«We (DAMA) have a role to play, (…) develop the Data Management profession ultimately for the benefit of the society.»

It is good to be back with Season 3 of MetaDAMA, and as always, we start with a DAMA-focused episode.

Nino Letteriello is one of Europes most influential data leaders, president of DAMA Italy and Coordinator for the DAMA EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa). Nino started his carrier in project management, educated in civil engineering, and got involved in Data Management around 2017. Since 2019 he is the regional coordinator for DAMA EMEA.

Here are my key takeaways:

What is so special about DAMA EMEA?

• Lots of passion and commitment by volunteers
• Giving back to society to proff how the society becomes more data literate
• «Whilst we are a geographical region, I see very very different scenarios, very different levels of maturity.»

• Middle East - Saudi Arabia:
  • Government drove a framework, build on DMBoK for public administration 
  • This is cascading down from public agencies to the big corporations working in Saudi Arabia, and subsequently to SME
• African Countries show a scattered approach to Data Management
  • Great appetite for knowledge in data
  • There is an enormous sense of «missing out»
• Mediterranean Countries and Central Europe
  • Initiatives of «data alphabetization» or data literacy at an early stage
  • Teaching data management at an earlier age, eg. Program in Italy to teach DM in middel school and high school (DataHigh)
• Nordics
  • Different level of maturity.
  • Staring early with digital competency development
  • Inspirational is the nordics view on data for social good and ethical handling of data

Data Literacy and awareness

• Nino was involved in a WEF (World Economic Forum) study on how SMEs (Small, medium sized enterprises) are leveraging the power of data
• Collected information form over 200 Small and medium sized enterprises
• «Interesting how many companies still consider data an IT thing, a subset of IT.»
• There is still an over reliance on IT, not seing data as a business problem
• Immature on Data Governance and formalization of roles
• Awareness is not necessary followed by clear action
• SMEs face the same issues as big corporations, but without the means to handle these issues accordingly
• SMEs have the possibility to me very agile in facing these issues
• Still a lot of «reinventing the wheel» - we should use DMBok and other existing frameworks actively as a basis to work from

Is DAMA still relevant?

•  Importance of DAMA and DM is still large, also and especially in times of AI
• «Garbage in - garbage out» is still as valid as every
• New methods, new techniques, how languages, everything is dependent on the quality of the data you put in
• Everything starts with awareness
• The real differentiator is that data is a business asset, not an IT asset

DAMA EMEA Conference

• Organized for the third year in row, first time both digital and physical in Bologna November 29th - December 2nd 2023.
• Conference provides clear, filtered, categorized, relevant information
• Possibilities to share ideas and network
• Closed session for all board members in EMEA region to discuss a declaration of intents for DAMA EMEA
• Nino likes the idea to do Data Management Maturity Assessments across countries tom compare DM maturity
• There is also a possible intent to work closer with European Commission
• Giving DAMA EMEA a vice towards legislation makers

Get more information and sign up here for the conference: https://data-emea.org