I admit it. I’m old. At least I’m old enough that we didn’t have cell phones when I was in high school. (Or college, or for a bit after that…) Now I wouldn’t dream of leaving home without one. But even so, sometimes I pick up my phone, look at it, and think that it’s simply a miracle.
Had one of those moments today. Here I was, sitting in my sunroom in Florida, looking out the windows over my deck at the bougenvilla taking over the little building in my back yard, the brilliant orange fire vine creeping along the phone wires, the beautiful clear January sky behind my avocado tree. On the desk in front of me was my cell phone, on speaker.
On the line were Data Governance & Stewardship leaders in California, Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia, other U.S. states, and even Scotland! How cool was this!
It was a weekly Knowledge Exchange of the Data Governance & Stewardship Community of Practice. The topic of the day was selling Data Governance to executives. What was interesting was that the dozen or so people talking came from a variety of verticals, but they all had the same challenges. And some of them had great tips to offer. (Topics: hard benefits versus soft benefits, story telling, making dollars quantifiable, measuring the value of work avoided, getting participants to go on the record.)
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We’ve already scheduled a follow-up as well as a series of future discussions on organizing programs, setting roles & responsibilities, baking governance into processes, Data Governance communications, working in an SAP environment, and other topics. Probably some of the same folks will be involved, but we get a mix of folks, depending on the topic. Chances are, there will be multiple time zones involved in every discussion.
Me? I learn from every one of these I’m involved in. It’s cool to see what everyone has in common, as well as what makes one program unique, and another one especially successful.
And it’s waaaaay cool to have those moments where I realize I’m having a “small world” experience that was only possible on “Star Trek” when I was a little girl…
