Event Recap – Data Literacy: The New Essential Skill

By BrainStation April 1, 2020
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BrainStation held its first online panel discussion yesterday – Entitled Data Literacy: The New Essential Skill – and the event attracted thousands of professionals from the world. 

 Ian Bester, BrainStation’s Vice-President and GM, hosted the event, which featured Nada Salem from Spotify and Thomas Levi Unbounce.

The panelists touched on a number of topics, including: 

  • The origin of the data skills gap
  • Hiring for data literacy
  • How to develop employees with cross-functional abilities
  • Promoting a data-first culture at your organization
  • The role of upskilling and continuous learning in data literacy
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Offering advice to professionals interested in data, Nada Salem discussed how educational backgrounds were becoming less important in the hiring process, particularly when it came to data roles. 

“I work with so many people who don’t have professional training; many are successful taking online courses and using resources such as BrainStation. I’ve seen so many individuals transition to data roles based just on online courses,” she said. 

The panelists also discussed the importance of basic data skills throughout an organization. Levi, in fact, suggested that all professionals should now have basic data skills. 

“Learn to embrace uncertainty and probabilities – learn basic statistics, learn what things don’t tell you. What is it not able to tell me? How can I use this to inform my questions? Having the ability to ask good questions will really help your decision making and communication with your companies’ data team,” he said. 

You can watch the online Data Literacy: The New Essential Skill panel discussion here: