Elizabeth joins us on this episode to speak about using data as an effective tool for business and how the investment that you make in it should provide a good return. She also talks about the problem with buying software products without a real strategy, the excitement of running a blog and an online community, and the dangers of over-hiring and the resulting problems it is causing in the tech community. It should be the industry's responsibility to stop this practice. Elizabeth Press is Creator and Owner of D3M Labs, a data blog and community dedicated to getting value out of data. D3M Labs entails a blog, as well as in-person and online events, including the (in)famous D3M Labs Stammtisch. As a Director of Data and Head of Business Intelligence at Berlin-based scale-ups, Elizabeth built high performing, cross-domain data organizations, as well as has led the team largely responsible for one of the largest Series B fundraising for a European-based EdTech company from a Silicon Valley-based investor. 2015-2020 D3M Labs (1.0) was a data innovation and digitalization strategy consultancy, for which Elizabeth built a customer base on both sides of the Atlantic. Before D3M Labs, she built up and managed business intelligence and advanced analytics programs for Dell. Previous to working at Dell, Elizabeth worked in management consulting and comes with a background in both quantitative finance and buyer & seller-side due diligence.
Transcript:
David Bloxham (00:04.91)
Elizabeth, hi. Nice to meet you.
Elizabeth Press (00:07.673)
Nice to meet you too.
David Bloxham (00:09.352)
How are you today?
Elizabeth Press (00:10.853)
I'm great. And yourself?
David Bloxham (00:12.97)
I am not too bad. Yes, I'm it's a it's spring was April when we were doing this April 23. And the sun is finally out in Britain. So I know you're in Germany. So probably got the same, same sort of weather as us, but it's been a very cold, dark, rainy winter. So today actually feels like about the other side of it. I don't always like in Germany for you. Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (00:37.793)
In Berlin, it's pretty much the same. It's been, you know, rainy and sunny and even a bit snowy and haily, which is.
David Bloxham (00:45.85)
Thanks for watching!
Yeah, we want to get we want to get away from that get to the summer don't lose this. To bad news, but great to have you here and for our listeners benefit we've got Elizabeth press here and she is the creator and owner of the three M labs, which is a blog.
David Bloxham (01:18.29)
helpful talking to us in our data community but we're always interested in speaking to leaders in our network and we felt that it would be great to get Elizabeth on to have her own show as it were and talk here so welcome Elizabeth, it's been great to speak to you but obviously I've done a little bit of the introduction to D3M but you know where we always like to start is just to kind of understand from your side a little bit about the kind of the organization you represent
that you're trying to kind of get across in the blog and in the community.
Elizabeth Press (01:52.813)
Yeah, sure. So D3M is Data Driven Decisions and Data Driven Decision Making. And that is the name of the blog, the Data Driven Decision Making blog, but it's also coming from the fact that decisions are how we get value out of data. And the blog is really aimed at getting value out of data.
David Bloxham (02:00.158)
Very good.
David Bloxham (02:08.95)
Okay.
David Bloxham (02:16.6)
Mm.
Elizabeth Press (02:23.173)
I mean financial value. So how could companies and organizations manage their data teams and their data assets in a way that is financially profitable? And the way it came about was between 2015 and 2020, I call it D3M Labs 1.0. It was actually a consulting company where I worked with
David Bloxham (02:25.471)
Sure.
David Bloxham (02:49.97)
Right, okay.
Elizabeth Press (02:52.813)
startups and also corporates running data innovation programs. I then became a data leader. And then recently in October of twenty twenty two, there was some inspiration and I was able to scale the blog to other people and build this community to to really talk with each other about how we, as data practitioners, as data leaders,
David Bloxham (03:05.75)
Thanks for watching!
David Bloxham (03:15.057)
Mm.
Elizabeth Press (03:22.893)
and the adjacent professions and the investors, how we could all work together and actually make data work in a financially sustainable way.
David Bloxham (03:34.231)
And for yourself, obviously, because I've kind of looked at the blog, you know, and obviously the community and the consultancy. Two questions really. So as you made that decision to kind of move it more to, you know, a blog, I'm quite interested in that kind of element of that online community. You know, how did that, has that kind of changed your working practices?
background right in the past. Is it like going full circle back to when you were producing content, producing stories, that sort of thing? Is it quite exciting for you as a leader?
