At last week’s Texas Digital Government Summit in Austin, the breakout session “Data Is the New Bacon” looked at ways agencies may be falling short in leveraging the value of data as well as managing the challenges and risks involved in such an effort.
For a closer look, Dustin Haisler, chief innovation officer of e.Republic*, moderated a panel discussion of three data experts:
- Alexis Bonnell, emerging technology evangelist, public sector, Google Cloud
- Kristin Hempstead, national business development manager, Data Science and AI Solutions, Z by HP
- Rhiannon Gainor Sanchez, enterprise data architect, Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA)
Sanchez identified two important steps the LCRA has taken regarding data governance. First, the agency has established a data stewardship council.
“We have someone from our IT department, we have someone from records, someone from legal, someone from a group we call ‘enterprise architecture’ that handles strategy and strategic investment for our technology portfolio, our legal department is represented, our cybersecurity department is represented, and I lead our group as our enterprise data architect.”
That brings together “everybody who has skin in the game” when it comes to data governance and data management.
Second, the agency has established data governance plans. Sanchez said: “For every software project now that we roll out, we are trying to develop at the same time a data governance plan” that includes cybersecurity, storage metada and data controls.
Hempstead offered three data management lessons she has learned.
“You need to talk to your peers, you need to talk to your peers within Texas, you need to talk to the different agencies,” she said. “You all can help each other out because you are all on different levels.
“I also think having an executive sponsor to cover all these different areas, kind of like the government’s data stewardship council you have, Rhiannon. … It gets somebody at a 30,000-foot level that can see past all the specific data and projects.”
And lastly, Hempstead said, “You also don’t want to neglect to bring IT in early. … If you don’t bring in IT early and get their buy-in, you’re going to have a hill to climb as well.”
Bonnell used retail as just one example of how effective data management can be put to use.
“By containerizing data or by using things like API first, I actually have a lot less cost and a lot more fluidity in what I can do,” she said.
For instance, a company’s web page featuring a product contains “an enormous amount of usefulness on that page.”
“What I didn’t know until really working with that (Home Depot) team is that pretty much every piece of data you see on that page comes from a different source. It doesn’t come from a master database.”
*e.Republic is the parent company of Industry Insider — Texas and the Center for Digital Government.
