Data Governance Matters

Don’t you hate it when you misspell someone’s name? I added an “s” to the end of “Mike Meier” when I wrote about our experience preparing for the Annual Data Governance Conference in San Francisco. With his usual kind, dry sense of humor, Mike simply posted a comment to the blog entry disavowing himself of that specific letter. What a guy!

Anyway, giving our talk was as much fun as it was to create. Lots and lots of people in the room. Seems like EVERYONE wanted to know how to get things done when you have no budget, no formal program, and no formal power. And it turns out that the concept of “guerrilla-style” programs is as useful to others as it was to us - we were told by folks from lots of different kinds of enterprises that it would help them think creatively about how to organize their resources and mobilize efforts.

But the best part, for me, was how much FUN everyone in our session seemed to be having with this topic that — truth be told — can be kinda dry. Mike and I set it up so that first we introduced a topic, then Mike shared what he did and how that worked for him, and finally I got to jump in and comment from a best practices perspective, acknowledging that I hadn’t been there when he was doing his thing, but was instead offering 20-20 hindsight and the benefit of having seen-this-done-that a bunch of times.

We knew our approach was a gamble. We chose a pretty cheesy approach, with a lot of banter and some simply silly bits. But I guess the conference attendees were in the mood for a little Rowan and Martin, cause they laughed a lot all the while they were taking notes.

So… is there a budding Goldie Hawn out there who wants to join the act? Hey Goldie? want some governance? Sure! Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me…