Elizabeth Press (04:13.373)
Yeah, yes, definitely. It's a completely different business model. The 2.0, the blog and the community is an advertising and sponsorship business model as opposed to a consulting business model and the work is completely different. So it's a lot about creating relevant content, getting the relevant conversation going and really building something that means a lot to a lot of people
David Bloxham (04:19.676)
Mm.
David Bloxham (04:24.25)
Yep.
David Bloxham (04:29.3)
Mm.
David Bloxham (04:34.078)
Mm.
David Bloxham (04:42.302)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (04:43.533)
you know, doing projects and bringing organizations forward, which is meaningful to people, but I feel like the blog is more brought to a broad base of people. And yes, the daily work is much more journalistic than like hands-on practitioner like.
David Bloxham (04:55.35)
Hmm.
David Bloxham (05:06.511)
do you kind of feel, you know, that you have to have that kind of innovation, because I always find for myself, it's quite kind of interesting when you think about kind of your daily activities, that sort of thing, if you have to kind of manage yourself slightly differently in terms of the kind of the way you work, because I guess, when you're working on a project, for an organization or an employer, there's a list of tasks, isn't there, that's kind of set out by the project, whereas this is
of as an entrepreneur, maybe more kind of, you know, down to yourself to kind of decide on a day to day basis, what's happening, where we're going, the vision itself.
Elizabeth Press (05:43.773)
in anything you need goals and you need processes. So people are surprised when I tell them that D3M Labs actually has processes. I have my own processes, how I get the people I interview, how I agree with them the scope of the work, how I get the content and create the content,
David Bloxham (05:47.421)
Mm.
David Bloxham (05:54.671)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (05:59.35)
Mm.
Elizabeth Press (06:13.953)
And the processes get more complicated over time as there's more elements that I put in. For example, SEO and Google Analytics and these things and how I organize my time. But I think especially when you're an entrepreneur and you're starting on your own thing, you need to be super duper organized. And I think processes are something you even need with one person to really
David Bloxham (06:19.67)
Yeah, yeah.
David Bloxham (06:25.361)
Mm.
David Bloxham (06:35.77)
Yeah, for sure.
Elizabeth Press (06:43.713)
scale.
David Bloxham (06:44.91)
Yeah, yeah. And I think yeah, this is important, isn't it? It's um, like writing a book or something like that, isn't it? You have to kind of drive yourself forward. And these are the things we're going to kind of do. But there's not maybe so many people to kind of pick you up on the other side, like a boss or, you know, an investor or something like that, you need to kind of, you know, have that drive. The other thing I think is really important about the three M. And I think this is obviously some, something we've already spoken about, is that what you're you're driving with the blog and driving with the
David Bloxham (07:14.89)
that people can use data both in terms of society and in terms of business, you know, you've mentioned a kind of financial kind of imperative, but just you feel that it can be improved within within the commercial and business world. So I think you're doing that from experience. But I guess that links into some kind of challenges that are there in the data world at the moment. And that's, you know, from my from my research within D3M, that's one of the things you're talking about quite a
categorize those key challenges, what is it that we're trying to improve here and what are the key tasks that need to happen.
Elizabeth Press (07:54.113)
Well, I think anytime you're looking at financial value, which is, let's say, return on investment, you have what you get out of it and what you put into it, the cost. So if we just categorize those two elements, there is the what you get out of it. So the insight, even an automated decision-making tool, like a recommendation engine or something like that, what do you get out of it?
David Bloxham (08:04.392)
Hmm.
Elizabeth Press (08:24.833)
And data needs to get much better at getting that value. So I think that first of all, the analysts who are the front lines to the business, they need to be able to be maybe embedded in the business, but there needs to be a focus on what the data is actually used for and the decision-making rather than coding or, you know, often analysts are,
David Bloxham (08:30.95)
Thanks for watching!
David Bloxham (08:36.016)
So.
David Bloxham (08:41.55)
Thanks for watching!
David Bloxham (08:45.79)
So, I guess, right now, we're gonna have to keep in mind that we're gonna have to get to the point where we're gonna have to cut this.
