First, it has been a while since I wrote. The reason for that is I don’t like to write unless I have ideas or something I feel is worth sharing. Over the last few months my day job has taken most of my focus, but I’m excited to come back to it. Second, during that time I’ve met with a lot of people who have been frustrated. Frustrated because their company “just doesn’t get” how important the data product they’ve built is. This can range from “they only give me enough resources to keep the lights on” to “they are investing in all of these other ideas but don’t see the value in using this data”.
Would it also make sense to add a step that makes you think about the way data professionals become the ‘UI’ for any given valuable data product? Not being one myself, I’ve been handed products by professionals who say, “this is awesome” and take off with follow on comments like, “I sent the [fill in the blank] report to you, it’s in there, you’ll figure it out, etc.” I’ve also been handed reports where the person drags me through it and educates me a bit on how to use it and why it’s an important product. In the latter case, not only did I become dangerous enough to use a product, but I also became more of an advocate for the use of data itself. I would recommend the latter (becoming the ‘UI’ for your company’s data products) over the e-mail diplomacy approach.
Would it also make sense to add a step that makes you think about the way data professionals become the ‘UI’ for any given valuable data product? Not being one myself, I’ve been handed products by professionals who say, “this is awesome” and take off with follow on comments like, “I sent the [fill in the blank] report to you, it’s in there, you’ll figure it out, etc.” I’ve also been handed reports where the person drags me through it and educates me a bit on how to use it and why it’s an important product. In the latter case, not only did I become dangerous enough to use a product, but I also became more of an advocate for the use of data itself. I would recommend the latter (becoming the ‘UI’ for your company’s data products) over the e-mail diplomacy approach.