As the Chief Data Officer (CDO) role becomes more and more of central importance to how companies understand and extract value from data and its growth, there are many questions still to be answered about how these businesses are defining and implementing this increasingly essential function.

Dr. Jim Short, research director for the Global Information Industry Center (GIIC) at UC San Diego Data Value Research, and Steve Todd, EMC fellow, sat down with Stu Miniman (@stu) and Paul Gillin (@pgillin), hosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at the MIT CDOIQ Symposium in Cambridge, MA, to discuss the part GIIC is playing in helping to ascertain how the role is evolving.

Extracting value from data growth

In most large corporations, data growth is averaging around 50% per year, according to Short. GIIC is working in an area that is complementary to Gartner’s work examining infonomics characteristics: the area of how companies are valuing and monetizing data growth and the particular strategies that allow them to do so.

“We talk a lot about analytics, and we talk about looking at the characteristics of the most valued asset part of that growth,” explained Short. “So it was really a question of what could we look at, specifically regarding common practices and new practices that companies were evolving to maximize the asset value.”

Data value and organizational challenges

As companies become more data savvy and begin to realize the value of data growth and learn how to utilize and monetize it, there are questions about what the CDO role will play in data value and defining it as an asset. While many C-level executives understand the value of data and have an interest in data monetization, Short and GIIC are interested in examining the evolution of the CDO role and what impact it will have on organizational structure in the future.

“It’s a cooperative activity, as well as a singular responsibility activity, and we’re interested in where that’s going to fall out,” said Short. “I think the second aspect of that is where we see the evolution of this role as more companies shift with an interest in monetizing asset value.”

Stay tuned for the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the MIT CDOIQ Symposium.

Photo by SiliconANGLE