Elizabeth Press (08:55.053)
spending a lot of time coding, correcting code, doing things that are not analytical output. And I think that there needs to be a focus on that, but also a focus on stop the ad hoc work. And analysts are just sort of looking up information, but make analysts actually embedded in the decision-making process and make them part of the decision-making rather than just at the end of it. And I think that's how you
David Bloxham (09:12.093)
Thank you. Thank you.
Elizabeth Press (09:24.653)
more output. And I would say also in terms of an artificial intelligence or machine learning product, let's say like a recommendation engine, that is something also that needs to be managed in a very professional way. There's product management for data science products as well.
David Bloxham (09:43.707)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (09:48.03)
So what was involved, this is what we're going to do. So we're going to do some things. I'll get in the speakers in a bit. All right. Cut.
Elizabeth Press (09:54.133)
had in the last decade and really create a data science culture that is embedded in the business and where algorithmic products are managed just like any other product.
David Bloxham (10:07.615)
Yeah, yeah, I think it's, it's that kind of element of data sometimes in that it's when you're using words like analytics and science and even the word data, you know, people are obviously, you know, lay people and I can include myself in that. And this is where
So you kind of come from that background where you come from a journalist background, a functional background, international economics background, moving into data. So you kind of have empathy as it were for the, for the person that uses it, that uses the output, but doesn't really understand how the output is put together. You know, I think, for me, using understanding data you kind of read about what the output is but I guess you understand because you understand both sides, what more can actually be achieved.
and how it can be achieved better. So, you know, myself, if I see some data reports or your recommendation engine or something, I'm like, well, that's clever. That works really well, you know, but you know more what could actually be achieved if the investment was done correctly and the output was targeted in the right way.
Elizabeth Press (11:20.473)
Yeah, and so I would say then the other side of the equation is the cost side. And I think this really needs to be brought under control as well. And I think that what's changing now is you do see low code, no code coming out. You do see human understandable data pipelines. I think that these armies of junior coders who would integrate these very complicated
David Bloxham (11:25.65)
Sure.
David Bloxham (11:38.2)
Mm.
Elizabeth Press (11:50.453)
they were made to be complicated and often unnecessarily complicated data pipelines together and be forever fixing them. That generated huge amounts of costs. The cloud computing pay as you go, where people would make these queries that were completely not optimized and there would be no data governance and people would just leave queries running crazy costs for a long time and not look at that until the costs
David Bloxham (12:00.461)
Mm.
Elizabeth Press (12:21.053)
And I think that data has to grow up and it has to become more of a, like I don't want to say a normal, but more like any other function where costs are controlled, where there is governance. And I think that that really needs to grow up. So the data function has to grow up, but also stakeholders and the business has to grow up.
David Bloxham (12:33.313)
Mm.
David Bloxham (12:45.672)
you
Elizabeth Press (12:50.575)
question machine.
David Bloxham (12:52.15)
Yeah, you should have data driven decisions, but you should be able to make the best possible decisions with the best possible data, like you're saying, the best possible cost, right?
Elizabeth Press (13:04.093)
Yeah, and that needs product thinking. So you have to look at data output as a product, like anything else. We were talking about recommendation engines, but you also have things such as dashboards or even insights and deep dives, and these have to be properly scoped out. They have to be planned for, and that has to be able to be managed, and the data has to be managed like an asset.
David Bloxham (13:06.576)
Yep.
David Bloxham (13:18.888)
Yep.
Elizabeth Press (13:34.013)
Data is extremely expensive for a company to collect to keep. Data professionals are expensive and their time has to be managed much better and they have to also have the freedom to do that, not have this service desk working that many of them are forced into. Or that they have to.
David Bloxham (13:50.63)
Yeah, mentality. And one of the things we talk, one of the things we talk about quite a lot in the leader series, as a, as a kind of warning to all IT people is the Microsoft Excel question, which is, IT is working heavily to kind of implement a CRM system or a dashboard or a data set. And then, you know, salespeople have sat there with an MX, an Excel spreadsheet, basically doing all the things
that are being, might even spend hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds or euros to implement. And then someone's like, yeah, yeah, I've got a spreadsheet for that. And I think Microsoft's obviously invented a very clever tool when they invented Excel, which must wind IT people up intensely when they think, why are you using this spreadsheet when I've created this beautiful piece of software? Then you must also think, well, if someone could do it on an Excel spreadsheet,
pieces of data they want, right?
