Ep 24 - Mitchell Grewer - How Cargill Unlocks Data for Everyone

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“You have to lower the cost the curiosity. We’ve found more success getting people excited to change, rather than mandating from the top.”
— Mitchell Grewer

Self Service Analytics. It’s been a popular topic of discussion in BI and Analytics circles for quite a few years now. The premise is great. Get more data in the hands of more users. Reporting and Analytics tools like Power BI, Tableau, Domo, Alteryx and Qlik have quickly accelerated the trend and made “non-analyst” data usage more possible than ever.

But is it as easy as buying a tool, giving it to your teams and waiting for the magic to happen?

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Of course not. Great Self-Service analytics is hard work. Today we’re talking with one of the leaders in developing this approach, Mitchell Grewer.

Mitchell is responsible for self-service analytics at Cargill in Minneapolis, MN. He has built an amazing energy and enthusiasm for using data to drive their business. But his focus isn’t on hiring more data scientists, or implementing gigantic hadoop clusters. His job is to engage with the business, turning all 80,000 employees into data-wielding mini-analysts.

“I want everyone at Cargill to See and Understand Data. Our goal is to empower all employees to leverage the massive amount of data we have to unlock insights and make better decisions.”

It’s been a long, winding journey for Cargill to get this point, and it certainly didn’t happen over night.

“You have to include both top-down approaches for buy-in as well as bottoms-up. They’re both critical. For us, the bottoms-up was what really helped us take off”.

Mitchell started small, built a community, started training people who were interested, and then launched an enterprise “Data Visualization Challenge”. That challenge is what really got things started. Senior leaders saw what the power of data could really do, and suddenly both analysts and executives were on-board.

Check out the podcast for many other great stories of success, failure, and continued evolution of Mitchell’s self service analytics transformation!

More about Mitchell Grewer

Connect on LinkedIn: /in/mitchellgrewer

Mitchell’s company - Cargill

Twin Cities Tableau User Group - Monthly Meetup

Links and References

Favorite Storyteller or Author - Daniel Arenson

Favorite Blog - Dear Data

 

Ep 23 - Renee McGregor - Using Data Literacy to Drive Analytics Adoption

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“Data doubters are so important to our Data Literacy
program... They question everything and they add VALUE to the process”
— Renee McGregor

We're continuing our "Analytics on the Road" series! This week Dave sits down with Renee McGregor from South Africa Qlik, a partner reseller. Over the past couple years, they've really focused on Data Literacy in Cape Town and it shows! If you look up Google Trends results for "Data Literacy", you'll find that South Africa is one of the top countries. Renee talks about what that looks like and the work they do to improve Data Literacy for their organizations.

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Renee is a native of Cape Town so she’s seen a huge shift in the culture and the opportunities over the years. She believes that Data Literacy can be that “next wave” of opportunity for organizations and people to change the way they live and work.

So what is Data Literacy mean for Renee? “To read, work with, analyze and argue with data” says Renee. It’s important that people really internalize how data affects them and how they can use data to improve their own lives.

Renee has been solving this for organizations all over South Africa. So what’s the secret? “Adoption at the C-level is absolutely necessary to drive a good data culture”. She’s seen successful implementations and failures and it always comes back to leadership.

The other piece that impacts a Data Literacy initiative in an organization? “You need people who have a passion for data and are ready to share it.” Once you have the C-suite aligned, you’ll need key data champions out there on the front-lines sharing the stories, benefits and skills with everyone.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, Renee!

More about Renee McGregor

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Ep 22 - Lailah & Julia - Empowering South Africans through Open Data

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“The government is starting to open some data in South Africa. We need to skill up our citizens on how to access it, how to consume it, and how to use it.”
— Julia Renouprez

First, a quick announcement… We’re launching a new series called “Analytics on the Road”!

For those that don’t know, Dave Mathias has been traveling through Africa and Europe the last 3 months. Along the way, he had the chance to meet up with data people from all walks of life. We wanted to share their voices and find commonality and community, learn from them

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He started in Cape Town South Africa where he had the opportunity to speak with Lailah Ryklief and Julia Renouprez from the non-profit organization, Open Up.

