Leading with Data

Data can fundamentally transform customer experience.

The flexibility and power of data opens up a wide array of possibilities for evolving delightful experiences that everyone can enjoy.

In today’s episode, Cassidy is joined by JoEllen Kames, Director of Product Design at Narrative Science, to discuss her mission to redefine the way the world interacts with data.

Here are a few key takeaways:

-The value of human-centered design (and why it’s evolving into the more dynamic “computational design”).

-How technology and design work together to create experiences.

-How to design for paradigm-shifting innovation (and why Apple’s “home” button was genius).

-The implicit beliefs about data and how to overcome them

-What the future holds for data and design.

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Narrative Science in your favorite podcast player.

Data quality is rarely considered sexy. But when it comes to all the cool marketing stuff your company wants to do, it should be.

Accurate and actionable data unlock your organization’s true marketing potential.

That’s one of the key insights Darrell Alfonso, Global Marketing Operations Manager at Amazon Web Services, brings into today’s episode on how marketing data can make a real difference in your organization.

Named one of the "Top Martech Marketers to Follow" 2020 by Martech Alliance, Darrell writes about marketing and how to improve your work and your life.

Darrell has worked at startups, mid-sized companies, and nonprofits. He’s come to realize that it's about the people, not the platforms - but it's best to keep your eyes on both.

In his current role as Global Marketing Operations Manager at Amazon (AWS), Darrell empowers hundreds of marketers to create exceptional digital experiences for their customers.

What we talked about:

-Working from home & the effect on inclusivity

Why you need a niche, particularly a technical one

-The evolution of marketing automation

-The difference between marketing automation & marketing operations

-Why strategy always comes before technology

-Why marketers are increasingly innovating tools themselves

-Data quality should be a sexier topic

-How to bridge the data gap between leadership & the teams executing

-The value of simplification for communicating technical information

-How to craft content that resonates with your audience

-Why it pays to figure out best practices for yourself

Check out this resource we mentioned during the podcast:

“The Practice” - Seth Godin

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Even now in the age of remote learning where technology is king, schools have the opportunity to humanize education again.

Parents and teachers just have to ask the right questions and look at the right data.

Over the course of his career, Keith Westman, COO at Otus and former educator, has learned a thing or two about the intersection of data, analytics, and education.

He began his career as a third grade teacher. From there, he moved into a role as Director of Technology at an elementary school, and was last the principal at a middle school in Morton Grove, IL.

His background in education fuels his passion for getting the right data and the right platform in the hands of teachers so that they know how and when to intervene with their students.

This week, Keith joinus us on the podcast to discuss how data can make education more human and here’s what you’ll learn:

- Why smaller, more frequent measurements of students’ progress are more effective than infrequent standardized tests

- How having the right data and the right platform can help teachers intervene when needed

- How new EdTech can be scaled to reach underserved students

- What people are getting wrong with remote learning and the future of education

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

In business, growth is a good thing.

But in hypergrowth, you’re growing so fast that every system and process you have breaks in record time.

How do you handle that?

For Tim O'Keefe, Head of Data Analytics at Canva, it all boils down to culture. With some careful consideration, you can build a culture that can’t be broken (even if everything else is).

This week Tim joins our guest host, Stef Cladwell, on the show to share the challenges of heading Data Analytics at one of the fastest growing companies on the planet.

What they talked about:

-The challenges of hypergrowth

-The transition from academia to business

-Why culture reigns supreme

-How to build a cohesive team (even when that team is growing exponentially)

-Why trust is a superpower for getting the best work from your team

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

We’re living through the biggest data storytelling event in history.

Worldwide, COVID data is impacting everyone.

And it’s proof that data storytelling can be used as a force for good.

In this episode, Cassidy is joined by Dan Platt, Senior Principal of Market Innovation here at Narrative Science and the founder of our Data Storytelling for Good Initiative, to discuss how data stories can be used to make the world a better place.

The combination of Dan’s background in economics, PR and journalism have culminated in him becoming the unrivaled data storyteller he is today.

While getting his graduate degree in journalism from Northwestern University, rather than see advancements in data technology as a threat, he was excited by the potential of harnessing that power to tell better stories and, ultimately, make the world a better place.

At Narrative Science, Dan has fulfilled and surpassed these ambitions throughout the evolution of the organization, including spearheading the Data Storytelling for Good Initiative, which empowers non-profit organizations with data tools that allow them to spend more of their time improving the world.

As you can see, there is a good reason Dan has the rare honor of being written into a client’s contract as their go-to guy within the company.

In this episode, we discuss:

-Why journalism has become a valuable degree in tech

-The growing public awareness and acceptance of the power of data technology

-The client who wrote Dan into their contract

-Why Dan wants people to interact with data stories in tools they already use

-How to communicate technical information to non-technical people

-How to use data storytelling for good

-How COVID proves data affects everyone’s life

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Storytelling is a trait universally shared by human beings. But does that make data storytelling innate or is it a skill we develop?

This week, you’ll hear from 3 experts about how they’ve strengthened their data storytelling muscles and how putting it to practice has improved the businesses they’re a part of as well as their careers.

Our guests include:

Leslie Squires Gimple, Senior Manager, Reporting and Analytics at Rackspace.

Having been with the company for about 13 years now, Leslie has risen through the ranks at Rackspace, where she is currently leading the software developers, BI developers, as well as visual analysts.

Kimberly Herrington, Data Journalist and Creator of #BuffaloBusinessIntelligence.

Kimberly has a wealth of experience getting hands-on with data in the health world, and is excited to find stories in numbers. She stays on top of health analytics trends to create clever data stories and content that bring value to the organization.

Sunita Menon, Global Data Executive, Freelance.

Sunita is a global executive who has transformed the business using data-driven strategies to achieve productivity, cost savings and revenue growth, while building data-driven organizations, governance and mindsets.

