CDO Matters Podcast

Data leaders have long been challenged by the need to make a tangible connection between investments in data and quantifiable business outcomes.  Value Engineering is an evolving competency that CDO’s can integrate into their organizations to solve for this mission-critical need.  In this episode, Laurence Young shares his insights as a practiced Value Engineer, sharing his recommendations on the steps CDOs need to take within their organizations to start measuring their business effectiveness. 

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• Follow Laurence Young on LinkedIn

While the CDO role gains prominence and importance across most organizations, many CDOs are set up to fail from poorly defined roles, a lack of trust, and an insufficient focus on business outcomes. In this 31st episode of the CDO Matters Podcast, Malcolm interviews Allison Sagraves, the founding CDO of M&T Bank, to ask why so many CDOs face these challenges, and what they must do to overcome them.

In reference to an insightful HBR article Allison recently published on CDO success, she provides her insights on how CDO’s can manage a critical balance between patience and urgency, and the importance of taking the time to recognize where positive strides are being made to deliver on a data strategy. Malcolm reminds CDO’s how important it is to ‘pound the drum’, a metaphor for the importance of marketing – and celebrating – all the strides companies are making towards becoming more data-enabled.

From data literacy, to data quality, to the next generation of data leaders, Malcolm and Allison have a wide-ranging conversation on some of the biggest issues facing data leaders today.

• Follow Malcolm Hawker on LinkedIn

• Follow Allison Sagraves on LinkedIn

• Read Allison’s article on Harvard Business Review, “Why Chief Data and AI Officers Are Set Up to Fail”

In this 30th episode of the CDO Matter Podcast, Malcolm has an inspired exchange with the ‘Dean of Big Data,’ Bill Schmarzo. Bill is an accomplished author, teacher, and C-level executive with a depth of knowledge in building and running large-scale data operations in service of some of the biggest companies in the world.

In the discussion of his most recent book, “AI & Data Literacy,” Bill shares his insights into the six key responsibilities that all consumers of AI must fulfill to optimize their relationship with this transformative technology. In becoming more AI literate, we increase the likelihood that the utility of AI will be maximized for the good of society and not just the corporate bottom line. A critical component of this includes quantifying the concept of ‘ethics,’ which Bill strongly advocates is not only possible, but is absolutely necessary.

Beyond the topic of AI, Bill and Malcolm touch on some of the bigger challenges CDOs face daily, including the importance of connecting data investments to business outcomes and how to potentially solve the ‘value’ equation inherent to every data estate. For CDOs seeking inspiration about the future of data management in an AI-enabled future, look no further than this episode of CDO Matters.

• Follow Malcolm Hawker on LinkedIn

• Follow Bill Schmarzo on LinkedIn

• Read Bill Schmarzo's new book, 'AI & Data Literacy: Empowering Citizens of Data Science'

In this 29th episode of the CDO Matter podcast, Malcolm has an engaging conversation with a long-established thought leader and noted author in the data and analytics space, Tom Redman.

Malcolm and Tom discuss Tom’s recently published book, ‘People and Data,’ where Tom shares his thoughts on the necessity of engaging data consumers to address some of the bigger data-related challenges all organizations face, particularly data quality. Tom shares his recipe for engaging as many stakeholders “without data in their titles” as possible, and the need for CDOs to assert their leadership through an acknowledgment many legacy approaches to data management simply aren’t working, including data governance.

Rather than seeing people as the core problem data leaders need to overcome, Tom makes a strong case that people are, in fact, the solution – especially those outside traditional data roles.

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Read Tom Redman's latest book, 'People and Data'

Unleashing the power of Data Products, and transforming CDOs into Product Visionaries.

In this the 28th episode of the CDO Matters podcast, Malcolm explores the topic of Data Products and what CDO’s should know about them. Malcolm taps his expertise as a prior Chief Product Officer to explore the differences between data products as they exist within a Data Mesh architecture, versus the more general concept of data products outside a Mesh. Malcolm takes issue with the idea of a ‘bottoms up’ approach to defining data products, and instead advocates that CDOs take a more practical view of a data product as anything that a customer is willing to pay for.

