Gartner - Information as a Second Language: Enabling Data Literacy for Digital Society
Digital society expects its citizens to “speak data.” Unless data and analytics leaders treat information as the new second language of business, government and communities, they will not be able to deliver the competitive advantage and agility demanded by their enterprises.
Key Challenges
■ Poor data literacy is the second highest inhibitor to progress, as reported by respondents to
Gartner’s third annual Chief Data Oficer Survey, behind culture change and just ahead of lack of talent and skills.
■ An information language barrier exists across business units and IT functions, rooted in
ineffective communication across a wide range of diverse stakeholders. As a result, data and
analytics leaders struggle to get their message across and information assets go underutilized.
■ Although academic and professional programs are beginning to address the disparity in talent and skills, in many cases they reinforce the information language barrier with narrow content focus, bias toward tools training, and lack of contextualization by role.
■ While conversant in the “people, process and technology” capabilities of business models,
many C-level executives and professionals do not speak data fluently as the new critical
capability of the digital era. Data and analytics leaders must need new ways to bridge this gap.
■ Poor data literacy is the second highest inhibitor to progress, as reported by respondents to
Gartner’s third annual Chief Data Oficer Survey, behind culture change and just ahead of lack of talent and skills.
■ An information language barrier exists across business units and IT functions, rooted in
ineffective communication across a wide range of diverse stakeholders. As a result, data and
analytics leaders struggle to get their message across and information assets go underutilized.
■ Although academic and professional programs are beginning to address the disparity in talent and skills, in many cases they reinforce the information language barrier with narrow content focus, bias toward tools training, and lack of contextualization by role.
■ While conversant in the “people, process and technology” capabilities of business models,
many C-level executives and professionals do not speak data fluently as the new critical
capability of the digital era. Data and analytics leaders must need new ways to bridge this gap.
Recommendations
For data and analytics leaders, in support of their programs:
■ Cultivate information as a second language (ISL) across business and IT stakeholders by
establishing the base vocabulary, clarifying industry and business domain “dialects,” and
developing levels of proficiency.
■ Drive and sustain improvements to your organization’s data literacy by identifying areas where data is spoken fluently, where language gaps exist, and establish an ISL proof of concept for language development.
■ Change the way you and others interact with leaders, stakeholders and peers by speaking data in context in everyday interactions with colleagues, managers and even executives and board members, and as a basis for outcomes-oriented business cases.
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