This insightful conversation comes from our event, Humanalytics, where we talked about:

-What data storytelling means

-Whether data storytelling is a skill, talent or business function

-How data storytelling drives decisions, insights and actions

-The democratization of data and data storytelling

-Using data storytelling to build relationships

-The difference between data storytelling and data literacy

-Data’s role in transparency and diversity and inclusion

Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:

Charty Party

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Data strategy in healthcare often feels like it’s stuck in the 1990s.

Trying to gather insight is like wandering hopefully along the aisles at Blockbuster rather than using a service as seamless as Netflix.

During the global pandemic, some healthcare leaders were even walking hospital floors with clipboards counting COVID patients in beds. Why? Lack of trust in the data and reports created for them.

The internal and external motivations for healthcare to take data more seriously have only been accelerated by the impact of COVID-19.

As a data leader who started his role as Executive Director of Informatics & Analytics at MemorialCare during the pandemic, Jared Nunes knows a thing or two about building a data strategy that grants trust in healthcare.

After gaining clinical experience working in the health system and running his own construction business, Jared joined a healthcare data recording company where he taught himself the technology to shift the company fully online.

Over the course of his career, he learned to be nimble — to stay off the bleeding edge but on the cutting edge, as he puts it.

In this week’s episode, Jared shares insights from his three decades of work experience in a fun and fantastic conversation about:

-Advice for healthcare leaders to learn from other industries

-How to build trust in data at your organization and why it’s important

-The 4 pillars needed before we can leverage advanced analytics and data science

-The strategic initiative of leadership vision (and the 7 goals of MemorialCare)

-Demonstrating a vision of what’s possible in healthcare data

Hear more and subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

When you arrive somewhere new and you are tasked with overhauling complex and problematic legacy data systems, where do you begin?

Well, before you even start to build your strategy, you need to know the business goals you are trying to achieve, have executive support, and understand why past efforts to achieve these goals have failed.

This approach is how Robert Emerson, former VP and Head of Strategic Data Management at Blue Cross NC and current program strategist for OptumLabs, has consistently led teams to tackle some of the toughest data challenges in Healthcare, a complex industry with a dire need for modernization in its data and analytics.

As a perceptive, creative, and logical data leader, data scientist, and advanced analytics strategist, Robert prides himself on his ability to effectively communicate with technical and non-technical colleagues alike.

Robert earned a PhD in neuroscience, but moved into the healthcare industry shortly thereafter, where he served in a variety of different data and analytics leadership roles.

He has led teams to develop, optimize, and automate operations staffing models, and developed strategic data maturity plans. These plans include creating comprehensive cloud migration initiatives, developing dashboards to deliver business insights, harnessing predictive models for proactive decision-making, and integrating machine learning to forecast operations supply and demand.

In his current role at OptumLabs, he is helping lead strategic programs around data, analytics, and technology.

What we talked about:

-The data challenges present in healthcare

-Considerations when modernizing complex legacy systems

-How business strategy should guide data strategy

-The importance of the cloud for modern data and analytics (and the challenges migration present)

-How to master your data from the beginning and get it right the first time

-The role regulations and privacy concerns play in modernizing data systems

-The attributes to look for when hiring for your teams

-The important role diversity of thought plays in any team

-Why data leaders need to stop underestimating the need for change management

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

Unfortunately, not everybody thinks like a data scientist.

Your leadership team doesn’t care about your fancy tech or the cool way you found the answers, they just care about the answers they need to move the business forward.

That’s why when you tell them a data story, you need to make sure you’re speaking their language.

That’s just one of the insights that helped today’s guest, Alexander Soria, Vice President of Data & Analytics at Mindbody, move up the ladder in his analytics career.

Before joining Mindbody, Alex focused on strategic analysis to help decision-making for future projects, programs, promotions, and executive decisions when working with companies including Zappos, Vancouver Analytics Group, and Elicit.

At Mindbody, he has moved into a strategic data-position where his focus shifted from being solely centered on data science to also include data engineers, business intelligence, business analysts, and data governance.

This holistic approach has given him a deep appreciation and understanding of the entire data pipeline.

What we talked about:

-Why data teams should be Switzerland in any organization and remain neutral

-How to get executive buy-in (and funding) for large data projects

-How to get the right people in the right positions

-Why diversity of thought is essential for a thriving team

-The qualities that make a great analytics leader

-Why data storytelling requires a learn-by-doing approach

-What a future where data is heavily regulated means for data leaders

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.

When you use data to tell a story, you’re engaging in something fundamentally human.

Narrative, meaning, communication — stories are what separate us from the other animals.

And as data leaders, we need to always put the human front-and-center in our approach.

That’s one of the many pieces of sage wisdom Guy Levy-Yurista, Chief Strategy Officer at Sisense, shared in the latest episode of Leading with Data.

And Guy should know — he might just be the most interesting man in the world.

He’s an executive leader and product and technology expert with over 25 years of experience in Fortune 500 startups and venture capital environments.

He's been successful in developing and driving strategies to launch and strengthen product portfolios, increase revenue and profit, and improve competitive market positioning.

Guy’s led 2 startups through liquidity events within 4 years. He has in-depth knowledge of emerging technologies and enterprise B2B, mobile communications and cybersecurity.

And, of course, he is currently Chief Strategy Officer at one of the world's most innovative and fastest growing companies, Sisense, which is currently valued at over a billion dollars.

What we talked about:

-Putting the human at the center of technology

-How a good leader earns their teams’ loyalty

-The 3 elements necessary for analytics

-The revolutions in AI, machine learning, and quantum computing shaping the future of analytics

-How data storytelling taps into the core of what it means to be human

If you want to hear more, subscribe to Leading with Data on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or here.