Data Analysis and Hackathons: The Power of Collaboration and Inclusive Approach

As we navigate the complexities of organizational change, it is essential to understand the importance of data analysis in driving effective decision-making. A well-crafted piece of analysis can shift perspectives, spark ideas, and ultimately lead to meaningful change within an organization. This session delved into the world of data analysis, exploring how a thorough understanding of the political environment, investment, and stakeholder engagement are crucial for successful implementation.

One key aspect of effective data analysis is recognizing that people may firmly believe something is right even when they don't have all the facts. In such cases, it's essential to be wary of this sentiment and communicate accordingly. A recent piece of analysis presented two contrasting views: one highlighting the difficulties of investing in a particular initiative, while the other demonstrated its potential for positive change. These differing perspectives serve as a reminder that data-driven insights can be instrumental in shaping organizational decisions.

The power of collaboration is also essential when it comes to driving meaningful change within an organization. A hackathon, in particular, offers a unique opportunity for teams to come together and share their knowledge with others. To encourage this sharing of ideas, organizations can adopt an inclusive approach, recognizing that not everyone will naturally assume the role of an evangelist. Instead, they can create opportunities for volunteers, incentivize participation, or integrate different teams to foster a more collaborative environment.

The team at Microsoft took a proactive approach to harnessing the power of hackathons by integrating data scientists with business leaders. This strategy allowed individuals who may not have been comfortable sharing their expertise directly to contribute through partnering with others. The result was a broader base of support, improved technology on display, and more rigorous measurement programs in place.

Effective data analysis is not limited to senior levels; it can ripple down to lower levels of the organization, inspiring change from within. As a data leader, it's essential to understand this concept and recognize that embracing data-driven insights can have a profound impact on organizational culture.

The role of hackathons in driving innovation and collaboration cannot be overstated. These events offer a unique opportunity for teams to come together, share ideas, and work towards solving real-world problems. By creating an inclusive environment that encourages participation from diverse stakeholders, organizations can tap into the collective knowledge and expertise of their team members.

In conclusion, data analysis and hackathons represent powerful tools for driving organizational change. By understanding the importance of stakeholder engagement, collaboration, and inclusive approaches, we can unlock the full potential of these initiatives and inspire meaningful change within our organizations. As we move forward, it's essential to recognize that effective data analysis is not limited to senior levels but can have a profound impact on organizational culture when implemented at all levels.

The final question was directed towards Russell, who shared insights into his experience with hackathons. While acknowledging the importance of evangelists in promoting ideas, he emphasized that this is not the only approach. Instead, organizations can create opportunities for volunteers, incentivize participation, or integrate different teams to foster a more collaborative environment. By adopting an inclusive approach, we can tap into the collective knowledge and expertise of our team members and drive meaningful change within our organizations.

As we conclude this session, we would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who has joined us thus far. We are thrilled to have had the opportunity to share these insights with you, and we look forward to continuing the conversation in the next session on data governance. Additionally, we invite you to tune in for an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session with the Data Camp Founders at the end of this event. Thank you once again to our speakers and attendees for their participation and engagement throughout this session.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enall right all right all right I think we are live hello hello everyone for those who are joining us right now I see 500 plus people in this session tons of people in the chat people from Ottawa people from Greece let us know where you're joining from give us some love in the Emoji people from Australia India all over the world uh yeah the chat is going to get flooded shortly bise San Francisco Mexico London who UK Kenya Colorado Romania bonaza uh Philippines Seattle uh Lisbon okay all over the world uh we can keep going on and on uh we were speaking backstage uh about Ted lasso let us know everyone on the chat any Ted lasso fans do let us know we'd love we'd love to hear uh your thoughts um so yeah I've welcome everyone to the session on uh building a learning culture for analytics functions you know as we know data camp we can't stop talking about learning data skills and this sessions definitely write up our alley uh you know as organizations continuously invest in upskilling whether for analytics teams or not creating a culture of continuous learning uh isn't just beneficial it's essential so how do you build a culture of continuous learning how do you sustain it over the Long Haul uh and how do you measure a learning culture so well there are no better guests to answer these questions than today's balance I'm gonna start with Russell Johnson Chief data scientist at marks and Spencer Russell good to see you hey there how are you good afternoon good good awesome so Russell is the chief data scientist for M&S one of the UK's most trusted retail Brands and part of the F Fortune one 100 index he leads the AI and data science team which has helped to unlock seven figure cost savings across the