At Open Up, they believe that an equal society starts with equal access to information, and that access to relevant information creates an active citizenry. You cannot change something if you don't know what it is, how it works, or that it even exists. Open Up is helping the citizens of South Africa by working with the government to open source their data, and then building tools and skills to make that data available and understandable to the broader population!

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One of the core ways they help citizens in South Africa is through Data Literacy training, helping people understand that the data exists, what kinds of questions they can answer with it, and how to use it through some simple tools.

South Africa has a lot of opportunities for growth. One of the biggest problems they face right now is poverty. Helping people understand where poverty comes from and how it is perpetuated is the first step in reducing the poverty gap.

Teaching people about data also gives them critical skills that they can use to find better jobs, increase their pay, and improve their and their families lives!

More about Lailah & Julia

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Ep 21 - Dennis Still - Analytics for Startups and Small Business

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“Big data, small data, medium size data. The real question is what you’re going to do with it once you have it.”
— Dennis Still

Dennis Still is a startup analytics expert. Where many analytics projects come from large $1B+ organizations, there are many startups and small businesses that need similar capabilities. How do small business compete and keep up? What kinds of challenges do these companies face, and how do they view their own relationship with data?

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Dennis has had a wide and varied career that didn’t necessarily start in data, but has taken him on a journey through various startups like When I Work, Gov Delivery, and his very own startup, Bigfoot Analytics.

Dennis has spent years working directly with entrepreneurs, figuring out what they need from their data, and delivering insights that drive exponential growth as they disrupt their various industries.

One of the biggest things he found through his time leading data and analytics, was that the questions that small companies are asking aren’t that different from what big companies are asking, just on a different scale. Revenue, costs, customer satisfaction. The key to his success was in being able to help his C-suite leaders identify their KPIs that would fuel rapid growth.

“Our CEO would throw out a number and 85% of the people in the room knew what that meant. It was the number that we used to drive the business forward”.

Despite being more nimble, Dennis feels like there’s a lot of opportunity still. "Who owns the data? How does it work? Who is going to look at it and do something with it?” A data-informed culture doesn’t just happen. It takes work from the analysts consistently pushing the metrics and getting the leaders to embed it into their communications.

More about Dennis Still

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Ep 20 - Serena Roberts - Authentic Relationships That Build Analytics Success

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“Your job does not end when the analytics development is done. That’s when it starts.”
— Serena Roberts

Serena Roberts is a force to be reckoned with. She’s a mom, an analytics leader, a Tableau ambassador, and the driving force for two great local communities that she runs. That’s why we were so thrilled to get a few minutes of her time to talk about her approach to data, and how she’s become such a successful data leader.

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Like many of us, Serena didn’t start out on a path to be a “data person”. She kind of fell into it by accident… A happy accident that’s taken her on an amazing journey from “business professional” to data guru, to fearless leader of the Twin Cities Tableau User Group, and the Minnesota chapter of the organization, She Talks Data.

The first thing that you’ll notice about Serena when you talk to her is her passion for understanding other’s needs. She deeply cares about the people in her life, both professionally and personally. She’s also a data visionary. She sees where her organization needs to go and isn’t afraid to communicate that vision to others, even when met with resistance.

Serena talked to us about her time at Capella, and reflected on some of the lessons learned while working for a well-established and relatively “analytics-averse” organization. “I was the unpopular person pushing new ideas”. “We were really trying to change human behavior, one sales rep at a time”.

“I saw such a need for analytics and data that no one was looking at. I was the unpopular person pushing new ideas and challenging the status quo””

The more you talk to Serena, the more you realize that it’s HUMANS that drive her, not the DATA. For her, it’s all about helping individuals use data in their day-to-day jobs. Enabling those fundamental data literacy skills that empower a business person to make a better decision, communicate more effectively, or answer a question faster.

“People focus on technology and process… and they heavily underestimate the change management aspect of the work we do as analysts.”

Change management is about changing human behavior. That’s the hard part. But the data community is lucky to have people like Serena driving their organizations to a more data-informed culture.

More about Serena Roberts

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