Elizabeth Press (14:53.693)
Yeah, I mean, Excel has stood the test of many innovation cycles and people trying to eradicate it from their organization. And yet it's still there. One has to give Microsoft credit for that. Now there's Google Sheets, but.
David Bloxham (14:54.75)
Thanks for watching!
David Bloxham (15:02.512)
Yeah
David Bloxham (15:08.41)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. We're everyone's trying to jump on the bandwagon, aren't they? But, but I think it's really, really important. And I think, you know, kind of coming back to that data question, the other kind of challenge that obviously we talked about quite a lot with, with data is the whole idea of the use of data itself in terms of, you know, the GDPR questions, obviously that we have in Europe, data protection, you know, cyber security, et cetera, et
essentially that as a data specialist, sometimes people are looking more for the output from the data. So therefore, you know, they're not thinking so much about the kind of the social challenges, etc, etc, that you have within the data. Or sometimes do you feel that sometimes people are kind of worrying too much about the data protection elements and the security elements, and they're not kind of, you know, trying to kind of challenge those to kind of
work through to get the best outputs. What do you think are the highest priorities for the data people that you speak to?
Elizabeth Press (16:19.113)
So I won't get into the politics of data privacy, okay? But I will say that I do see that sometimes schools or whatever, or volunteer groups sometimes struggle with GDPR and to try to get it right. So maybe there's something that needs to be done for those groups to make it more workable. But in terms of organizations and data, I think that data needs to grow up.
David Bloxham (16:23.252)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Bloxham (16:36.35)
Thanks for watching!
David Bloxham (16:41.313)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (16:49.213)
to maybe see these privacy elements as part of growing up. I mean, when you work in the financial sector, you also have compliance. Compliance is huge. So this is part of data actually becoming a grown-up function where you have to have governance, you have to have traceability, observability.
David Bloxham (16:57.15)
Thanks for watching!
David Bloxham (17:03.334)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (17:12.614)
Yep.
Elizabeth Press (17:19.273)
just be these like messy data sets everywhere that the way it has been for the past 10 years, like if you go to many organizations. So it's how you look at it. And I think it's really a chance to really take the organization to the executive level, like take the data organization to the executive
David Bloxham (17:34.63)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's really it.
David Bloxham (17:42.971)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (17:49.113)
type conversations and strategic conversations rather, and that needs to be the view of data. How could we actually use this compliance and these new elements that we have to take into account to make ourselves actually more viable, you know, rather. Yeah.
David Bloxham (17:51.7)
Hmm.
Yeah.
David Bloxham (18:11.35)
Yeah, more useful to the business. Yeah, yeah. And then rather than seeing it as a kind of an obstacle to get around, you know, if you're, I guess if you look at data like an asset, then the accountancy world is, you know, or the world of the accountancy team is, or finance is one that's one web that's respected. And, you know, it's kind of worked in a kind of grownup way, as you say, you know, and they expect to be audited every year, don't they? You know, full proper audit in terms of everything
from penny and pence or euro and cent, you know, in terms of, you know, what's happened, whereas, you know, other elements of the industry, that's really a kind of where they should kind of get to. So, you know, I think it's really interesting. And, you know, again, it's, it's that kind of dark art element of it, some, sometimes, even for C-suite people, you know, they're not necessarily so, so locked into how are we producing this data? What could we actually get from this data? How much is it costing us even? Is the cost the
costs? Could it be less? Could it be more? If I invested more, could I get more, you know, etc, etc. I think people are quite, quite in the dark after it, I guess, from doing something like V3M. That's what you're trying to help, like trying to, to kind of pull back the curtain somewhat and show people kind of how to overcome those challenges and what they should be expecting, right?
Elizabeth Press (19:34.033)
Yeah, it's to change behavior and to change the mindset. And I think the world is waking up to this. I mean, there's some rude awakenings like interest rates. So money isn't so cheap anymore. And there is more of a cost to the burn rate, okay? Data has been part of this burn rate, let's put it out there. And then there's all these layoffs. So, you know, people have gotten consequences
David Bloxham (19:43.49)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
David Bloxham (19:51.513)
Yeah.
