Big Data LDN (London): Mango’s big event takeaways
This article is originally published at https://www.mango-solutions.com
Big Data LDN (London), Mango Solutions’ big event takeaways: The ideal forum for sharing data expertise
What better glimpse of the 2020’s data and analytics community than at the UK’s largest data event, Big Data LDN – and how great to be back! With 130 leading technology vendors and over 180 expert speakers, the London show on 23/24 September generated thousands of data and technology-led conversations around effective data initiatives, with real world use cases and panel debates. Everything from leadership, data culture and communities to the ethics of AI, data integration, data science, adoption of the data cloud, hyper automation, governance & sovereignty, and much more…
With a captive group of decision-makers, Mango Solutions conducted a Data Maturity floor survey of Big Data LDN participants. Respondents were asked to identify where their organisations are on their data journey, including the opportunities for data science strategy articulation, data communities, and what their biggest challenge is; with even the most data-advanced organisations modestly commenting in some areas that they had ‘room for improvement’. The fascinating results of this survey will be revealed shortly.
Conversations were approached with eagerness, around ‘harnessing data’, ‘getting more of it’, ‘data platforms’, ‘monetising data’, ‘kicking-off some AI’ – Big Data LDN being the first in-person analytics event since Covid-19 up-scaled our worlds of work and data consumption. From bright computer science graduates, to startlingly young data analysts, through to a surprising amount of MD and C-suite representation at the other end of the scale. Companies from Harrods to UBS, University of St Andrews – the best of the best of brands came out to share insight and learn – buzzwords aside – the most investable routes from potential to advantage.
A low-key event, but highly intelligent, Big Data LDN gave us a feel for the new ambitious, hybrid workers. Back to face-to-face networking, sizeable audience sessions, hot-desking in the cafe; there was a positive hungry-to-learn feel right through the event. Everyone, whoever they were, seemed on a mission to share intelligence and opinion on data and advanced analytics. No one job title or company outclassed the other – just a mutually supportive community of technology experts; less ego and more mutual respect.
There was the ability to attend a suitable meet-up with practical hands-on use case examples. Mango hosted a data science meet-up with guest speakers from The Gym Group and The Bank of England as well as our own Mango Consultant sharing best practice, which was well attended.
Chief Data Scientist at Mango Solutions, Rich Pugh’s talk on finding fantastic data initiatives was well-received by the audience. This focused on prioritising high impact data initiatives with buy-in from across the business. In particular how the role of data domains, supported by data and literacy, can create bridges between business ambition and data investment. In our experience, too often pitfalls exist on selecting the right data initiatives or even trying to answer the wrong question with data; so keeping a focus on achieving business goals and objectives is critical.
But as well as finding out about the latest advanced data services and technologies, this event was a great opportunity to step back from the day-to-day and be reminded of what needs to come first in any data strategy – achieving company goals, and measuring progress, in the form of clear KPIs which we can impact with data and analytics, before jumping in to make hasty data decisions. In this way, with a clear link between business goals and data, we can measure the return from data investments.
My main ‘don’t forget’ take-aways from the event:
- It’s about aligning data initiatives with business aims. At Big Data LDN, there was consistent messaging around an ‘outcome-first mindset’. To make sure you start with business outcomes and objectives before considering the data, software and platform. It’s a valuable mantra to operate by, to make sure you always deliver the right data science, BI or software.
- Focus on dis-benefits as well as benefits. As much as we focus on what things we should do to get value from data, we mustn’t lose focus on stopping doing the things we shouldn’t keep doing, or considering the opportunity and benefits lost when we overlook or don’t implement a particular data capability.
- A robust data strategy must show the benefits for each stakeholder. Different people need different things from a data strategy. To gain buy-in and approval from all stakeholders, you must clearly show each of them the value they will get. In return, you will get not only their sign-off, but also, more valuably, their advocacy.
A parting word
We all learned many things from Big Data LDN 2021 – For me, I’ve learned our industry collaboration and community of data experts is unquestionable. We know remote working works, but you can’t beat the energy of this in-person event to confirm why you love doing what you do. For me, sharing our data science insight, and learning more about our peers’ technologies and services was truly rewarding.
Big Data Challenge – Our survey respondents were asked their no.1 post-Covid data priority, and we received a real mixture of enlightening and some more predictable responses. We will share these challenges with you and explain how we can support in our analytic leadership series.
As a relatively new member of the Consulting Team, working alongside Rich Pugh, Jon will be working with our clients and supporting them through their data journeys. He brings significant expertise to the team from his experience in data maturity, data & analytics, data visualisations and implementing strategies that inform successful business change and improvement, from his previous roles at Oracle, EY, HP and IBM.
If you would like to speak to a member of our consulting team about your data-driven journey, please email us.
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