Data Governance Matters

At the Annual Data Governance conference in San Francisco, I thought nothing of it when someone walked up to me and said “Hi, Gwen” even though we hadn’t met. After all, presenters’ pictures are posted on the conference site, and we do all wear nametags. But it kept happening; people waved when they were too far away to read my tag. I was confused.

Then, at lunch, someone educated me. He sat down and promptly told me I look just like my picture on the web. Several people at the table started talking then, agreeing that I look like myself and chatting about how other people don’t always look like the photos they distribute.

Well, I knew I was in for it. At the table with us was the Media Director for the Data Governance Institute, Reese Thomas. (Yes, we’re related; he’s my big brother.) Reese is the one responsible for plastering my picture all over the Institute’s main site at www.DataGovernance.com, as well as other places on the web.

“What made you recognize her?” he asked, as I wanted to slide under the table in embarrassment. “The flip in her hair,” was the first response, and Reese just beamed, because a) he’d been betting on that when he picked photos and b) what big brother doesn’t think it’s funny when his little sister is embarrassed?

See, Reese knows what might not be clear to others: I’m actually painfully shy. I’m outgoing at conferences and other group settings when I remind myself to be “on” - but I am shy, trust me. And I was very very very very very reluctant to have my name and photo where it is on the site. Reese won the argument by reminding me what I have always known as an educator — that people learn better from another person than from a blank page.

So I was sitting there, blushing, listening to people talk about recognizable hairdos and how they like putting a face to someone they’re learning from, until I couldn’t take it any more. So I did what I could - I hijacked the conversation to make it about running Data Governance programs.

“So what you all are demonstrating,” I said (or something like it), “is the value of branding. The take-away is that if you each create a graphic or some other visual element that can be a ‘logo’ for your program - and if you put that logo in the same place on all of your program materials, then your stakeholders will ’see you coming’ from across the room, and will recognize your stuff as coming from your program, and they’ll be put into the right frame of mind before they even read what you have to say.”

Whew… saved by the teaching lesson. Finally, the conversation turned to what really mattered — whether we liked the entree and whether it was better or worse than other conference meals.

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BTW, this was originally written at the conference, but blog issues made it disappear. I’d let it just go away forever, but instead I’m re-posting it. Why? My brother says I have to….