How the term “Data Culture” was born
IN [теперь уже] Back in 2019, we were developing a new strategy for promoting Business Analytics in Russia: we believed in the product and considered the market to be greatly undervalued, but there was no one to sell: we had already walked the market well, the name “Qlik” was well known to everyone and we already had a good customer base. But we wanted more…
The fact is that the number of consumers of business analytics is quite small – these are either business analysts themselves, or management, for whom these analysts prepare reports. There are a countable number of management in the company, and there are also analysts: well, how many business analysts can there be in the commercial department or marketing department? 5, 10? Well – 40, and this is in a very large company. Well, plus finances. Plus logistics. A couple more licenses for the staff. And that’s all – 100 licenses are purchased for a huge retail network, and that’s enough. Of course, the first idea on how to increase the use of analytical tools is to lower them to a lower level (or better yet, 2-3 levels), to make analytical tools available to a wider range of employees, preferably not just for everyone, but for all employees who works with information.
The idea is simple and understandable, but forming a strategy took some time: I was toying with the idea of making business analytics accessible to everyone, with trainings and free learning – but these were only isolated elements. And suddenly my colleague Alexey Galkov, who at that time held the position of commercial director of Qlik in Russia, drew attention to the amazing initiative of the central office, in whose department the “Data Literacy” department appeared, and which headed Jordan Morrow. It was thanks to him that the joint project between Qlik and Accenture took place.”Human Impact of Data Literacy”during which 9,000 professionals were surveyed to find out their current data skills, as well as their proficiency in a particular tool, and how this skill affects their success.
So, there is an idea, the term “Data Literacy” also exists, there is even a department for Data Literacy! Only in Russia no one even knows about this “literacy”…
Well, we sat down to think about the three of us: I was accompanied by Alexey Galkov and Andrey Demidov – a visualization guru, always boiling with new ideas, a brilliant organizer, who subsequently helped us promote a new philosophy of working with data. They began to discuss a new initiative, and I got the job of translating the terms. Well, of course, Data – Data, Literacy – Literacy. How to submit it correctly? Data literacy? Why not “Information Literacy”? And if we take “Information Literacy”, how does it differ from “Computer Literacy”? Well, if a term is not clear, then people go to the encyclopedia to interpret it. But… this term was not found either in Wikipedia, or, moreover, in any dictionary! Fortunately, at least I had “computer literacy”, at least something to rely on.
This is how I became the author of a number of Wikipedia articles (which are constantly deleted, by the way), such as “Information literacy“, which describes the literacy of working with information – search, verification, checking sources for reliability, and so on, as well as “Data culture” And “Data literacy“by analogy with “Visual Literacy”, and a number of others. So, we already had articles, definitions and research on “why you need to be able to work with data”, it remains to bring this to the market. But about this – in another part.
This is how history is written – now the terms “Data Literacy” and “Data Driven Company” are known and used everywhere, but its first use and even the translation that is familiar to everyone is the work of three enthusiasts.
