SiliconANGLEs theCUBE welcomed Micheline Casey, the CDO for the Federal Reserve as a special and previously unscheduled guest this afternoon. Dave Vellante of Wikibon engaged Casey in a conversation that covered her role as the first CDO for the state of Colorado, how she felt the role of CDO could be adopted by both private and governmental organizations, and the pitfalls a new CDO might try to avoid in implementing a data strategy for their organization.

As the first CDO for the state of Colorado, Casey helmed the implementation of data management and strategies under Governor Ritter in 2007. Casey was instrumental in working with the state’s legislature in getting laws passed geared to improving the data management within the purview of the state. These laws helped to make the information pooled by the state more easily exchangeable by her own office and differing agencies. As CDO, she realized removing the propriety of information by individual agencies allowed her to better understand the data collected on multiple fronts.

As Casey acknowledged, an effective CDO needs to possess a working knowledge of basic organizational dynamics. Core talents should include strategic leadership, a background in the data and high tech worlds, an ability to deal with political issues and a willingness and ability to spend time on affecting an effective communications strategy throughout the organization.

A challenge faced by a new CDO lies in the structure of an organization. If this issue is not discussed in the boardroom that structure could actively hold back important work that needs to be done. Too often, a culture change is required for an organization to be able to embrace the different mindset around data management.

As one of the first state-level CDOs in the nation, Casey didn’t have a lot of role models to follow. In a ground-up approach, she asked: 1) What could be possible if we managed info better; 2) Where do we want to go; and 3) How do we put that roadmap together?

Here is the video of the full interview:

Whether in a governmental or business setting, the CDOs task needs to focus on the business side of the organization. In a state setting, Casey commented how being brought in directly under the governor’s office made their placement and the work they needed to perform neutral to other agencies.

Casey first worked with the Federal Reserve as a consultant after she left her role as CDO for the state of Colorado in January 2011. She claims the Fed realized their effectiveness could be enhanced by bringing in data analytics. By identifying the need to share more information across organizational silos was recognition that better data management could be an organizational asset. The priority placed on data governance by the Fed ultimately led to the creation and hiring of Casey as Fed CDO on May 20 of this year.

Further discussion went in depth on the role of a CDO in an organization and also what traits the CDOs of tomorrow, currently working on their college degrees should possess.

Vellante finished the discussion asking, “What would you have done differently as Colorado’s first state CDO?” Casey responded her failing, brought about in no small part by the financial meltdown of 2008, was lack of communication beyond the top of the organizational structure. The meltdown made for a hectic implementation of a basic infrastructure and communication to the middle level was unfortunately looked over. As Fed CDO, Casey stated she has brought on a group of individuals dedicated to communicating across all echelons of the organization. This helps Casey to sell the “what’s in it for me” story to all groups within the organization.