little bit more? I already talked about this.

I talked about a little bit more practical insight.

Talked about, you know, more practitioner insights and what’s working and what’s not working.

Community driven content. Sorry. I’m I’m referring to some notes that I took before the beginning of this. Community driven content.

I think that that’s a way that we could differentiate ourselves. How do I find a way to integrate, some of the content and interactions and insights that I get through LinkedIn or through our monthly live event, by the way, shameless promo. Third Friday of every month on LinkedIn, we do CDO Matters live. And I have people interact with me there.

I have people to interact with me at industry events.

I have people interact with me all sorts of different channels. And how do I bring those interactions into this?

I don’t know the answer to that yet, but that’s something that I would really like to focus on is to more integrate feedback and insight coming from the community, whether that’s through LinkedIn, whether that is through who knows? Right? My my interactions at industry events. I just wanna find a way to bring all these things together. I think that would be really, really interesting.

Alright. Let’s talk about some of my favorite episodes.

Now I wasn’t gonna do this.

It’s kinda like a parent talking about their favorite kid. And I’ve had some unbelievable guests with unbelievable, topics and conversations, And I didn’t necessarily wanna pick favorites because if one of my guests wasn’t on the list, that would make me feel bad.

And that’s still gonna be true, by the way. So if I don’t mess mention your name and you have been a guest, that’s because there’s fifty.

And, your insights were valuable and your insights were amazing.

And this is just me, by the way. This is just my my preference as a consumer of media, not not any sort of critical evaluation of things like, you know, clicks or the number of downloads.

I’m not talking about what’s been more downloaded, what’s been listened to the most, what’s been commented on the most on social media. I don’t care well, I mean, I do care about those things. I’m tracking those things.

But for the sake of today, this is my perspective as a consumer of the media, as a consumer of the insights.

So I’m putting myself in the shoes of being a CDO and wanting to learn and wanting to grow and getting value from my investment in thirty to forty five to sixty minutes every other week by consuming the content, that’s that’s the perspective I’m giving. So to all of my guests, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I could not do this without you. You provide incredible value to our community. You provide incredible value to your companies.

And it is literally my honor, and I am humbled by the fact that you have donated your time to us and that you’re affiliated with us in this community. And thank you. Thank you. You are brilliant, and I appreciate you.

Favorite episodes.

I’m gonna go into kind of genres, themes, and then maybe call out a few episodes within each of those key themes.

I already touched on this, but one of my my favorite episodes tend to be things that aren’t about data.

Like, oddly. Right? Like, just wait a minute. Hold on. This is a podcast about data, data leadership, and now you’re talking about not data. Well yeah.

And I I don’t know why. May maybe it’s because I consume so much content about data that I just find the other non data related things refreshing, perhaps.

I don’t know. It’s just me.

Like I said, I I’m a consumer as well as a creator, and I like to learn about interesting things.

So some some things to me that have jumped out.

Dear friend Dan Everett talked about, I I should have the episode numbers, but you you you can search if you’re interested in looking back. But Dan Everett provided some insights around, you know, what how people think when it comes to change, right, and how to motivate people to accept and deal with change. CDOs are hired to be change agents often.

That means you need to figure out if people have a reluctance to change, how to overcome that. Right? Some of the kind of psychological barriers or the psychological maybe triggers as it were to people who may be reluctant to change. And how do you deal with that as a leader? How do you overcome some of those things?

How do you recognize them, right, to begin with?

So conversation with Dan was a great example of that.

Another conversation was with doctor Cheryl Flink when when she was talking about things other than the bottom line, more more social level drivers and things we need to be aware of on how we manage our companies and how we manage our functions, how we manage our departments.

And maybe there is more of a human centered way to look at things instead of just a bottom line. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m about as capitalist as they come, and I I I am here to serve our shareholders and our investors, which include you, by the way.

But at the same time, that doesn’t mean that we can’t also be aware of other things that we need to be more mindful of and to take a more of a human driven approach to the products that we build, the organizations we design, the incentive structures that we put into place as data leaders.

So doctor Cheryl Flink, I think it was episode seven.

I I just an incredibly smart person. I met her sitting on a plane.

And you may not you’d say, okay.

Well, Malcolm, you travel a lot.

You’re on a plane.

Well, in this case, it was different. This plane had a name.

It was named Connie, and it which is short for a constellation, a Lockheed Constellation, which was the last propeller driven transatlantic plane. So the Lockheed Constellation was what the Beatles flew here on and landed on and landed in JFK, and everybody was screaming. Well, they came off a Constellation. Right? So the the the Connie was built for transatlantic flight as a propeller plane.

Obviously, very long range for a propeller plane. And they built airports around them.

And then all of a sudden, poof, the jet engine was was created and, everything changed.

But there is actually a terminal out at JFK airport, in New York where one of the old terminals they kept, and that terminal was built specifically for Lockheed constellations.