Malcolm urges CDOs who are curious about data products to ensure they first establish a business justification for their efforts – one which focuses more holistically on the benefits that can come from the integration of the discipline of product management into a data and analytics function. Malcolm shares his insights that data products should be treated as an output of a product management focus, and the many benefits that are realized when CDO’s embrace the discipline of product management.

Lastly, Malcolm dives into the role of a data product manager, sharing details on the core responsibilities for these experts and how they would differ from the concept of a data ‘owner’. Along the way, Malcolm touches on the misguided idea of data literacy, and how taking more a product-centric approach to building and supporting data solutions could enable CDOs to completely transform their customer relationships.

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Wouldn’t it be great to have a playbook for how to be an effective data leader?

In this episode of CDO Matters, Malcolm has an in-depth conversation with an extremely successful IT and data leader, Renée B. Lahti. With CIO experience spanning multiple industries for some of the best-known brands on the planet — including SC Johnson and Symantec — Renée’s depth of experience shines in this conversation about the current state of the role of CDO, including Renée’s insights on the key factors of CDO success.

Failing fast, redefining value, hiring for diversity and being more agile: These are just some of the many fascinating topics discussed in this episode, which could be considered a playbook for any data leader looking to emulate the success of an accomplished data leader.

• Follow Renée B. Lahti on LinkedIn

• Learn about the DataEthics4All advisory council

Today, enterprise data is not only exponentially growing in volume, but in sheer complexity. And how can today’s data leaders extract value if they are unsure where to even start?

In the latest episode of the CDO Matters Podcast, host Malcolm Hawker sits down with Ontotext Chief Marketing Officer Doug Kimball to discuss the wide-ranging applications of next-generation graph database technology.

Listen to Malcolm’s discussion with Doug to learn more about:

• The advantages of graph database technology in particular use cases

• How graph databases can reveal previously unknown relationships

• The speed advantage of graph technology when querying data

• How AI and ML will continue to augment graph technology and reduce human intervention

Doug Kimball is the Chief Marketing Officer of Ontotext, a developer of knowledge graph software helping global enterprises gain knowledge and insights from their diverse data. Doug is an accomplished marketing and communications executive and team leader focused on leading strategic growth within global and domestic organizations.

• Follow Doug Kimball on LinkedIn

• Learn more about Ontotext on their website

As companies grow, they often hire dedicated product managers to oversee all the planning, development and launching a product. Business leaders recognize that this is a critical need and expect products to be managed holistically from ideation to development — so why don’t more companies take that same approach when solving enterprise-wide problems with data and analytics?

On this episode of the CDO Matters Podcast, Malcolm Hawker sits down with Bethany Lyons to discuss her role as KAWA Analytics’ Chief Product Officer (CPO) before diving into a range of timely data topics including:

• “Self-service’ data governance

• Product management approaches

• Centralized security vs. decentralized data modeling

• Enforcing data governance/security policies

• The definition and uses of data build tools (DBT)

• The longevity of CDO tenures

• Key attributes of a good product manager

…and so much more!

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Follow Bethany Lyons on LinkedIn

Visit KAWA Analytics’ website

As we get carried away with modern data trends and new technical developments, it's easy to forget the rich history behind computable data and analytics dating as far back as World War II in the 1940s. Luckily, we have a data historian to remind us!

Host Malcolm Hawker sits down with NY Times Chief Data Scientist (CDS) Chris Wiggins to chat about his new book and dive into what led us to this moment in the data space.

The two discuss:

- The ethics behind using data for social concepts

- Quantifying social data

- Early stages of AI and the creation of data computation

- The history of machine learning

- The internet boom of the 90s

- AI vs. copyright laws

...and so much more!

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Follow Chris Wiggins on LinkedIn

Check out Chris Wiggins' new book

Who better to discuss an annual Gartner data summit than a former Gartner analyst himself?

Host and former Garter analyst, Malcolm Hawker, sits down with Profisee's Director of Digital Marketing, Ben Bourgeois, to talk about his experiences and key takeaways after attending this year's Gartner Data & Analytics Summit.

Other topics of discussion include:

• Demystifying the data fabric
• Malcolm's journey in releasing 20+ episodes of the CDO Matters podcast
• Defining data by its business value

...and more!

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Follow Ben Bourgeois on LinkedIn

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