Mm.
David Bloxham (20:03.634)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (20:04.293)
to this sort of behavior. And I think that this is, I think that there is something out there in the community and that's, I think why D3M Labs is getting much bigger and growing is because people realize, look, we have to get better. We have to actually be able to observe the data. We have to be able to produce value in a much more visible way
David Bloxham (20:32.095)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (20:35.134)
going forward if we want to have stable livelihood, if we want to get somewhere in our careers, these sorts of also very personal aspirations as well.
David Bloxham (20:39.05)
Thanks for watching!
Mm.
David Bloxham (20:48.111)
Yeah. Yeah. So if we look at, you know, the, you know, one of our target was the leaders, you know, that will be listening to this and if they're struggling maybe with their data teams and how to improve, obviously, the first thing they should do is, is become a member of D3M and then read, read, read your advice or maybe even reach out to you Elizabeth, and they help me.
David Bloxham (21:16.51)
What sort of structures should they set up to have a more successful data team?
Elizabeth Press (21:22.213)
Well, they need to understand the business because data is a function that doesn't exist for itself. It exists within the fabric of a business. So they need to understand what the business strategy is. And on the other hand, the people like at the top, the C-suite, the CEO has to involve the data people from the beginning. There needs to be a mindset change as well. The data people can't, you know,
David Bloxham (21:24.911)
Hmm.
David Bloxham (21:29.434)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (21:33.45)
Hmm.
David Bloxham (21:45.81)
Sure.
David Bloxham (21:49.15)
you
Elizabeth Press (21:52.313)
always trying to get into the room. But then also the data people have to become more business minded data has to become a business function. And I think that the real killer of I would say the ability of a data function to create ROI is the fact that it is seen as an IT function when it is
David Bloxham (21:57.75)
Thanks for watching!
David Bloxham (22:17.391)
Yeah. Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (22:22.393)
to the business. And data will be used either to drive good decision-making as well as to be part of the product, to be a smart, you know, there's the smart devices, the algorithmic products, so also automated processes. Data is the part of, is an integral part of any modern enterprise.
David Bloxham (22:25.65)
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for watching!
David Bloxham (22:33.25)
Thanks.
David Bloxham (22:50.37)
Yeah, I guess it links into something like human resources, which is obviously the element that GCS works in, and the change over the last few years for it to become talent. Obviously, talent's a cool world, but I think it definitely changes the game somewhat in terms of the asset of having human beings. And what you're talking about here is having the asset of data and how you best use it in the same way as you should look at your workforce
how can we best use those? It's not just a number, it's an asset, right?
Elizabeth Press (23:25.514)
Yeah, exactly.
David Bloxham (23:27.71)
Yeah, and then do you I mean, when you kind of work with with organizations, when you when you think about, you know, how the business kind of works, and that's the thing, what are the first kind of pieces of advice that you give to, to other kind of data leaders and people that you're kind of working with when people first kind of come into the D3M world? How do you, how do you kind of set off to kind of on that path to having good data management and good data out?
Elizabeth Press (23:58.033)
Well, I will say that it's a blog and a data community. So it's people get into the discussions in how the discussions are going on at the moment. So there's, so it's, a lot of people are, you know, hearing about this from their friends and I post on LinkedIn a lot. There's a newsletter that people could sign up for and they look at the newsletter and they forward it to their friends.
David Bloxham (23:59.275)
you
David Bloxham (24:02.721)
Mm.
David Bloxham (24:08.334)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (24:21.45)
Thanks for watching!
Elizabeth Press (24:28.153)
colleagues. So it's generally people get interested in a topic that we're talking about. And the topics are very varied. And they're also brought up by the community. So there are a lot of guest bloggers and also teams that co host round tables and decision labs. And it's really based on people's interest. And that's what it's driven by. And of course, you know, I do do things like, I listen
David Bloxham (24:30.95)
Thanks for watching!
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (24:58.213)
and you know the news and also from my own experience I bring up topics so it's sort of like a crowd source way to get the topic so it people will come in based on the topics that we're talking about at the moment and they'll stay because they find the conversation very interesting.
David Bloxham (25:04.414)
Yeah, I tell you, it's still something that...
