The Rise of Data Literacy
Data literacy is a critical skill for organizations to be successful
Certain revolutions and inventions have changed the world’s landscape: the assembly line, automobiles and airplanes, personal computers and cell phones, social media and so forth.
Currently, the world is sitting in a digital and data revolution, one that just a few years ago wouldn’t have even crossed our minds. As we go throughout our days, common phrases that deal with this revolution can be heard: Big Data, Augmented Intelligence and so on; so many things are being described as data or data driven that it is hard to go through an organization where it is not top of mind. One of the big puzzle pieces that has driven this revolution is the speed and size of data today.
As computing power, the advent of the Internet of Things and inexpensive storage have changed the face of data, we are accumulating data at unimaginable rates. An articlefrom the end of 2016 has this to say about the year 2017: “More data was created in the last two years than the previous 5,000 years of humanity. In 2017, we will create even more data in one year alone.” Just how is all this data being created? Intel stated that: “Our IoT world is growing at a breathtaking pace, from 2 billion objects in 2006 to a projected 200 billion by 2020. That will be around 26 smart objects for every human being on Earth!” That is a lot of data.
As data has grown and accelerated, the ability for companies to create amazing data analysis has also accelerated. With all this new data and desire to be data driven decision organizations, there has been one unfortunate thing to lag: the proper skill-set to fully utilize this data. The Harvard Business Review has said: “The shortage of data scientists is becoming a serious constraint in some sectors.” This was said back in 2012. Fast forward to today, where even more data is being produced and the workforce has created an actual skills-gap. Now, we don’t all need to be Data Scientists, but we all need to be data literate.
What does the term data literate mean? It means that the rise of data literacy is upon us and we need to ensure we all have the following data literacy skills: read, interpret and converse with, understand and analyze data. And that’s exactly my role here at Qlik: build and deliver a new Data Literacy Program designed to teach you these core skills. Join me in the Qlik Continuous Classroom today and check out my learning modules! Organizations need the tools and culture necessary to help them achieve their desires to be data driven machines. Are you ready?