Enterprise and eight figure incremental Revenue through online personalization anyone who checked out the building Roi session from the previous one that's definitely an example of building Roi uh prior to joining M&S uh Russell held leadership roles at meta including heading the data science Organization for meta's reality Labs uh he has an academic background in euroscience and has active side interest in history organizational behavior sailing and surfing uh he's originally from Atlanta and the USA but he's joining from London um next up is Denise grundal Lopez Denise good to have you on hi everybody Denise manages the learning programs for technical audiences across booking.com she's an expert in using technology data and modern HR practices to identify and solve learning needs he is a data cfor business administrator she has been heavily involved in the booking.com data training program and she was previously a learning manager at the car solar and Phillips last but not least is Mark Stern VP of bi analytics at bmgm Mark good to see you yeah hello everybody good morning good afternoon good evening awesome so Mark has over 20 years building and managing business intelligence analytics teams he is an expert in building data and machine learning capabilities to inform decision-making and deliver profit and cost saving he previously ran bi departments at tin Gala Coral group and bet Fred uh now before we get started just a bit of housekeeping uh we'll have some brief time for Q&A at the end of the session so do make sure to ask questions in the uh Q&A uh SE SE uh section of the chat and if you have any questions make sure to ask them uh we're also going to be live posting on social media uh so if you use the # DC radar we make sure to amplify your messages and we highly encourage you to fill out your profile and engage in the conversation uh so I'm gonna set the stage for today's conversation by Deep diving maybe into the why behind uh building a learning culture you know you're all actively engaged in the upskilling agenda of your or of your organizations um so maybe help us set the stage uh behind the motivation of uh why learning culture so what does a strong learning culture within an Antics function looks like or even broader within the organization and why is it important Russell I'll start with you yeah thanks D um yeah I think you know when we talk about a lot of the stuff that's been happening in the last year or so especially around AI um people won't adopt what they don't understand right so I mean we always talk about how the first sort of AI use case that we launched at M&S was uh an educational use case right bringing people up to with something right um I think it's really um I think it's really clear you know from history right people don't adopt new technologies if they're afraid of it and the best way to sort of counter that fear is through a bit of education so if you're not educating people first and foremost as your primary use case as your initial use case in any new technology whether it's printing presses or um you know uh looms and factories or AI then you're your people are going to be that fear is going to hold people back from from driving that adoption yeah I couldn't agree more and Denise maybe let you add here as well and what Russell said yeah absolutely and I think data is just a fundamental nowadays right so I cannot think of any Department here at booking.com that does not have business analyst or data analyst right it's just everywhere it informs our decision making we are better at making choices because of their insights they have right so it's just a a new reality for us uh and more and more of these data roles are just coming right they're proving their value every day so it's the it's to see even more of these coming yeah and Mark explain maybe the motivation behind building a learning culture at MGM yeah so in my mind I I work on a performance triangle and each point of that triangle has a word one word is enjoyment another is delivery and another is learning and all three have got to be balanced and if they're not then you have to address that they're fundamentals for performing at an excellent excellent level I think so learning is part of one of those those three three points of that triangle mhm that's great and uh you know we've uncovered the why maybe let's dig deep into the how and the what right um so maybe learning cultures are not built overnight right like any culture change program any uh you know large scale change within the organization does not happen overnight and many leaders today are here trying to get started maybe with building their own uh learning culture so maybe as a first step uh how do you assess your current organization or teams learning culture uh Denise I'll start with you here because this is I think a very specific HR question probably to think about at the beginning yeah yeah I think for booking.com we're in a very specific situation that learning or learn forever is one of our company values right so we really leave up to those expectations and also we do a great effort in upskilling our managers so they're supportive they understand how important development is right but this is just development that gets us to get the objectives that we are doing right on top of that we have a very um fostering community of learning from each other like we have a great pool of internal trainers right that's also how you get recognized for your expertise because you get to share it with others right but also we incorporate mentoring portals right so you really get to know more people in your role in other areas that are having similar challenges right so you can also increase your network but solve stuff at the same time right so we're very rich and on top of that we are tech companies so we have a great um culture of experimentation from failing from learning from your failures but also quite open Communications right there's a lot of stories and testimonials shared in our internal social media channels so it's just so organic so embedded into our daily work that I think it's h something quite unique I would say right so it's just a pleasure