I recently attended Collibra’s first-ever customer event in New York, attracting business users and data professionals alike. The theme for the two-day Data Citizens Conference was “Join the Revolution,” imploring attendees to “explore the business benefits and personal satisfaction of having easy access to good and trustworthy data.”
We count Collibra as one of our valued partners, and because I work with our clients to deliver Collibra solutions, this became a must-attend event for me. The conference was so well-attended that I think it surprised the event coordinators. The Collibra team did a wonderful job with the conference logistics, allowing for plenty of breaks and opportunities to interact with fellow attendees. (Networking time is so important, and often conference organizers don’t factor that in to their schedules.) There were many nice touches that made this conference stand out from the many others I’ve attended.
From my vantage point, the attendees were a mix of Collibra power users and people new to the product who were there to “kick the tires.” Having this diversity makes for more interesting conversations, I think, and there was a balanced mix of sessions that appealed to both audiences.
Malcolm Chisholm chats with conference attendee Angela Boyd, Data Steward Coordinator at BJC HealthCare in St. Louis.
Collibra Implementation Best Practices
Malcolm Chisholm, our new Chief Innovation Officer, attended the conference with me and presented a session on the second day. His presentation, 5 Success Factors for Producing High-Quality Content in Collibra, was well attended and received, providing users with real-world actions, including implementation missteps to watch out for. His topic was particularly relevant in that it provided solutions to challenges that are often faced by the practitioners, including:
- Methodologies and roles needed to produce and refine the substantive and stylistic aspect of definitions for optimized content management
- Best practices for integrating substantive and stylistic attributes of definitions into workflows
- Different types of definitions and the pros/cons for business value
- How to leverage a style guide and related artifacts to achieve uniformity of style
- Effective methods to communicate content of policies and rules to general business users who may never access the Collibra environment
Another session that stood out to me – and one that was popular with other attendees — was The Collibra Journey, with CEO Felix Van de Maele and others presenters. It was interesting to learn about Collibra’s origins and its philosophy. There was also a lot of excitement at the conference about the upcoming product release. (No surprise, everyone wants to know what’s coming next.)
Off-the-Shelf Data Governance Solution
As a Data Governance practitioner for many years, I have a deep understanding of the challenges faced by the business and technologists alike. A solution like Collibra helps to address many components of a Data Governance program and puts the capabilities in the hands of the business. It’s not an unwieldy tool that needs to be programmed by an army of technical resources, and it can be implemented in a reasonable timeframe. We look forward to continued improvements to Collibra, enabling us to combine our deep knowledge of EIM to create a total solution for our clients’ growing data governance needs.
If you have the opportunity to attend a future Collibra event, I recommend you do. It’s not only great for networking and being in the know about what’s coming next, it keeps you sharp and connected to our dynamic and exciting industry.
