New year, new look site. It has been twelve years since I had an active website and one of my resolutions for the New Year was to become more active socially. While I was putting the new-look site together and thinking about content, I was thinking about what my other resolutions might be. Since the theme of this website is going to be about data and it’s influence on my life, I decided on becoming a better Data Citizen.
In recent years, data has become one of the most critical assets in any organisation around the world. It is fantastic to see it recognised this way, but I have often noticed this is as far as it goes. A while back, I asked a couple of groups a few questions:
- Do you understand the importance of data?
- Do you consider yourself a Data Citizen?
- Whose needs to take responsibility for data?
Pretty much everyone that I asked identified that data is important and that more focus and energy is needed. However, when it came to the second question, people did not know who a Data Citizen was and when it came to the third, it was just a lot of finger-pointing. From what I have observed, as an industry, we have done a great job in communicating that data is important but we haven’t matched that from an education and participation perspective.
My definition of a Data Citizen is anyone and everyone who consumes or produces data. You might be thinking, that is not me or anyone I know, but picture this for a second. You might have a desk job and you might be at the bottom of the corporate ladder. You may not be making big decisions or be the most vocal participant in your organisation. At some point of the day though, you are going to look at a report, a summary, an insight or even typed something into an Excel spreadsheet. You might have even been in a quick meeting with your boss. The reality is that at some point in your working day, you are either going to produce or consume data and that is what makes you a Data Citizen.
Earlier, when I asked the question about who needs to take responsibility for data, people tended to do the finger-pointing at those who have “data” in their job title or even those whose roles sounded remotely IS-ish. This is the next roadblock that we as individuals need to overcome. If you have just realised you are a Data Citizen for the first time, you may be asking yourself, how could I possibly take responsibility when I don’t work directly in that spectrum. If you are thinking that, my question to you would be, are you satisfied by the quality and depth of the data you consume? I assume that to some degree that you are not happy with the data you are consuming. The question after that would be if this isn’t the data you need, does anyone know what you need? If you answered no to this question, this is where becoming a better Data Citizen can help you. Taking responsibility and becoming more vocal instead of accepting the status quo, is the first step of becoming a better Data Citizen.
Remember, being a better Data Citizen is more than just saying “the data I deal with is rubbish”. Statements like that, while they may carry a degree of truth, are vague and counterproductive. Being a vocal Data Citizen is not just about expressing frustration, it is about expressing it critically to improve the result. If this is a struggle, think about how you need the data to speak to you. This is really important because if you don’t clearly articulate your need, your request or comment can be easily misinterpreted or dismissed by those who believe that you don’t know what you are talking about. If you have been too generic with your comments around data, start being more specific.
For anyone in the office in 2020, I believe that being a better Data Citizen should be the number one resolution on your list. Giving data the full attention that it needs can often fall by the wayside when we fall back into that “not my responsibility” mindset, so it is important to keep these two points in mind:
- Remind yourself that you are a Data Citizen
- Remind yourself that data is everyone’s responsibility, regardless of your role or title
For me, this is going to be my number one resolution this year. Even though I work in data already, if I can improve the engagement of those around me to show the same level of responsibility in data, it will make me a better Data Citizen. You may have read the earlier paragraphs and rightly given yourself full marks on the points I raised earlier. If your colleagues are not showing the same level of participation as you are doing, the end result will not be as strong as what you hoped. When everyone behaves like a Data Citizen, the increased levels of useful collaboration will leave you with a stronger and more insightful data set. It will also change the overall statement that “data is rubbish”. Much like family, when everyone cares passionately about the same thing, the result is much better.
Data Citizenship goes a lot deeper than this, but it is important to approach this with an 80/20 mindset. If you can instil the first two principles I mentioned, the rest will feel a lot more natural to yourself and your organisation. If you don’t change the thinking around responsibility, everything else you try to do will be pointless. Remember, everyone who reads this has the power to influence those around them by selling them the idea of an improved data ecosphere through the idea of citizenship. I hope those who have read this will join me on this journey this year. Will you?