to be part of it yeah and maybe I'll double down here and ask you an additional question Denise you know when you think about the formula because you mentioned it's really deeply embedded in booking.com culture right uh what do you think are the main ingredients that make it so and I'll jump back to you Russell and Mark after that I think that it doesn't feel like the traditional learning that you have to do right or that is heavy I think as part of the topics and as part of how engaged the the specifically this data science analytics craft how we call it internally it just seems so organic so fun like it's very collaborative right so it just seems like you are achieving something together and learning from each other it's is less of a burden so to say right like you're just doing it with colleagues with like-minded people so I think that's what makes it a real success to be honest okay great and Russell maybe what was the first step M&S when you know building out the learning capabilities for analytics right uh early on in the journey when you think about the like assessing the current learning culture and how you think about scaling it yeah I mean just to just to um uh you know upvote what Denise just said I mean it's that peer-to-peer aspect that's really different about of analytics and data science learning I think um when you take a organization as big and as sort of diverse as Marx and Spencer I mean we have over 70,000 employees uh all but uh 5,000 of which are sort of Frontline employees colleagues that we have in store um obviously the training and educational needs for those those colleagues are very different from what we would think about sort of data and data science uh although there is a lot of overlap so how do you do upscaling for data data science analytics for those individuals in the course of doing Frontline type of work uh that's important and but that's more of a traditional L &d Type function for a retail organization how it's different for what we do uh for uh people within digital and technology for example is a little bit more along the lines of those that peer-to-peer sort of aspect that Denise was referring to so building things from the ground up we actually have a separate L &d function within digital and techn techology uh which is the organization that I roll up into that that does all of uh as the name suggests digital and Tech within M&S um and we have the Beam Academy that we built from scratch you know um um you know in partnership with with data camp and yourself Adele so um having different sort of uh methods and motivations and outcomes that we're trying to drive with that um that thepoke sort of uh educational organization that we have in Beam Academy I think that that's helped us sort of uh be more successful than just a broad-based generalized L&D function yeah that's great we're definitely going to talk about the Beam Academy and yeah maybe Mark let you expand here on what Russell and Denise said yeah I think um for me we measure it we every quarter we have an engagement survey in the whole organization um I think if you're not learning you're probably not engaged my team for the last six quarters have been in the top percentile of that organization survey so it's keeping that I look I encourage people to to try new things if I if I trust someone in my team and I and they're in their team they're trusted they're trusting to fail and so in order to stretch themselves and to learn they got to try new things and sometimes fail so that's also important yeah that's really great and you know a lot of you have mentioned a few things right peer-to-peer learning community and culture embedding learning as part of the uh the daily work and the culture Mark you just mentioned here something important encouraging people to learn and experiment uh and maybe as a followup here I'd love to see some examples of how your teams or organizations are embedding learning in Daily work what does that look like in practice Mark I'll start with you so a number of things so first thing that that that might in when you join my team everybody gets a complimentary data Li data Camp license for everybody they're encouraged to use it the technical skills so they're really encouraged to make time and space for it and we share time with da Camp we've been to your offices in in the Empire State we've had you over here in in Jersey City and we we've watch the game together in our bar SP at the end of the day and um yeah so part of that is again having having fun and enjoyment but also we've run hackathons with you so trying new things just stretching stretching the minds we also do a lot of stuff we also brought in a whole week where we we did data consultancy skills presentation and stuff the 20 people went on that we we encourage that to fill it down so that happens and today we've had everybody in the office and we we we have three or four presentations where people who want to share some of the work they've done and so all of that encourages people to learn from each other and collaborate and and stretch your mind yeah that's great and maybe Denise uh Russell how how is learning look like in the kind of in the flow of work uh for employees at booking.com and MNS I'll I'll start with you Denise thank you yes I think I building up what Mark said right here at booking hackathons are also a a a prominent format right and I would say there's no Escape because we have so much formats and platforms for them to explore that we're really catering all their preferences and really uh formats right of how they like to learn um so we also measure quite often engagement on different platforms right we take also monthly meetings with data Camp to understand the data right what's the data telling us we also have uh a lot of this group actually creates their own internal conference so they're super engaged right on top of that we allow them to go to external conferences as well so it's just really plenty of formats for them to explore right like I said they can even be mentors and internal trainers so I would say there's no Escape right there is everywhere a learning opportunity we have books everywhere