Alexis
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Talk Tech with Data Dave. I’m Alexis, your host of this podcast and I’m here with, wouldn’t you know it, Data Dave. Dave, how are you today?
Data Dave
I’m very well, Alexis. How are you?
Alexis
I am good. I’m good. This summer has been going on. As we come to the end of the summer, everything is going quite well. I’m very happy to have you back on the podcast after a little break last month. We had Preston join us. So, so happy to have you back.
We’ve got a super fun question today that has the opportunity to go pretty much anywhere. So, I’m excited.
Here we go. What’s your take on using automation to tame unruly data processes? Data processes? Both. Okay, I don’t know which one’s correct. It doesn’t matter.
Data Dave
What’s my take on using automation to tame unruly data processes? Yes, my short answer is all day long.
Alexis
All day, every day. Yes.
Data Dave
As much as possible.
Alexis
Yes.
Data Dave
So, but a longer answer is: first of all, let’s talk about what a data process is, and is it the data process being the collection of data or the operation on the data to make the data into something else? Then automation is absolutely 100% the right way to go. Use automation wherever possible to change your data process. In fact, change your business process. Right? The more you have people in the loop, the more likely they are to make an error.
Alexis
Exactly what I was thinking. The reason to automate something is to make it more efficient. Make it more effective. To eliminate human error. There’s no reason not to automate at that point.
Data Dave
Right. That would be my take. As much as possible. Automate. Automate. Automate. Unless you need a person to make a decision, automate wherever you can.
And if you do need a person to make the decision from that perspective, make it as simple a decision as possible. And don’t leave it to the person to collect the data surrounding the decision. Collect as much of the data in an automated manner as you possibly can so that you can declare that the decision was made. If that makes sense.
Alexis
Give me an example of that.
Data Dave
So given the kind of decision that you’re going to make. Capture the outcome of the decision rather than having somebody tell you they’ve made the decision. Does that make sense? We made this sale. Capture the closing of the sale rather than having somebody tell you they’ve made the sale.
Alexis
Got it, Got it. Okay.
Data Dave
Because that’s much more definitive than somebody saying, “I think I closed this for this much.” Well, capture the actual transaction.
Alexis
So, instead of it being a manual trigger, of you saying, “Hey, Alexis, I submitted my time timesheet.” The trigger is just the notification that the timesheet has been submitted.
Data Dave
That’s right.
Alexis
Got it. Okay.
Data Dave
Automate, Automate. Automate. So, monitor the systems that are capturing decisions rather than trying to capture the person making the decision.
Alexis
The question was talking about unruly data processes. And I’m intrigued at what your insights are on what an unruly data process might be.
Data Dave
I would imagine that an unruly data process is one that is generating bad quality data or an amount of data that is inappropriate or data that isn’t, isn’t ruley. Right?
Unruly.
So, lack of data governance on that. Too much data. Maybe not enough data, but the data isn’t crisp enough for the process that is being determined.
So whenever you can, if you automate that, you can make the data crisper, you can make the data more defined, you can put rules around that data and governance around that data to make sure that it is being captured correctly. Yeah, that’s what I’m reading as unruly in that sense.
I don’t find many data processes that go off on their own and just generate stuff for no good reason. Right? That’s not the nature of data processes. Unruly teenager, yes. Unruly data process, not so much.
Alexis
Yeah. I’ve been sitting here tracking my brain, trying to think of like a good example of something that might be doing that it would be handy to throw some automation on to fix it, and I can’t even come up with an example of what that might be.
Unless we’re talking about just maybe like a web form out there that’s just collecting information and collecting information and then you use automation to deduplicate your contact information.
But at that point, are we talking about automation or are we talking about data management?
Data Dave
Collation and data management? Right?
So, you got to collect and collate your data. If it’s a form that is out there collecting stuff.
Alexis
Yeah.
Data Dave
But yes, automation come into that. Yes. Automate the collection, curation of that data and deduplication to make sure you’re getting high-quality data. So, put some quality rules on it and automate those rules and throw away the garbage. Yeah, if you’re talking about a work form, then absolutely. If you’re getting a bunch of garbage and throw it away.
Abandoned shopping carts maybe.
Alexis
Ah, excellent example.
Data Dave
That would be another one which is measure it and look to how and why people are abandoning shopping carts and throw away the abandoned shopping carts as quickly as reasonable.
Alexis
And then try to figure out why people are abandoning and what you can do to stop that in the future to help the future for your sales.
Data Dave
Exactly, exactly. But I would clearly go with – wherever you’re dealing with data, data processes, the more automation you can put in place, the better.
Whether it’s cleansing the data, collection of data, curation or storage of data, or the analysis of the data down to whatever, the more automation can put in place, the better. People don’t like entering data, so I mean, that’s why it is always often bad. The more you can infer from what people want to tell you rather than making them fill out stacks of data, the better.
Alexis
So you’re having a meeting with a client and you’re running a transcript in the background that’s keeping a transcript of the conversation and that transcript is then taking that information and creating notes from it. Because we all have AI note takers on our transcripts now.
And then we have an automated process that’s taking those notes and pumping them into our CRM so that I don’t have to go and manually put notes into the CRM, but that process is automating itself. And so that’s an automation process that’s kind of driven by both AI and kind of a connection between service number one and service number two, which goes back to our data silo conversation that we had the other day.
Data Dave
So the other point there would be actually using AI another step as well and saying, “Okay, I want you to infer from the notes what action should be taken next.” Because you could argue that that in and of itself is an unruly data process. Because you’re going to have more notes from more meetings than you ever had previously. Because AI doesn’t get bored of note taking.
Alexis
Right.
Data Dave
Whereas I know I do. Right? So your CRM is now going to be full of all these notes that nobody’s going to read.
You’re generating all this data. What are you going to do with it? The only reason for having a meeting, collecting the notes is if there is a next steps output, et cetera. So, make sure you can automate from that, what next steps need to happen, who it needs to go to, where it needs to go, and how it needs to get operated on.
Alexis
There are platforms out there that are specifically designed to do stuff like this. But the truth of the matter is, a lot of these things that you and I are talking about are kind of already built into the everyday systems that we’re using.
Data Dave
Right. And it’s just a matter of making sure you automate it. Making sure you turn it on.
Alexis
Yeah. If you have those things out there and you think, “Oh, man, I do wish I could automate a little bit more,” look into some of the features that you already have waiting for you, already available to you. You would be surprised what you could automate with just the services you’re already using.
Data Dave
Exactly. And just particularly with data, it’s kind of – Automate as much as you can!
Because I’ve said this before, there’s no such thing as bad data. There’s good data about bad process.
Alexis
Mhm.
Data Dave
So where you can automate the data so the data isn’t corrupting itself, for want a better phrase, it’s not getting worse. The data is always solid, is always good. So, now what do you need to fix? You need to fix the human aspect and the human process aspect.
Alexis
Absolutely.
Data Dave
I would still say from a, “Do you automate unruly data processes?”
My answer there is AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, automate as much to do with the data as you possibly can and then allow people to operate on the data where it can’t be automated or where you need a decision from an individual.
Alexis
Love it, Dave. I think we answered that question pretty well, considering, like I said, we had a lot of different places we could have gone with it.
If you have a question for Data Dave, you can always reach out to us by emailing us at talktech@d3clarity.com or you can send Dave or myself a message right on LinkedIn. For those of you out there who are interested, check us out on d3clarity.com. We’ve made some crazy updates to the website, and I’m very excited about it.
Other than that, Dave, it has been a wonderful podcast. Thanks for chatting with me.
Data Dave
Thank you, Alexis. And thank you, everybody.