David Bloxham (25:18.73)
That's great. That's quite interesting, exciting, sorry for you to see this, you know, this is, you know, like your creation kind of coming, coming alive in front of you, right? You know, I guess you're looking at the impression, looking at the kind of the membership numbers, looking at the amount of new content, you know, you wake up in the morning, and there's a new thread on there. And you're like, Wow, I didn't even do this. You know, must be must be exciting for you to see.
Elizabeth Press (25:42.493)
Yeah, I mean, what's really interesting is that it impacts people's lives. So a lot of data people are immigrants or migrants, whatever you want to call them. People who move between countries and a lot of people who end up at the D3M labs, Stomptisch, that's like a regulars table, like every, these monthly meetings
David Bloxham (25:48.05)
Hmm.
David Bloxham (25:54.955)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (26:06.45)
Thanks for watching!
Elizabeth Press (26:12.413)
from other countries to Germany and they're just meeting people and they write a blog or they get interviewed and they'll be sharing it with their parents and everything. So it's also very personal to people. And I see that people also make a lot of personal contacts. They recruit each other. They also hang out with each other.
David Bloxham (26:24.872)
Hmm.
David Bloxham (26:28.871)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (26:43.092)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (26:43.338)
And I think that that's really interesting.
David Bloxham (26:47.07)
And from that community at the moment, obviously, you mentioned a little bit about layoffs there, obviously, you're really hearing how people are seeing the world at this moment. And we know for everyone, it's been a challenging few years. And, you know, let's put it into kind of relations for some people in some countries, even more challenging, right, the 21st century or Western problems. But what's the sort of kind of sense you're getting from your community in terms of their
David Bloxham (27:17.37)
and what are your thoughts about it? Because obviously we're talking about cost and investment here, and it does seem that, you know, businesses are taking a quite a harsh stance at the moment on over-hires within the tech community and making quite a lot of quite drastic cutbacks. So firstly, what is your community saying about that and what's their feeling?
Elizabeth Press (27:42.393)
Well, at every Stammtisch or, you know, at these monthly meetings, people ask who's unemployed. It's like the first question when people come in, do you have your job or have you found a job? So that is a huge part of the conversation is people's employment status. And of course, the impact of that. And as I said, a lot of the people are newcomers to Germany. So I've been here
David Bloxham (27:49.792)
Yep.
David Bloxham (27:53.434)
Yeah.
Thanks for watching!
Mm.
David Bloxham (28:04.813)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (28:11.75)
Thanks for watching!
Elizabeth Press (28:12.333)
I know this country, I speak this language, and I have a pretty stable existence here. A lot of people who've been laid off are coming from very different countries, don't have a stable status, don't have money necessarily, and have to deal with things like losing their apartments, which they're subletting, or they're like three layers of subletting, trying to find a job in a country
David Bloxham (28:23.978)
Hmm.
David Bloxham (28:34.45)
Yep, and going on tours and...
Elizabeth Press (28:42.713)
not being able to get employment benefits because they don't understand the system or... So there's a lot of issues going on now. Housing, there's a big housing crisis here. So, you know, when you're from some other country and you look very different from the native population here and you don't speak the language, you don't have a job and your savings are like that little, how do you find accommodation here?
David Bloxham (28:48.314)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (29:05.671)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (29:12.753)
So I think that there is a lot of, I would say, serious problems that have come in the wake of this that actually I am seeing through my community and people do ping me on LinkedIn, you know, for help with these things. And it's actually really sad for me sometimes because I can't help people find apartments or these things, but I do see that this is the consequence
David Bloxham (29:20.134)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (29:38.05)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (29:41.65)
That's right. And I guess that links into in some ways, the way I see it is exactly what you're saying, because if something can't show value, how can I say it sounds too harsh? You always say like, whenever there's job cuts, people say, oh, the marketing or talent are the first to go because they don't provide value straight away. And generally it's like the salespeople,
Elizabeth Press (29:42.415)
for hiring.
David Bloxham (30:11.65)
because they're the ones kind of selling, right? So it's quite easy to see a salesperson's relevant output because they've just made a sale that's worth a million and everyone's excited about it. And I guess that goes back to what you're saying about data is that, you know, in your community, if the data community can't show its value to, you know, the people that make business decisions about heads and human resources or talent,
then they are quite vulnerable, aren't they?
