Introducing the Powered by Data Show

All right, welcome to the Powered by Data Show, everyone. I'm Ben Jones, and yes, this podcast has a brand new name and look. — Yay. Yes, very exciting. You probably saw a new artwork there when you pulled up your podcast app. I'm Ally Torbin and moving forward, Ben is going to be the amazing new host of the show, and he's going to bring you interviews with top leaders in the data space. Yeah, and I have to thank you, Ally, for teaching me so many amazing things about podcasting. I still have a lot to learn from you. Uh, and you know, that's really how I became aware of you in the data space in the first place way back when through your data viz today podcast. And you've done such a great job for us here at Data Literacy getting our podcast going. And so now we're going to do this shift. And so my goal with this show going forward is to help you all understand what's going on at the intersection of BI and AI. So my promise to you is that every time you tune into the show, you're going to learn something new about how we humans can make better use of data and AI to achieve our organizational goals. — Yeah. And with this episode, we're going to give you a little sense of what to expect with this new show. So let's start with the big question, Ben. Why the shift from the data literacy show to the powered by data show? — Yeah, great question. I mean the short answer is that we've just seen the conversation continue to evolve over time. When we started in 2018, you know the most important question was does your organization understand data? Of course then you know fairly soon after launch the question evolved to you know does your organization understand data and AI. So data literacy and AI literacy became a big part of what we do and now what we're seeing with all of our clients is they're trying to understand how they can use some new technologies in their organizations to actually drive decisions. So to me, powered by data is reflecting this shift from learning and training to actually acting and deciding in data and AI empowered workflows. — Yeah. We talked a lot about humans and data and training and interacting there, but now it seems like we're really focusing in on this intersection of humans, data, and AI, this little triangle. So why do you frame it like that? Well, yeah, it's really the overlap where I think the spark happens. If you think about each of them in isolation, you know, then you're not going to really get anywhere. Even if you only apply two out of the three, you still aren't going to go very far. I mean, humans and data, that's traditional BI. Humans and AI without your data, well, you're going to get something, but it's probably not going to be anchored in your organization's context, right? — And then data and AI by all by itself, I have no idea what it's going to do, but I probably don't want to know. I mean, yeah, humans need to be overseeing it all and deciding what matters and what good looks like and all that. So, you know, you really need all three to come together to get that true realization of, you know, kind of data and AI empowered decision-m for organizations. — Yeah, I love that intersection that we're focusing in on in this podcast. And another thing you've said recently is just generally the promise of BI. Its execution has been a little spotty over the last decade or so. Can you expand a little bit on that? — Yeah, I mean I think that we've made great strides. You know, self-service analytics that got going in the late early 2000s, maybe around 2010, and it's been in full swing. And you know, it's been a huge evolution, a huge shift. I mean, organizations now have people embedded in the business looking at raw tables and building reports and dashboards and I mean it's just an amazing evolution but it didn't come close to achieving its promise or its vision of having everyone in the organization um with data at their fingertips. Um so certainly everyone can't learn PowerBI or Tableau or any other visual analytics tool for that matter nor can they learn to code. Um and so you know you had and continue to have organizations where many people are dependent on a still fairly small number of people right to — uh give them their answers they need now along comes AI well there's an opportunity to leverage that technology in a new way to I think finally realize this promise where you know anyone can have an answer at their fingertips sometimes it's visual sometimes it's a list sometimes it's just a fact or a stat sometimes s it's a conversation, right, with a chatbot or with a human. So, we need to put all those pieces together and I think that we live in a time now where we can start to think about how to do that and to realize the promise that self-service analytics all by itself and dashboards as great as they are really couldn't deliver on that I don't think. Yeah, it's seems like integrating AI is going to make it a little bit more natural and intuitive for more people to

