DataConnect2024: Telling the data story

If you weren’t at the DataConnect 2024 conference, hosted by our friends Women in Analytics here in Columbus, Ohio, then I gotta tell you that you missed out on hearing from some absolutely incredible women doing brilliant things with data.

This year’s theme, “The Path to AI, Adoption, Integration, and Alignment,” set the stage for two days of thought-provoking discussions and presentations from leaders in the industry.

The conference featured an impressive line-up of keynote speakers. From Dr. Joy Buolamwini, author of national bestseller Unmasking AI, to AI ethicist Olivia Gambelin, the topics ranged across various landscapes of AI and data analytics. 

But one thing rooted them all together: stories. 

Each of the speakers were either women or gender non-conforming individuals who told stories about their data experiences. I got to chat with several of them, and I want to share some of the most critical conversations I had and what I took away.

Data operations cost containment

I’ll start with Lindsay Murphy, a data leader with 13 years of experience who has successfully launched and led data teams at startups including BenchSci, Maple, and Secoda. She now hosts a weekly podcast called Women Lead Data. Her talk was about managing cost containment.

Something I didn’t know, because I’m often not working on the pricing side of things, is that until recently, most cloud providers operated at fixed-cost terms and only recently switched to a variable use-based pricing model. Many of the attendees nodded as she shared clear examples where budgets for data operations exploded. 

However, Lindsay shared some practical tips to help to minimize costs, some as simple as changing the auto-suspend of your databases after a query is completed from five minutes to one minute. She found cost savings of 64%, a testament to the power of small changes.

A solution for scalable, multi-modal Vector DBs

I met with Vishakha Gupta, CEO of Aperture Data, who offered valuable insights into the challenges of managing unstructured data for AI and ML workloads. Her experience spans years in Intel’s Science and Technology center, focusing on machine learning, and she later went on to found her own company and her own database technology to help companies solve really complex problems with Graph and Vector Databases. 

Her work is helping to address a growing need in the industry as database complexity continues to increase, and her solutions are driving scalable, multi-modal Vector DBs for organizations to benefit from.

Data as an asset and revenue driver, not cost center

Morgan Templar, who I met at the DataConnect 2023 conference, is the CEO of First CDO Partners. She shared with me her expertise on communicating the value of data to business leaders. She has a book coming out soon where she writes about the importance of getting your CFO aligned to the data needs of the organization, and viewing the data organization as an asset and revenue driver, not a cost center. 

Morgan’s concept of a “DataBank” - allocating a portion of project ROI to fund data initiatives - could revolutionize how data teams secure funding and resources. This is something that I commonly hear across my conversations with data product managers, and I’ll be excited to read more when her book is published.

A more holistic approach to assessing data initiatives 

There was Kim Thies, CEO of Abea Data, who talked about her concept of the “League of Extraordinary Women” - superhero female personas representing different roles in data projects. 

Her focus in her talk was updating the ROI calculations for data projects to include context, strategy, and qualitative benefits that offer a more holistic approach to assessing data initiatives. For my Data Mesh friends reading this, she started Abea Data with Jean-Georges Perrin (JGP as many of you know him by).

Leveraging public data for more transparency

I sat and listened to Dr. Elizabeth Crow’s presentation on leveraging public data for city operations to improve services in Cleveland. She articulated four principles for solving data problems in city governance, at the executive order of Mayor Justin Bibb. 

What was most compelling is how her small team helped make data more accessible across the various operational departments in the city and provided transparency to the data assets they had available, all while modernizing the technology in clear and concise ways. 

Using data to drive meaningful change in complex global issues

Keynote speaker Avishan Bodjnoud, chief information management officer for the United Nations Departments of Peace Operations, Political Affairs, and Peacebuilding, shared her experience of leaving a war-torn homeland in search of a chance to make global peace. 

She provided a story about the use of data to augment the stories of those affected by extreme violence and conflict, underscoring the potential of data to drive meaningful change in complex global issues when the narrative behind it is rooted in caring for those suffering from violence. 

Stories and narratives that ground the data

These were just some of the takeaway speakers, and all of them shared their tactical and strategic perspectives rooted in stories. They had heroes, a challenge to overcome, and just the right data to support the next decision their hero made. 

It’s the story and narrative that are important to ground the context of data, and I think it’s one of the most important things we often fail to recognize with our data work: “What’s the story our data is conveying?” and "how do we write that story in a compelling way?"

If you’re in the data field, the DataConnect Conference is every July in Columbus, OH. It’s a rare opportunity to engage in a women-led conversation about cutting-edge ideas, innovations, and inspiration in the industry of data that bridges across public, private, nonprofit, and activist sectors. You gain practical insights that can be applied to your own work, and the opportunity to connect with diverse leaders in this space. 

As the data landscape continues to rapidly evolve, conferences like DataConnect play a crucial role in staying informed and connected. Data has the power to transform our businesses, our communities, and even global peacekeeping efforts. Be sure to register in 2025 for the next DataConnect conference!