When seeing data problems, the most obvious solutions are technical. Do we have good tools? Architecture? Clean pipelines? But what if the problems are people related – they’re unwilling to use the data, they don’t trust it, and different people use it differently? It is important to focus not only on the technical data issues but also the Data Culture.

Data Culture is the way that people in your organization view and interact with data. Do they trust data? Is it a nuisance that they have to deal with? Is it something management wishes was used more often, but mostly neglected? Do they turn to it when making decisions?

This presentation will provide an actionable 12-month roadmap along with tips and anecdotes from previous implementations.

Culture work is not a magic bullet, but a slow and steady march towards improving peoples’ relationship with data. We will discuss how to assess your own data culture, timelines, steps, and signs that your efforts are yielding results.

Speaker: Vanessa Lam

Founder & Principal of BRSdata, Business Rule Solutions

As Founder and Principal of BRSdata, Vanessa Lam created the data arm of Business Rule Solutions (BRS), focusing on data culture, data governance, and business intelligence. Vanessa specializes in building data-driven organizations where operations and leadership use the data to drive decisions. She was previously Manager of Business Insights and Productivity at Mastercard and Manager of Business Intelligence at Optoro. There, she created educational tools, fostered data communities, and ensured responsible data use. Vanessa’s articles on data culture and governance are published in the Business Rules Journal and The Data Administration Newsletter. She has spoken at Enterprise Data World, Building Business Capability, Tableau User Group, and Predictive Analytics World. She has a Master of Computer and Information Technology from the University of Pennsylvania and a BSc in Economics from the Wharton School. In 2021, IIBA named her a top influencer to watch. You can follow her at @Big_On_Data on Twitter.