I’ve read a lot about data infrastructure this week. Every time I dig a bit deeper, I’m amazed by the number of new tools. How can one keep up with all the development? And not even hands on, just knowing what’s out there?

Beyond that, an article about the importance of the CDO role and one about data literacy made it on the list today.

• Making the business case for a chief data officer: Increasing number of companies are appointing a CDO. But the results-oriented executives often question the business value added by a CDO and — consequently — data…

Data is increasingly important for business success. Companies are spending greatly on data infrastructure and data professionals alike. Yet, leading opinion-makers are warning that it might not be enough.

Data literacy — the ability to read, work with, analyse and communicate with data — is lacking in the majority of organisations. As a consequence, these organisations are not able to fully use the vital business resource of data to their business advantage. Leading voices are now advising on how to assess data literacy and how to boost it.

Data advocates and fanatics

There are many initiatives aiming at training people to become data literate…

The week has brought some interesting news in the world of data. First, Belgian start-up Soda — building a data monitoring tool — has raised $11.5 million in the series A funding, which is great news for the growing data quality space. Likewise, Databricks closed their $1 billion round G resulting in a mind-boggling $28 billion valuation (with $425M ARR!!). And finally, the new CEO of Amazon will be the current head of AWS.

It is a pleasing reassurance of the importance of data on the scale of small start-ups, large tech companies plus the massive ones!

Moving on, what…

Predictably, most of the reading I did this week came through two sources: (1) what others were sharing (on LinkedIn, Twitter, newsletters or directly with me); and (2) what I read when preparing for work-related projects. I generally like to combine these because the first usually widens my horizons and the second deepens my understanding.

Can you tell, which article came from which source?

• Can you make AI fairer than a judge? Play our courtroom algorithm game: With the rise of AI & ML, models and engines are making decisions influencing people’s lives. One question being raised is: How can…

Chief data scientists are typically recruited from a pool of talented data scientists. And though the transition from talented to chief sounds like a small and logical step, the role is very different.

Data scientists are solving problems in the front line. Every day they are sharpening their technical, coding, problem-solving and communication skills. Some aspire to become chief data scientists. And when they finally get the position, they are amazed by how different the new role is.

Personally, I struggled with not building models, learning new technologies, studying new methods and trying them out all day, every day. I…

I saw the image above in a blog post by Sandeep Uttamchandani about examples of what can go wrong in a machine learning project. People often read these articles as funny anecdotes that can never happen to them. Machine learning projects usually require significant investment (talent, time, and technology). Accordingly, it would be a mistake to think that the probability of making a mistake is more important than what would be its consequences.

Also, I subscribed to yet another newsletter — Machine Learning Ops Roundup. Check it out if MLOps is of interest to you.

But now, let’s get into…

My week, apart from being extremely busy, was epitomised by data visualisations. Until this week, I’d found most of the visualisations I enjoyed either through The Big Picture, FiveThirtyEight or randomly. Whereas, I stumbled across the visualisation of 645 hours of watching series! It is noteworthy for two reasons. Firstly, it reminded me how lucky I have been with Covid-restrictions in Switzerland having spent almost the same time on my bike last year. But more importantly, it navigated me to new sources of great data visualisations — @VeryData_365, #MakeoverMonday and the whole community around it.

Other topics on this week’s…

Data is powering our economy. Businesses are using data to make better decisions, refine operations and create new revenue streams. Or are they?

Companies are certainly amassing vast amounts of data every day. Whilst the number (and variety) of data professionals on their payrolls is growing each year. Yet, data technology isn’t for free — as skyrocketing revenues from the large tech companies attest.

“Hope is not a strategy.” — Benjamin Ola Akande

While many companies are investing fortunes into data, data professionals and data technology, Gartner and others are consistently reporting devastating failure rates of data science projects.

Apparently, throwing money and talent at data — potentially a…