How Not to Drown: Improving Data Literacy in Your Organisation

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS AN ONLINE EVENT.
LINK TO BE MADE AVAILABLE NEARER THE TIME.

AGENDA:
18:00 - Introductions
18:15 - Presentation by Kurt Buhler
19:15 - Q&A
19:30 - Finish

SESSION DESCRIPTION:
Data literacy is fundamental for an effective organisation and is a keystone for successful data & analytics projects. It is clear, however, that data literacy is a challenge area in many businesses, and society as a whole. A 2018 survey of business decision-makers found only 24% were “confident in their ability to read, work with, analyse and argue with data” [1], a finding recapitulated in the lay public [2] and demonstrated plainly during the global COVID-19 pandemic [3].

To traverse these rapids, we are in need of more than tools, but a wide knowledge of how they are used and the data concepts behind them. In this talk, we examine the impact of Data Literacy on business data projects through case study of a Sales Compensation Plan to:

I. Illustrate concretely the concept of data literacy and the threat poor data literacy poses to an organisation.

II. Explore possible reasons why average data literacy is low and what we could do about it.

III. Define practises and report design techniques to improve data literacy, such as points-of-engagement, data dictionaries, annotations, and more.

Without data literacy, we will fail to navigate the waters of information that are ever-rising; we risk not only falling overboard, but even drowning. However, instilling data in organisational values, engaging people with and about information in the right ways, and implementing accessible design practises can not only keep us afloat, but propel us onward to brave new worlds of effectiveness and value.

[1] How to Drive Data Literacy in the Enterprise (2018)
[2] Borner, K. et al. (2016) Investigating aspects of data visualization literacy using 20 information visualizations and 273 science museum visitors. Information Visualization 15(3) 198-213.
[3] Advancing Data Literacy in the Post-Pandemic World (2021)

SPEAKER:
Kurt Buhler is a Data Visualisation Consultant & Power BI expert from Ordina, Belgium. Kurt discovered his passion for working with & analysing data during his doctoral research in Biomedical Sciences. Since then, he has worked as a consultant and bridge-builder between IT & Business in organisations to derive value from their data using actionable visuals and solutions. Kurt strives to employ a design-thinking, user-centric approach to data projects to promote adoption and ensure solutions meet business needs and improve effectiveness. He's a lover of cats, tabletop roleplaying games, and all things Power BI & data related.