UPDATED 16:39 EDT / JUNE 17 2021

BIG DATA

Creating ‘data citizens’ for data-driven culture inside and outside the office

As companies try to look into the future of technology, the push around data will continue to move forward within enterprises.

Because of this, chief data officers and other similar job titles and descriptions will continue to become more important, but equally important is creating a company culture around data where everyone takes part.

The term “data citizen” is now being used by data intelligence company Collibra NV to describe the data-driven shift in company culture.

“A data citizen is somebody who uses data to do their job,” said Stijn (Stan) Christiaens (pictured), co-founder and chief data citizen of Collibra NV. “We’ve purposely made that definition very broad, because today we believe that everyone in some way uses data to do their job. Data is universal; it’s critical to business processes, and its importance is only increasing.”

Christiaens spoke with John Walls, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the Data Citizens ’21 event. They discussed creating a culture around data. (* Disclosure below.)

Unpacking the ideas behind creating data citizens

While the idea of data citizens is important for work, it’s not just a concept tied to a company culture, but it’s about helping people see that data drives all of their lives outside of work too, according to Christiaens. This is important for all people to understand because there are both rewards and risks to data.

“We like to think about it as informed privacy with data citizens who think about trust in data all the time,” Christiaens said. “Because, ultimately, everybody’s talking today about data as an asset and data as the new gold, the new oil … but … it’s also the bad actors out there. We’re reading a lot more about data breaches, for example. So, ultimately, there’s no value without risk.”

As data citizens within organizations and their personal lives, individuals should be thinking about both the risks and the maximum value of data. Spreading a company culture that both thinks about the rewards and risks of data and how to approach it in a balanced manner is not easy, according to Christiaens. But it’s crucial because as new technology brings new possibilities, data becomes even more important.

“There’s new architectures that comes into play — like the clouds, and that comes with a whole bunch of new risks,” he said. “That’s why one of the things that we recommend always to our customers and to data officers in our customer’s organizations is that next to establishing that data literacy … and working on data products is that they also partner strongly with other leaders in their organization. ”

This data-driven mentality takes specific behavior from everyone within a company culture, according to Christiaens. Companies should be strategizing years ahead about how to create an office environment that is constantly thinking about the future of data.

“If you summarize the strategy, I like to sometimes refer to it as ‘data office 2025.’ It’s 2025. What is the data office look like by then? And we recommend to our customers to … have that forward-looking view,” Christiaens concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Data Citizens ’21 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Data Citizens ’21. Neither Collibra NV, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE

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