Elizabeth Press (30:46.553)
Yeah, this is definitely the issue. I think also, I mean, this is a very complex problem in the social aspects of it, but I do think it's A, the value and B, the cost. And I think this tooling, I talk a lot about the culture of tooling and this needs to change as well. I think people buy too many tools, okay? And then they integrate them
David Bloxham (30:51.113)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (30:56.17)
100% yeah.
David Bloxham (31:02.571)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (31:16.393)
Okay, just for the lay people here, what do you mean by tooling? Just do I know? Right, okay.
Elizabeth Press (31:21.573)
Like a software package, like a piece of software that does a specific thing. And then you usually have to pay some subscription fee to it. And it's a problem that when new managers come in, they buy tools. Or because you have people who are so interested in the tools, they buy the tools. And just there's so many. Yeah, there's still changes. And then they have to integrate all the tools.
David Bloxham (31:27.45)
Всё.
you
David Bloxham (31:36.234)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (31:41.85)
ac mae'n cael ymlaen i'r gwaith yng Nghymru. Mae'n cael y gwaith yng Nghymru.
Elizabeth Press (31:50.733)
resources and then they buy, then they have to pay for more people. And it's just this ever growing amount of complexity that creates the need for more headcount. And it's really, what's the source of all of this? It's technocracy. Techno, so where people are just focused on the very interesting
David Bloxham (31:55.035)
Yep.
David Bloxham (32:00.935)
Yep.
David Bloxham (32:04.071)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (32:10.535)
Yep.
David Bloxham (32:18.521)
Mm.
Elizabeth Press (32:20.733)
in the finances and it's people not taking into account the complexity every time you make a new tool or every time you buy a new tool you have this like tool you have like the drag of human capital that you need to support the tool and this is something that people don't understand or they
David Bloxham (32:21.992)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (32:28.972)
Mm.
David Bloxham (32:39.092)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (32:49.47)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess.
Elizabeth Press (32:50.613)
actually touch the light.
David Bloxham (32:53.15)
Okay.
Elizabeth Press (32:54.053)
Yeah, I actually talked to a lot of vendors about this. And this is something new coming from being a data leader to now blogging is I get to really have great conversations with the vendors that I never had before. And I'm learning that vendors are seeing this as a problem because I thought, OK, whatever. I'm a vendor and I just sell the tool. And that's great because I just want to sell and sell and sell. And that's how I make money as a vendor.
David Bloxham (32:57.072)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (33:03.55)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (33:08.37)
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
David Bloxham (33:23.59)
What you want is renewals, isn't it? You want them to say, actually, I've had it for two years, so I want it even more, and actually I want more of it. We're only gonna do that if it actually has proved to be useful for you, right?
Elizabeth Press (33:24.06)
on this.
Elizabeth Press (33:30.054)
Yeah!
Elizabeth Press (33:35.833)
Yeah, and then they say, yeah, but then it's not really that great what's going on because we get the sales, but we don't get the renewals and we get unhappy customers and yeah.
David Bloxham (33:44.33)
Yeah, yeah. And implementing for the vendor costs money. So they probably write off the first year of the contract because they have to implement it. And the way they really make money is the second and the third year, which is like, right, okay, it's working for you now. Would you like more licenses or another five years of the happy customer says, yes, please, I really need that. So the whole customer success element is so important. And we see it in recruitment as well
is a really important thing. One last question I have in a very interesting kind of conversation, but I'm just quite kind of interested in, in the kind of, you know, I've asked a few people about this, the kind of the AI elements of, of all of this, you know, how you feel, you know, maybe the, you know, there's a lot of moves and talks about kind of, you know, AI, chat, GPT, that sort of thing in the moment. You know, how do you think that will kind of, you know, affect the, the
on a few quick kind of moments if you think it will have a real kind of effect on the world that you inhabit.
Elizabeth Press (34:50.913)
I think that making things human understandable and making processes able to be kicked off and managed in human understandable language rather than code is very valuable because that makes actually coding, which is a huge bottleneck, actually the ability to,
David Bloxham (35:03.633)
Yeah.
David Bloxham (35:09.133)
Yeah, yeah.
