Catalog & Cocktails: The Honest, No-BS Data Podcast

There’s a high turnover of CDO/CDAO positions. Data teams are not directly contributing to ROI. What’s the root cause? It’s all in the DNA of the organization. Understanding this will be critical in addressing this issue in organizations. Hosts Juan and Tim will be joined by special guest Alex Vayner, from KPMG US to also discuss the data roles in the different types organizations and also dive into the buy vs. build decision-making process.

Knowledge graphs and large language models. A match made in heaven. This pair will drive centralization and eventually work with AI to further consolidate and connect your data. So why aren’t people prepared for it and what’s going to happen when AI steps in? Join us on this weeks episode of Catalog & Cocktails with hosts Tim, Juan, and special guest Tony Seale, Knowledge Graph Engineer.

Survival guides, rulebooks, blueprints and more. The best way to prepare yourself as a next generation data leader is this episode of Catalog & Cocktails with Tim Gasper, Juan Sequeda, and special guest Veronika Durgin, VP of Data at Saks 5th Avenue. Get deep into some preparation-curriculum with topics like:-Do’s and Don’ts of Data Leaders -Are you skeptical enough? -How curious are you? -Joining communities that educate and inspire -and MORE

Is business the problem or is it the data? Business science hasn’t changed since Peter Druker. But, it needs to change. It was designed in an era of certain technologies and data limitations. We had to work in isolation. Those days are long gone. So who’s to blame for inefficiencies, unsolved problems, mismanaged processes and other barriers? Join this weeks episode of Catalog & Cocktails with hosts Tim, Juan and special guest Benny Benford to find out where the buck stops.

Metrics are one of the most important and durable primitives in a company. And if data teams are looking to create value FAST… they have to learn how their businesses work. To figure out how you business works, you have to find the right starting point; back to the METRICS. Join Tim, Juan and special guest Abhi Sivasailam from Levers Lab on this week’s episode of Catalog & Cocktails to hear more about the most valuable use cases. Episode highlights: [00:09 - 02:45] Introductions & Cheers [02:49 - 03:42] Warmup: What are things in life that you wish happened faster? [03:49 - 04:57] Abhi's talk about data teams and company growth models [04:59 - 07:21] There's too many data people [07:24 - 08:57] What are people wasting their time on: variance and standardization [09:01 - 11:07] Challenges to understanding the business and growth models [11:12 - 13:03] Metrics form the core of well-defined end states [13:05 - 15:03] What Abhi thinks of as a metric, and how it ties into the knowledge graph [15:04 - 16:37] A plan of attack improves semantic knowledge and avoiding building as you go [16:47 - 17:51] The accretive development problem [17:53 - 22:48] A core structure of standards with uniqueness layered on top [22:53 - 25:30] Focus on specificities instead of repeated work [25:46 - 27:24] Not a bridge too far to say the semantic layer doesn't need to be that creative, but more standardized [27:32 - 29:09] Abhi thinks automated integration is impossible [29:19 - 32:29] Arbitrary uniqueness vs being coupled to an open standard [32:31 - 33:40] SOMA [33:42 - 36:22] How does SOMA affect a data person's life, and how does a company adopt the standard? [36:23 - 40:09] Building a web of metrics for growth [40:12 - 42:06] The relationship between metrics, SOMA, and OKRs [42:31 - 49:56] Lightning round [50:00 - 55:27] Takeaways [55:29 - 57:59] Three final questions