And I went to an event there, and there was a happy hour in a connie, which is so cool. And that’s where I met doctor Cheryl Flake, and she talked to me about more human centered design.

So an older episode, but one I I definitely enjoy enjoyed making and enjoy listening to.

Lastly, Chris Wiggins, the chief data scientist of the New York Times and a Columbia professor of mathematics, was talking about a lot of the kind of the early days and how did we get to where we are, the story of data, the origin story of data as it were, and why some of the things are the way they are in our world.

That conversation with Chris Wiggins was was fascinating. He’s he’s a prolific author, chief data scientist in the New York Times, super, super smart guy. Not necessarily about data. It was a little bit more actually about history than anything else, but, again, a breath of fresh air and a different perspective on things that I that I really, really appreciated.

So that’s one genre of of some of the my my top episodes. Another one is maybe maybe because I view myself as a bit of a maverick, a provocateur as it were, is, you know, senior leaders and CDOs just calling it like they see it. Right? Like, just no holes barred.

You know, I’m gonna call it like it is. I’m gonna tell you like it is. And I’ve had a a few episodes that jumped out at me. Mark Stuce, is one, where where Mark just does not pull any punches whatsoever and does not sugarcoat anything and just calls it like he sees it.

And, when it comes particularly when it comes to data science functions, and and and the value that a lot of people, are are yet to realize from data science functions, Mark Stuess, boy, he does not leave anything in the bag as it were. That’s kind of a golf metaphor, but he just kinda calls it like he sees it. Allison Satgrave is very much the same way. So ex chief data officer of M and T Bank.

Allison was certainly a breath of fresh air. Really enjoyed my conversation with her, but another one where we got into a bit of a rant back and forth about some of our challenges with data literacy and a few other things. I’ve really appreciated Allison’s Allison’s perspective. Super, super smart individual.

Renee Lotte as well, ex CDO, multiple, companies, multiple Fortune one hundred companies, CIO, CDO. Again, just kinda calling it like it is. My favorite conversation with Renee Lottie was, you know, her experience, sharing her experiences around building a data field of dreams, like investing in just a lot of money and massive infrastructure and a cloud migration and data and analytics infrastructure. And and just the story around that, I really appreciated.

Renee, super smart person in sharing just a ton of insights. Definitely an episode worth, worth checking out.

Saleem Khan, an old friend of mine from back in the day. He shared a lot of really interesting insights for companies where data is your product.

So Saleem and I work together at Dun and Bradstreet, and Saleem is a chief data officer, but he’s also a chief product officer because he works at companies where data is the product. And he has just a really unique perspective and shared some insights of around a framework of his own that he kind of built in order to optimize organizations where data is the product. So Saleem Khan definitely would wanna check it out. Lastly, my friend, the rebel of data governance, the disruptor of data governance, you know, prolific writer and author, writer of the novel novel? Is it correct to say that? The book disrupting data governance, Laura Madsen.

Just a breath of fresh air. Laura is so smart. Again, calls it like she sees it.

No does does not hold back, calls it like she sees it, and and basically says we we we need to kind of blow up governance at least in its old form and and start fresh. Kind of like cleaning out a garage. You gotta bring everything out of the garage. It’s gonna get a little messy before it gets a little clean.

But, Laura Madsen, just just a breath of fresh air and, yeah. Yeah. Just just calling it like she sees it. Really enjoyed my conversation with her.

Theme number three, and this is gonna sound illegal little egocentric, but I have enjoyed the podcast where it’s just me doing this, like, without any guests. One of the reasons why is not because I’m an egomaniac, but because I’ve had multiple people over time tell me that when I’m doing solo podcasts, I come across as more authentic, and I I come across as more real as it were. And I think that’s pardon me. I think that’s natural.

When I am interviewing somebody, I I tend to be on my best behavior, and I don’t wanna be too provocative or, excuse me, too combative.

So I I I am a little more measured, and I do have things that I want to focus on. Right? With all of my guests, we do have it’s not scripted. And and and but we do have a few topics that we agree that we’re gonna talk on in advance.

Very few of my conversations are just totally zero agendas, zero zero idea of what we’re gonna talk about because that’s not gonna wanna put anybody in their back foot for the entire conversation. So, yeah, I suspect that I’m a little more metered, a little more measured, a little maybe on my better behavior when it comes to my guests and perhaps the kind of the raw unfiltered aspect of me when I’m doing, solo gig is better.

Case in point, see my two episodes, one, related to data culture and another episode called the data fabric demystified, which interestingly has been one of the most popular of the podcast. And I think it’s because I’m I’m calling it like I see it, and I am just giving you raw and filtered perspective that you probably wouldn’t hear just about anywhere else. Right? There’s a not a lot a lot of other people out there talking about some of the challenges we have from a data culture perspective. Right? And I and I I know that I’m provocative, and I do know that I’ve got unique perspectives because I just don’t hear it anywhere else. I just don’t hear a lot of the things that I share anywhere else.