Elizabeth Press (35:21.673)
is a huge expense bottleneck, and it actually removes that. And it makes us able to focus on the architecture, on the business question, on value stream. And that's huge. And I find that a huge opportunity. And I think in terms of recruiting, what it's gonna do is people are going to look probably much more focused,
David Bloxham (35:21.81)
Yeah, yeah.
David Bloxham (35:33.452)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Bloxham (35:41.478)
Okay.
David Bloxham (35:47.676)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (35:50.993)
It's probably going to help the over hiring because this bottle, this expensive bottleneck of always needing these junior coders to, you know, you, yeah, these are go.
David Bloxham (35:54.377)
I think so, yeah.
David Bloxham (35:59.31)
Yeah, do the code as well. Yeah, yeah. Because in the end, what it links into is a question you can put together. So a data set for your business, whatever data set you could write. I've been playing around with these types of things and you can get them to kind of create things for you. You can get them to create things. I mean, there's elements that you can't do. Obviously, I think it is, there's elements of emperor's new clothes if you ask it some questions. And it's like, if I ask it who's gonna win the premiership this year in soccer, it never, it can't give me the right answer.
that's because it doesn't know live data does it and that's the thing but I think overall it's it's a very kind of interesting kind of aspect of it and like you said you know I mean I'm just just thinking to myself about kind of data in terms of you know when when the printing press and kind of writing and all that sort of stuff you know when that used to be just monks that you could write couldn't it you know you could only there was only certain people that
David Bloxham (36:59.33)
ways was kind of held within a very small amount of people. I guess what your argument is, is sometimes that's like what programmers are. You know, they're like kind of very specialist people that can't do stuff, whereas this element of actually looking at what they do and how they do it and what you actually want to get out of your business, you know, you want to be able to make data-driven decisions as a business person, don't you? And you want to be able to have the right data that you need. And I think what you're arguing is, let's try and make that as easily
accessible and as useful as we possibly can.
Elizabeth Press (37:32.873)
Yeah, that's exactly, and I love that analogy to the monks.
David Bloxham (37:37.252)
Yeah.
Elizabeth Press (37:38.913)
Because I mean, people learning to read did not put monks out of business. They're still around. There was maybe other things that put monks out of business, but it wasn't the printing press.
David Bloxham (37:43.513)
No?
David Bloxham (37:49.71)
No, that's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I still say still must be a few months. They know they're kind of well, they've got their vows of silence and they're making wine and honey and that sort of thing instead now, aren't they, with the monks. So yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think not very often you'll get the monks and data scientists. But, you know, we feel me and Elizabeth feel they're very similar. So there we go. Good stuff.
Elizabeth Press (38:15.633)
That's actually a really good analogy. They were the keepers of this knowledge in the medieval ages. And then at one point, it got democratized.
David Bloxham (38:23.95)
Exactly, exactly. You know, socially, if we really want to go into history, that calls a lot about people, doesn't it, in terms of religious wars and that sort of thing. But hey, this is the wrong podcast for that sort of stuff.
Elizabeth Press (38:37.073)
Yeah, that's actually opening up a whole lot of interesting conversations. You can have another podcast, you can have a whole series based on it.
David Bloxham (38:44.614)
Exactly. Yeah, fantastic. Good stuff. Well, and great to speak to you today. I've really enjoyed the conversation. A little plug, if you're going to give the URL there, Elizabeth, just so if you want to kind of go onto the D3M website and have a look, what is it?
Elizabeth Press (39:01.637)
www.d3mlabs.de
David Bloxham (39:01.95)
you
David Bloxham (39:06.05)
you
David Bloxham (39:09.21)
the fantastic and it's got some really great resources, really interesting conversations and something that if you're interested in data or leading a business that is making data driven decisions is definitely one I would suggest you kind of go and have a look at. I definitely have been. Thank you very much Elizabeth. Sorry Karen.
Elizabeth Press (39:26.596)
And sign up for our newsletter too. Every month we also send a digest of a lot of different thought leadership.
David Bloxham (39:34.07)
Brilliant, fantastic. Elizabeth, thank you very much for your time and I hope you have a great day. Thank you.
Elizabeth Press (39:39.333)
Thanks.
