In order to truly be effective in making data-driven decisions, every individual in your organization needs to buy into a data culture that is established by data experts and promoted by internal champions across all functions. Each member of the team, regardless of age, experience, job level, and area of expertise has some familiarity with IoT devices, and in some way has been influenced by big data. So they should be aware of how important data is to improving operations within an organization. It is also imperative that a data vision and strategy are established and clearly communicated by those who hold leadership positions at the company. Within an organization, a data culture should not only be associated with the analytics teams and projects that are apparent, instead, a data culture should encourage members of the entire organization to ask questions, explore current processes and/or available information, and come up with creative solutions that might answer those questions. Employees who work at organizations with strong data cultures are not afraid of failure, instead they take advantage of the learning opportunities provided to them and experiment until they find success. An idea that can increase learning opportunities internally is to schedule in-house roundtables where employees across functions can present a project he or she is working on, in order to gain feedback and produce a better output. The projects presented during these, also end up stronger because experts from backgrounds that might have never seen the work can provide input. Hosting an event like this quarterly is consistent enough to keep long-term projects on track and build stronger teams, but the frequency can be increased based on the needs of the group. Additionally, these internal teams can help them members of an organization avoid falling into the confirmation bias trap by holding others accountable and ensuring data is presented in an honest and truthful way. One practice that has helped some organizations become market leaders and produce some of the most innovative offerings is the 20 percent Project initiative. Stemming from some earlier practices that formally set aside time for employees to take on creative side-projects, the 20 percent Project became popular in 2004, when Google's co-founders proposed the idea in the company's IPO letter. The letter states, "We encourage our employees, in addition to the regular projects, to spend 20 percent of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google. This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner." For Google, prototypes developed through the 20 percent Project led to the creation of Gmail, Google Maps, and AdSense. Outside of Google, other famous examples of 20 percent Project innovations include Twitter, Slack, and Groupon. These projects are just the byproduct of some of the more important benefits here: collaboration, critical thinking, and a feeling of ownership within the organization. When employees have flexible time formally set aside to think through current challenges, they can go through a full creative problem-solving process and explore solutions without the crushing weight of a deadline or high expectations. It is a highly constructive practice that has led to some of the most innovative technologies we use today. There are some resources outside of the organization that can help bring new ideas and practices to your work. Each year, some of the largest analytics and data visualization platforms host conferences where thousands of attendees from across the country can learn new practices from industry experts. Since each panel or session has been vetted by the company hosting the event, it's guaranteed that the information will be current, accurate, and valuable to users. In addition, some companies encourage formal meetups in different cities. Tableau is one of the best examples of this. Tableau user groups or TUGs could be found in most cities and are some of the best attended data visualization events that are offered. These user group meetups usually involve a hands-on activity for attendees to learn new skills, a presentation by an industry professional, and a presentation by a Tableau employee who is an expert in his or her field. A template does not exist for fostering a data culture because it relies heavily on the current organizational environment. If leadership has created an environment that encourages open and honest conversation, collaboration across all the job functions, and already has buy-in from key stakeholders, it will be much easier to implement a data strategy and create a data culture.
