The Data Product Ecosystem - Data Fluency: Empowering Your Organization with Effective Data Communication - page 178

through the data, then a snapshot is a picture of a trip highlight by the data
tourist at a point in time. And like tourists, they will want to save these pictures,
send them to relatives at home, and organize them into albums that can help
recall the experience.

The technical mechanism for capturing snapshots will vary. It may be some-
thing as simple as taking screen shots of a dashboard or saving a graph from
a report as a separate file. More important, these snapshots are best when
accompanied by a note that describes what makes the information interesting.

Beyond capturing insights, a data fluent organization supports and encour-
ages the discussion that is spurred by data. A monthly report on customer
attrition may raise eyebrows when the trend line shifts up, but what happens
next? What follow-on discussions occur to dig deeper and start to create a
plan for action?

The content of the data products can help encourage their audience to dis-
cuss and take action. Often there may be direct and well-understood links
between certain data or charts and suggested actions. In the case of increasing
customer attrition, the organization may have learned that there are common
underlying factors that contribute to this issue (for example, competitors are
running promotional campaigns, recent service problems, or outages). This
information should be integrated into the data product.

Information and insights are just the beginning of the journey. The DIKW
Pyramid (Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom) in Figure 7-5 is a frame-
work from the realm of information science. It emphasizes the hierarchy of
understanding, the narrowing of volume, and the elevation in value as data
is eventually transformed into wisdom.

The true objective for facilitating discussion should be to gradu-
ally synthesize the information extracted from data products
into greater organizational knowledge—shared expertise and
intuition—and eventually into wisdom—the ability to apply that
knowledge effectively to bring more value to the organization.

wisdom

knowledge

information

WHERE TO BEGIN: CREATE A PLACE TO
CAPTuRE INSIGHTS

data

Discussions on data—like most of data fluency—are more a
social and human problem than a technology problem. The

Figure 7-5 DIKW pyramid