so it's very present very embedded here in the physical environment here at the campus as well right yeah I feel like a tagline for a learning culture There Is No Escape really sets the sets the scene for The Wider organization uh There Is No Escape from learning uh Russell yeah maybe share with us how how does the uh learning and the flow of work look like for M&S yeah I mean to double down on a couple different points number one the hackathon concept is great you know I mean I've I've had the privilege of sort of seeing that work at a couple of different companies you know U when I was at Facebook where that sort of culture comes from I think originally um and certainly do the same sort of thing over at M&S um I think it's just it gives visibility and some time and a safe space for people to to basically Not Just Produce ideas right which is sort of the core part of the hackathon culture but also just to meet other like-minded people that are sort of movers and shakers those thousand points of light those peer-to-peer sort of interactions that Denise was talking about earlier um I think that's you know really a lot of the positive value um and we also do a couple other things on the team you know all of my heads of here we all have presentation uh sort of parts of our kpis or goals you know very much an each one to each one uh kind of mentality right we're expect to be evangelists as much as we are expected to be data scientists I think it's an important part of the role um it's no good sort of uh uh sort of being in the back closet somewhere crunching out models and spreadsheets and and dashboards I mean you've got to be out there educating and sort of inspiring people to to get excited about not just data but what it what it can do in an organization yeah and I I want to touch upon that uh Russell you mentioned the term evangelizing within the organization I think that's such an important element of any learning culture um maybe diving a bit deeper there uh you know a big thing that we think about is how to you know not just get executive sponsorship for a learning program but how do you get executive excitement for a learning program how do you lead by by example as a leader uh when trying to establish a learning culture Within the organization right Mark you also mentioned this uh you alluded to this when you mentioned you encourage your team to to learn to experiment to try new things maybe what would be advice that you would give leaders or uh would be leaders here on the call on how they can set an example for the team on how to embed learning as part of you know daily work or uh the team's culture essentially Mark I'll start with you yeah so it's important to promote your team the new work that comes out it's important to get it surfaced help them help them present it I think look we talked about those hackathons not just doing the hackathons we also got you know the team team arranged this I I didn't they they they set it up and I just just encouraged it but they even got the the chief executive the cro to to to to judge it right so they're not only that there's a there's a high bar in terms of presid they're getting good feedback from those sort of people and they're seeing people at the the company who really really show by putting their time in effort towards it it's valued I think so yeah it's about as a leaders just just just stand back stand at the back and try and promote and when people have ideas encourage it encourage it to happen yeah that's great and then maybe Russell well you know we've worked quite a bit uh we're going to touch upon the Beam Academy but there's I'm one thing that I'm always impressed about with marks and Spencer is just how much excitement of a culture there is around learning how much effort there is so maybe walk us through that bit kind of the the executive sponsorship and how leaders have have um you know set an example for a lot of different folks within the organization to approach learning yeah I think yeah I mean last year I mean in 2023 I mean we certainly um a lot of the technological advances in AI kind of kind of threw us a bone here right a natural experiment in sort of how we can do better executive engagement because um you know unless you're working for a big tech company or something like that most CEOs were not sort of ready for that right it was suddenly I'm on the back foot what kind of CEO am I am I the CEO that sort of has good people in place that can sort of help to inform and educate about a new technology that I myself uh might not understand or am I is this something you know sort of scary that uh I need I need help understanding and but don't have the right people in place so putting those events together um I think is really really important getting people in and saying like you you need to be a leader as a CEO you need to be an executive sponsor of this even if you don't necessarily understand it and by coming being a judge at a hackathon or uh participating in some of these events that we run um you know like our our AI events that we did last year that you participated in this is a great way to basically say you know uh to a CEO look you can you can lead on this even if you don't really understand what it's all about you don't have to understand what it's about you can be a leader by simply participating and judging and then just having a having a curious mind about it and it's that culture of curiosity um that sort of I mean we talk about sort of first principles I mean we're talking about education here on on this particular webinar but even before that you need to instill this culture of curiosity and that's what we're sort of Leaning into um Executives with be curious and then we can help you uh sort of be educated yeah that's great and Denise maybe you know learning is a big part of the booking.com culture already right uh so maybe uh I'll reframe the question for you um how did you know the early executive team at booking.com from a you know leadership history perspective right um how did it initially Forge that as a cultural value like what were um what what were the behaviors of the leadership team that got you know