If ever there were a time that data vernacular like “dashboards” and “p-values” entered the mainstream, it was the pandemic, as citizens tried to make sense of the new world they came into nearly overnight. Professionally upended, many also looked to keep sharp from their home office, and began diving into data analysis and upskilling.
For these reasons, data literacy leaders were needed more than ever. At the same time, the traditional playbook for these programs was scrapped, and it was hard to form a long-term strategy under the pandemic-caused uncertainty.
I wanted to see how data literacy leaders have adjusted this past year, and spoke with the following experts:
- Jason Callough, Data Awareness & Literacy Lead at Nike. Jason’s background in database development has led him to advocate for data governance and data literacy more broadly.
- Shilpam Pandey, Head of Data Literacy at M&T Bank. Shilpam brings her background in digital transformation to running the program at M&T.
- Lisa Peterson, Assessment and Analytics Advisor at USAID. A humanitarian and information expert, Lisa was previously the data literacy lead at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
- Lee Feinberg, President at DecisionViz. Lee offers consulting, online courses, and corporate programs on data literacy and is a certified Tableau partner.
What happened?
Pre-pandemic, organizations tended to rely on synchronous, sometimes multi-day data literacy programs. These were often conducted either by flying employees out to corporate universities or training centers, or by bringing experts and program leaders into an office.
For example, M&T’s program was heavy on roadshows and taking events location-to-location. “It was a very in-person experience,” Shilpam notes. These events made it easy to establish a sense of camaraderie and shared goals for data literacy: Shilpam stated that with everyone together, “it democratized the way we could run a data literacy program.”
That said, the roadshow model could get logistically challenging, even pre-pandemic. “We were constantly asking, ‘Can we get a conference room?’ ‘Where do we fit 100 people?’” Shilpam recalls.
Of course, by the end of March 2020, in-person events became practically impossible, let alone those which required traveling. A new approach to data literacy was needed.
What was the response?
Despite all the uncertainty spiraling in the early days of the pandemic, program leaders used the time to rethink or even create new data literacy efforts. For example, Lisa had considered incorporating microlearning into OCHA’s program, a delivery format which the pandemic accelerated the need for. Unable to deliver in-person data literacy programs to clients, Lee pivoted to offering online courses and virtual experiences.
Shilpam’s program had pivoted to fully virtual by April, and then began to work on new online data communities and other long-term approaches for delivering the program remotely. As the public visibility for data literacy programs grew, Jason began work on a formal data literacy program over the summer of 2020.
What was difficult?
Like many teachers, data literacy professionals at first became unwitting ed-tech experts to take their efforts online. “The technology stack is a challenge,” Lee noted in his shift to online learning. “You have to do it all.” From online meetings on Zoom to online data communities facilitated by message boards and wikis, the first hurdle was the base logistics.
But even after getting all the cables connected and video streaming, it’s still hard to get online data literacy right. At M&T, some cultural buy-in was needed to launch the online communities. It was not a delivery format people were used to.
As Jason began to design his program, he feared that online offerings would be seen as another chore for employees to complete, like compliance training. A guiding question for him became “How do we create a more personal experience that is directly related to what people do?”
The difficulty of making online data literacy programs feel personal and related to one’s work was a theme echoed by Lisa, who put it this way: “There is learning and then there is skill development. You need to put it into peoples’ workflow and understand how they work.”
What opportunities were there?
Despite these numerous obstacles, our subjects found ways to innovate and improve their programs in distinct ways. Shilpam and team, who incorporate gamification in their work, eventually conquered the technology learning curve and found practices like whiteboarding and Pictionary over WebEx to serve as successful learning experiences.
Lee has been able to provide his clients with more long-term partnerships in an online setting versus what would have been feasible with a short in-person session. He’s also been able to more easily distribute content which can be reused and improved over time.
As mentioned earlier, the pandemic brought the need for data literacy to the mainstream. In launching a data literacy program, a goal for Jason is to help learners better make sense of data not just inside the organization, but as citizens.
What comes next?
Hey, I’m a data analyst, so I have to try to make sense of past trends and project a forecast. So, what’s next for data literacy given my conversations with these experts?
Overcoming Zoom gloom: “People are Zoomed out now,” Lisa noted (Can I get an amen?). Future efforts will need to offer more than a disembodied PowerPoint presentation to keep people engaged and get them learning (if that ever achieved those things to begin with).
Gamification: In a traditional data literacy delivery, the end-of-week lunch or happy hour may have been opportunity enough to celebrate and motivate. In an online world, something different is needed, and gamification could help. This could be badges and leaderboards for completing given tasks, or personalized learning paths given unique interests or needs. Cutting-edge technology like virtual reality might even allow for more interactive ways to keep people engaged from afar.
Microlearning: Integrating data education into how people work and providing the right material at the right time is hard enough, let alone done online. Microlearning could provide ways to deliver timely, pithy knowledge and feedback as needed in a remote setting.
Change management: Becoming a data literate organization is ultimately a cultural shift, so the best programs go hand-in-hand with change management. This part of the equation has been hard to account for in the uncertain past few months (it’s hard to manage change during an unprecedented pandemic), so expert more consideration for how to make data literacy “stick” as a cultural force in the future.
Online communities: In the past, one’s “community of practice” with data often boiled down to whoever sat near your cubicle and was willing to help you. In a remote work setting, perhaps no one is sitting near you – but at the same time, your options for help are equally distributed across the organization. Working remotely offers challenges and opportunities for a more fair and efficient approach to building data literacy communities. For a great book on this topic, check out Eva Murray’s Empowered by Data: How to Build Inspired Analytics Communities. Expect more to come on the intersection of data literacy and knowledge management in an online context.
Conclusion
This has not been an easy year, which makes me more grateful to these data literacy experts for taking the time to share their experiences with me and my readers. It’s so encouraging to see the tremendous efforts these leaders have put forth, and the successes they’ve found despite all the setbacks. New data literacy programs are coming online all the time, and I hope they can benefit from the lessons learned here.
I want to thank Jason, Shilpam, Lisa, and Lee again for their thoughts and for everything they have done for our community.
So, how has the past year affected your organization’s quest for data literacy? What lessons have you learned? What takeaways did you glean from our featured experts? Let’s discuss in the comments.
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