use, but AI is not just going to be this magic solution, right, to everything. — Yeah. No, I mean, by itself, I mean, it's not this magic silver bullet. Neither was self-service analytics and neither is AI, you know? So, here we are again. Oh, there's a new technology. It's going to make everything better. It's going to fix all of our problems. It's just not that simple. It never is and it's still not. And I think we need to roll up our sleeves and figure out how to apply it in a way that — opens up the door for so many people to um you know interact with data in a fluid way. Uh and you know what could that look like? Well, that gets down to this big question of what does good look like and how do we implement these tools well to solve what problems to help people answer what questions? Um you know what does that look like? And there's so many questions to all of that and so many tools and technologies that are evolving so quickly that I think organizations that we're working with right now certainly are feeling overwhelmed. You know, they just kind of don't know where to begin. So no, I don't think AI solves this problem by itself. No way. I think that that's where some of the hype comes in and there should be a backlash to that. Instead, I think we need to say, well, you know, if humans are the ones driving the show here, and we are, then how do we apply these tools in a way that's smart, you know, for us? — Yeah, there's a lot of layers and interesting nuance to this question and this direction. Where do you see the podcast, how podcast playing a role in this conversation? — Yeah. So, wow. I think there's so many ways we can help out. I mean, one is just to help people explore that question itself. What does it mean? what are the aspects of it? Um, how do we wrap our heads around, you know, what hasn't been going well and what can we do to move forward? A big part of that is by bringing them into contact through the podcast with and introducing them to really smart people in this space that are developing tools and frameworks and they're working at brand new companies or they're evolving existing companies to do things differently. So, you know, some case studies, what's working well for certain organizations or an example of a tool or a technology that may they may not have heard of. And, you know, luckily for me, I I've gotten to know a lot of the people. Many of them I worked with uh back at Tableau when I was there, and they're at these other companies now. And so, we can talk to them and we can introduce them to our listeners to say, "Okay, here's this tool or technology. Here's what it's all about. Here's how to use it. Here's how to not use it, you know, and what can it do for you? " And I think that that's a big part of what this podcast can bring is just sort of an awareness of what's happening in this space. We're having to keep our finger on the pulse of what's going on, you know, every day and just try to share some of what we learn and find out with the listeners of the show. — And how do you think it's going to be different than other data podcasts out there? — Well, you know, I think for me it isn't just about the tools. For me, it's about humans. And of course, because we have this data literacy background and AI literacy background, we're going to keep pushing um our ho our guests to help us understand how people can actually put it to use. What do they need to learn? know? You know, what knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors do they need to acquire in order to drop a solution in place and actually have it work? Right? So, we're going to hold our guests, you know, honest on that and really try to kind of keep that human lens on everything we do and bring our training and assessment uh awareness to the conversation in a way that I hope helps out. — Yeah. It's a really unique perspective. And as a podcast listener, I always like to know like what is the promise of this podcast to me as the listener? Why would I want to keep tuning in? So, what do you think that answer is for this powered by data? — Yeah. Well, they promises they get to hear more and more of me. No, I'm just kidding. So, I'm going to ask a lot of Yeah. Uh, more questions than I answer. And so, what I want to do is ask the right people, the right questions, and make sure that the audience feels that they also are keeping pace with a space that's changing very fast, you know, and it's so easy to feel behind. — Yeah. So my promise is that you know, hey, every episode you're going to come in, you're going to listen, and you're going to say, okay, I think I have a better idea of what's going on now at this intersection of these three elements, humans, data, and AI. And not only that, it isn't just about I'm smarter. I kind of have an idea of what's going on, so I'm more aware. I actually have somewhat of an idea of how I can apply it in my own work, what I'm doing at work, right, myself. So — yeah. Yeah, I love that. And okay, so last question. In the podcast cover art, we have these lightning bolts. We have this uh electric lemon color. It's all for this powered by data feel, right?

But what does powered by data actually mean to you? — Yeah. So, you know, there's always this big debate data driven versus data informed and we get hung up on the words and the terms. So, we're leaving that behind and just saying, well, how can data empower us? How can data be uh a tool that we use to actually achieve more and to you know drive I still think humans are driving even with AI. I think we've got a new engine — on the you know in the vehicle now in AI. Yeah. Right. But data is the fuel. I mean data is really what keeps us connected to the world in a way that you know is quantifiable and as you know I love uh combining that with our own intuition which I you know highly value. So you put all those uh pieces of the puzzle together and you've got something that looks great but yeah to me powered by data is all about um taking action. It's all about processes and decisions actual products we build and the outputs of all of that. So all of those actions in the real world are ultimately informed and improved by data. So we are then powered by data. That's the goal. And I think with that right combination, that's how we can finally get there. — Yeah, that sounds great. I'm so excited to hear all the amazing guests you have on so I can stay on top of every all the evolution of AI and BI and all the insights coming out of the show are going to be so helpful to me and to everyone else this year. And um I think that it's going to be a great show. — Yeah, I'm going to make sure it is. I'm really loving it. And Ally, you've taught me so much. So again, thank you for all that you've done to bring podcasting to data literacy. — Fly my baby bird. — That's right. Well, here goes. So, uh you know, so yeah, the nest. I'll leave the nest now and become my own podcaster with of course inspired by you. That's right. So, thanks again, Ally, for getting the data literacy show going. Uh we had what like 14 straight episodes, two seasons. Yeah, we were we kept it going. — Great run. Super useful. So if you are interested in data and AI literacy, definitely go back and listen to the past episodes. It's going to be the same feed that the Powered by Data show is on. So you don't need to subscribe to the show if you're already subscribed because Powered by Data is going to be dropping into your queue already. — Yep. Same channel, same bat time, same bat channel. We might be accelerating the pace. instead of one monthly, we might be trying two or three uh monthly for a little while depending on some of the guests and lining them up. But with that, we'll wrap it up. So, I do want to say thanks to you all for tuning in to what now is the powered by data show. — And yeah, I would love it if you could share this episode with a friend who you think might be interested in what's happening, you know, at this intersection of BI and AI. And yeah, definitely, you know, follow the show um so you don't miss an episode. And we're gonna me uh anytime we have links or products or people for you to get to know, we're going to drop those into show notes as we will for this episode as well. So we'll see you next time. — Bye. Bye now. — Bye everyone.