Whether that’s talking about my my my concerns about the data mesh, whether that’s talking about my concerns about challenges we have related to data culture or data literacy and on and on.

I do have some fairly unique perspectives here, and I think when I’m given the freedom to discuss them solo, that comes through. Lastly, my last kind of favorite genre is just good old best practices.

Right? Let’s let’s let’s give you information you need in order to succeed as a chief data officer. There’s a lot of these episodes. It’s it is the kind of the key connective tissue as it were in regards to our podcast. So there’s a lot of these.

There’s there’s a lot to mention, but I’ll call out a few.

One, my dear old friend, the data whisperer, Scott Taylor, talking about the importance of data storytelling.

Don’t use jargon. Don’t use lingo. Just just just tell a story. Tell a story in a way that is compelling.

Stories have an arc and follow an arc. And some of the things that we may not think about a lot day in and day out when we’re running a data function, but, you know, data storytelling. And Scott does it better than anybody else. He’s the only guest we’ve had twice because he’s my buddy.

He’s my pal.

But he does have a valuable incredibly valuable, story to tell around storytelling. That’s another example. Sameer Sharma, another friend of mine talking about data strategy.

Talking about the importance of data strategy, the things we need to get right when it comes to data strategy. Kyle Winterbottom talking about recruiting and building and managing data and analytics functions and the reality that is out there today in terms of trying to find a CDO job. It’s a challenge. There’s a lot of people who are applying in not very, very many jobs. I found the insights that Kyle brought to the table incredibly insightful, and they would be for anybody who wants to build a career around data and analytics and how to pilot your career and manage your career in a way that best positions you to succeed in our industry. So another great example. Lastly, arguably, the goat.

One of the goats in the data and analytics space, I would argue, and I said this in a in a post on LinkedIn.

Doug Laney, another friend, who wrote, I would argue, the number one book for any data and analytics leader, a book titled Infonomics.

If you have not read it by Douglas Laney, l e n e y, you absolutely positively must read that book if there was one. And only one book that you would read as a data leader, that would be the one that I would recommend.

Doug has, an insights and intelligence that that is unbounded, super smart, tells a a good story, well articulate, great speaker, great writer, knows his stuff, been around the block.

And what he tells us is that it is possible to quantify the business benefit of what we do day in and day out. It is possible to have some idea of the financial benefit or the value of the data, whether or not your CFO chooses to realize it as a true asset. We don’t need to necessarily get into an academic discussion about whether it is or what what what if it isn’t. We just know, getting back to the opening of the podcast, that it’s valuable. We just know there is a transformative effect and benefit from better data management and data governance. We know these things intuitively because they are true.

But Doug’s book really, really brings home the idea that, yeah, we can manage this. We can measure this. We can do this. And it’s a positive message, and it’s an inspiring message. And I was so grateful that Doug would take the time to be, a guest on the podcast. I think he was guest number four. I I put him really early because he like, to me, it’s so important.

Maybe we’ll re revisit getting Doug back on, if we could be so lucky because he does have a very, very powerful message. So that’s a lot to share, folks.

That’s fifty episodes. I can’t believe we’ve been around fifty episodes, and we’ve been doing it consistently, and we stuck with it. And why? Because we’re here to help, and we’re here because you support us.

So, again, if you wouldn’t mind, subscribe to the podcast. I’d be tickled pig. If you have suggestions about content, if you have suggestions about an episode you’d like to see, send me a message on LinkedIn. I will absolutely positively respond.

I do it all the time. I get I get I get suggestions all the time. Maybe even you want to be on the podcast perhaps if you’d like to. Again, send me a message.

This is about community.

Right? So send me a message. You know, if you’ve got if you wanna figure something out or if you wanna get connected with any of the people, any of the guests, if you would like to get connected with some of the unbelievable experts that I’ve had, I can help broker those conversations because most of the people that I talk to, most of our guests are doing the same thing I’m doing. They’re just trying to help. So I look forward to another fifty episodes over the next couple of years. I hope sincerely that I’m helping add value, and I’m helping you become a better data leader, a better data practitioner.

That is my sincere goal, and I’m hope remove I hope we are moving the needle.

Alright, y’all. With that, I will be taking a short summer break, probably a couple of weeks because I am this close to jumping on a plane to go to London, to spend a week in London. And, I’m gonna try to take maybe a little bit of r and r after that because I’m kinda burnt out, but, hey. We will be back shortly. So look for us in another three weeks, maybe four. I doubt it would be that long. But I am going to take a little hiatus as it were.

And maybe you’re doing the same. If yes, enjoy a summer break. If not, I will see you on another episode of the CDO Matters podcast sometime very soon. Thanks for fifty. Here’s to another fifty more. Bye, y’all.