I had an interesting meeting today with the Sr. VP of a marketing and data processing services company (being vague to protect future interests). They are sitting on years of data and generating more each day, so they are vetting ideas on how to improve their offerings based on this data, starting with plans to hire two executives focusing on “big data” and digital strategy.
Of course, for full disclosure, I was trying to get myself hired. However, the real challenge was getting hired into roles that are fairly undefined at this point. I won’t bury the suspense, it’s not going to happen for me this week, but it’s more of a “It’s not you, it’s me” thing, since it was apparent after a while that he was looking for a Data Scientist for his “data” role, so I would have to take up the data strategy role with an organization that he did not manage.
As we talked through the roles it become more clear where my technology and marketing background offers the most value — as usual it is in hybrid role. Let’s look at a three possible job roles in the digital data cycle:
Product Manager >> Generates & Consumes Data
- Traditional digital product owner where a carve out of their role relates to data generation and usage, such as a mobile app that has its design and application requirements, but also generates and uses location-based data.Could this be me >> YES! No surprise since it’s a role I’ve held before.
Big Data Manager >> Owns data strategy and implementation — along with evangelism.
- Responsible for owning the carrying out the organization’s data strategy. This is a cross-product role in a way since the BDPM needs to make sure all the traditional products are on plan for generating data to help the organization and standard data access is available to support products.Could this be me >> YES! Excited by this opportunity, since it is a great blend of using my tech experience and applying the output to building and supporting business cases.
Data Scientist >> Builds data systems and crunches the numbers.
- Could this be me >> No. I’ll have this person on speed dial. Earlier this week I was reading my newest Big Data (http://www.manning.com/marz/) book, and was excited by the applications and business opportunities around monetizing data. Then I hit chapter 2 where the discussion turned to data tools and structures, and my brain started melting — a natural sign that I was over my head.
The outcome: I have to find the Big Data Manager type of role where I am responsible for finding the business opportunities, maybe get my hands a little dirty by working with the engineers, and then hand it off for the data scientists to make the magic.
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