codified as part of the of the culture that it became such a strong cultural value yeah and I think thinking about what you both said it's also uh the habit of sharing right in qbrs in MBR Sly business reviews or monthly business reviews the impact right what are you doing better as a result of this how is the initiative that we are all these formats how are they allowing you to do your work better or to actually reach your objectives right so that sharing also Braden perspective from other team to say I'm gonna give it a try right I was quite hesitant but after seeing the success of this team I may give it a try right so that also helps unlock the resistance and also be more open to consider right again uh it's a lot of sharing of okay is this really giving us the results we want are we also serving our customers better as a result of this intervention of this program right so I think ultimately the results and the testimonials are actually doing the job right you're basically getting your job done so then you get more prompt into what else can we try can we do it faster more I don't know in a fun way right or more scalable but uh it's always based on those results right the impact of of all these programs and all these efforts yeah wrestle Mark I'm not sure if you want to react to that as well like maybe walk walk walk through is how kind of results oriented uh kind of a results oriented approach also feeds into the learning culture so Russell maybe I'll start with you here yeah I think in some of our certification programs I mean uh when we talk about things that happen in our in our Beam Academy like our L &d function that's specific towards digital and Technology um we talk about the number of um certification when we do events we talk about the the reach um you know we have it's it's very very sort of um uh uh campaign driven metric driven we look for outcomes uh so I I think it's that's sort of what distinguishes it from a lot of other uh L &d Type programs I mean when you got an L&D program that has that's trying to advance the course of data it only makes sense that you use a lot of data in order to evaluate the um the of it yeah that's great Mark uh maybe yeah walk us through how results factoring in here thinking to tie this together so one one thing we do so this is about just learning as part of your job and as part of the organization and does ultimately data driven but means actually you've got to learning culture within your organization so one of the things we have set up is a causal laboratory and so the causal laboratory means that anybody any customers that come on are randomly selected so I get a small percentage of every customer they belong to me not Marketing in my team okay so we don't get any marketing and my job is to therefore experiment and understand and demonstrate lifting performance and demonstrate I can perform better than the the marketing team CR so it's a big challenge right it's a learning not only is it a nice competition but actually we're creating value and we're all learning in the process so coming through I know often people say they're they're learning a d when they got a report that's not you got take risks and you got to allow allow to give to to to gain something very precious yeah that's that's great I I love that as a challenge you know definitely you know uh there's no escape and challenge are both great great kind of taglines and motivators here uh maybe one thing that sorry Russell that you interject I was gonna say Mark by the way I'm writing this down actually I mean if I could steal 10% of ms's marketing budget and divert it to data science yeah sure they they signing up too initially you have to give me some notes on how to do that yeah that's that's great and there's one question actually we got in the question section that I was planning on exactly asking it myself so I'm actually I'm going to uh let aani ask it himself so initial enthusiasm for learning is common but how do you maintain momentum over time how do you prevent how do you prevent learning initiatives from becoming just another checkbox um you know I was going to talk about how big of a challenge it is to sustain learning momentum over time over the Long Haul right um Russell you know you've been at the Beam Academy at least at least my knowledge it's been a few years now right um year now yeah yeah so uh maybe walk us through how you've built approached uh building and keeping momentum for example behind learning what best practices you have I'll also you know relay this question to Denise and Mark so yeah walk us through how do you sustain uh learning momentum over time yeah I I love the question right because I mean I think we've all been through the uh the little box checking exercises of take a taking health and safety uh you know an anti fraud uh L&D type of quiz right these are not the things that anybody willingly signs up for uh and and Rebels and spending their free time doing right I love security IT training and love learning how to my security badge as much as an next 30 minutes on a on a survey to do that um so I mean if we take that as sort of the example of what bad looks like and then flip that on his head like how do we make that a little bit more alive and make people want to do that nobody wants to take a health and safety um you know test all the time but we want people to be like have a lifelong interest in sort of uh evangelizing um both um you know their own learnings and helping others to learn uh things around data and data science so I think um as I mentioned we have the Beam Academy here uh which is our DNT or digital and Technology Learning and Development function I think from the beginning it was sort of set up to do something uh really different you know educate uh we have 75,000 employees including a lot of Frontline colleagues working in stores the the digital skills necessary in order to um you know do your work as a colleague in store as a store manager as a regional sales manager for Marks and Spencer that's what Beam Academy uh is is there to support you doing um and there's lots of certifications where people can do that and it but it also um caters towards people that are interested in in uh upskilling themselves and other things as well you know everything from you know uh Excel technology um to data analysis we have quite a few uh l seven graduates you know as well in dat allliance uh so all of these are sort of now embedded in the business and so we have that thousand points of light kind of thing that the Beam Academy is is helping to create and then how do you fan the flames right how do you keep those Embers uh going rather than just like separating all those Embers and scatter them away from the fire and suddenly everything sort of dies out and stops producing light and heat you've got to bring them Embers back together in these events um and we do a lot of events with Beam Academy um Adele you had the you had the uh well we had the privilege of having you into one of our let's talk it's my privilege you um you added a bit of excitement to us so thank you again for that um but events like that where we have uh a lot of people in the company that are attending remotely and um and in person I mean our let's talk AI event where we basically talked about here's the AI technology and here's what it means for the future of marks and Spencer we we did that fairly early last year um and we had I think we broke all the records in terms of internal events of any kind that we did at M&S uh last year that was uh that was the big thing and I think most of that was was uh you know you were driving the attendance there um I wouldn't say so myself but yeah I a lot a lot a lot smarter people on that panel than than me but yes okay but we had a really really good time and I think more importantly we really got the attention of you know uh Executives hey what's going on let me understand you know how you're how you're framing this what how this works for the company but also it gives everybody a chance who's really interested in it to come in and then participate you know and uh the evangelists create future evangelists um you know through that through that program yeah that's great I love that point the last point at the end of kind of you know the ambassadorship of of that uh that effect that you see when you build up excitement uh Denise Mark Denise I'll start with you yeah how do you sustain learning over the Long Haul yeah so part of my job is to really create a monthly newsletter right of everything that is new but also we tailor that newsletter to audience but also what's going on in that season right what are people naturally thinking about for example Jan is all about building better habits for example right so how do you support also the the personal need that this person have and then just try to leverage that right on top of that we do a lot of communication quarter monthly right on acknowledgement as well who has completed what like some sort of leaderboard in some programs right but acknowledgement of the effort right because that's the behavior we want want to role model right so those who are doing it like we're trying to celebrate it right and I think we've done a very data driven approach already so we're able to understand what are the natural Peaks and what's the natural flow right so we already know Q3 is a very strong quarter for people to learn it's also a bit of like back to school right of what's happening outside work so we tried really to build campaigns somewhere in September with wind cool prices right or we try to celebrate or find an excuse depending on the audience to try to um just bring that excitement and help them think also how can that um yeah relates into the work and the programs that we have right so but it's really datadriven understanding the audience that we're catering but it's a lot of communication right uh of what's new what's popular give it a try also hear how it's helping other people right um but it's constant acknowledgement as well right um even at the end of the year we s like emails those internal trainers that help us drive learning how many sessions they did right was it well received so all this really makes it as part of like once you close the year you are able to see okay here in this quarter we did this quarter two we that that and just sharing that uh with with the the actual Learners or or colleagues it's it's um they already are waiting to hear right what's going to be the next event in September type of thing right so yeah we also try to get prices right or gamified in a way so that they're they just build up the excitement on this right but acknowledgement acknowledging the efforts uh it's also really a good uh effort right whether it's from the lmd team or the manager itself or the team it's something that is also part of the the campaign and the communications that we run I couldn't agree more especially on the acknowledgement side Mark yeah I'll let you expand on how you approach building a learning culture over the long hul at bet bet MGM I think Denise that's a good point the acknowledgement I think that that's important to to keep the encouragement going when when we got feedback I got feedback it was less about acknowledgement from me or more senior leaders or people on the side it was more the contemporaries that they want ackowledgement for I think that was so that's that's a key for me for for getting them to share their work with their contemporaries but I try to I try to hire natural curios curious people right and then you your job is just to feed that Curiosity as a leader to feed and uh try create new data sets run of new data sets more difficult interesting problems new tech new new tech techniques or something we've never tried before so just encourage it and open that up yeah that's really great and in a lot of ways a lot of what you're discussing here especially Denise and Russell when you discuss kind of the B Academy and what you've do with the campaigns right is that the uh you know learning leader data leader uh whoever whoever is in charge of the uh analytics upscaling um uh Pro program needs to think a lot of times like a marketer rather than just a traditional Learning and Development professional or data leader right um maybe walk us through what skills you think kind of like from that marketing hat you need to adopt to be able to succeed at building a learning culture for the Long Haul Denise let start with you yeah I think it's also a lot of understanding your audience right like who are they tools they're used what formats they use even to communicate right because I think you need to mirror and be where they are meet them where they are try to speak their language right acknowledge the challenges that they have give them some hope that we're trying to work on the same goals that's why we're trying to um expose them to different Alternatives or different formats right but that's always a joint effort that we're trying to get something for what right is it that we're trying to reach our goal like customers better right but jump in the same collaborative Spirit um by speaking their language right just posting or writing in the channels where this community is active um that's that's quite a good uh step right in in understanding who your audience is um yeah just be part of it as much as you can right yeah and Russell what are some great marketing tactics that have worked at M&S yeah I mean you know like Denise mentioned I mean it's a lot of internal um internal marketing uh you know I think about somebody who does this really really well I'll just give a quick name shout out to lindsy Marshall who runs our beam 100% And I know you know linday really really well but I mean linday is like in my mind like that an expert in in within a fairly silid organization like M&S uh you can just imagine different business units um uh all sort of contributing D DNT digital and technology is is sort of a partner to all um like Lindsay in order to that job really really well as she does is you know you've got to tailor that message to the audience uh and that means doing something uh somewhat different for clothing in home that you might do for Foods right you know within within M M&S uh I think Lindsay does that really really well um and then you know basically be able to put those different sort of marketing messages and different ways of talking tailored messages but still be able to S the S synthesize the whole so you can see the entire outcome yeah and Mark marketing tactics that worked at bat yeah it's it's a large part of my role a huge part of my role to to uh people don't realize that I'm n at heart but actually I spend less and less time in the data but uh it's about it's about look we have once a month we have a be Alex Steering group is chaired by the the the CEO and the SE Suite my job is to present what's going on are we get in the right direction the priorities and direction of the team uh you know we we push the engagement stuff then more recently we've done a road show with the product leaders sharing with them for two hours everything we we do so putting together that Insight that presentation and putting it is a isn't a straightforward task it takes days sometimes takes weeks to to pull that together and take that through so yeah it's incredibly important part of my job incredibly important part yeah could couldn't agree more it's a it's a an additional skill set to have as a leader that is extremely important that no one tells you you need to have um so I do want to take questions from the audience but I'll ask one final question from my side before uh we get started um as we CL as we close out you know what is one single piece of advice you would give to analytics leader or a learning leader any leader on here on the call for that matter when it comes to building an effective learning culture uh Denise I'll start with you yeah and I think it goes to understand your audience right what is burning for them what's important for them and just really bring that awareness also not just for their unit right but what are we trying to achieve as a function largely right what are the challenges that we have broadly speaking but also internally right what's where do you want to start like have some really alignment with um maybe a career framework that you have right different skill sets or levels but I think it's really about um be with your audience understand understand what's top of priority for them and uh just stay super close to them yeah that's awesome Mark your your single advice um just keep checking in with yourself that you are continually learning and continually driving forward yourself and you continually curious and then and share that enthusiasm with the people in your team great Russell your final advice to sum it all up um yeah I think just like I mentioned just like last year I mean sort of History kind of threw us a bone with AI suddenly become becoming top of mind for everybody uh I would say like for organizations that are if you really find it that you're struggling to create an L&D type of function you know that can advance skills and data and data science um don't be afraid of using those pain points or that misunderstanding or things that people are worried about in order to say hey I'm doing something more than just creating a general L &d program I'm solving a particular business problem or particular business fear or a particular business paino and then get as specific as possible with your Executives and say this is what I'm trying to do I'm going to solve this problem and then use that to sort of springboard yourself and your program into a broader L &d uh function for data and data science that's great um so we're going to get a lot of questions from the audience please everyone do use the Q&A feature there's already a lot of questions uh shown so I'm going to have a uh question from Jaren which I think is going to be really relevant how do you build a data literacy culture from scratch when a large proportion of the workforce are unfamiliar with data literacy where do you start Denise I'll start with you here yeah and I think we did that a couple of years right ago uh with some topics and I think this is great when we build some foundational uh programs right and you try to put cohorts of people right or business units but you are really driving a lot of communications into let's build this together we want to build this foundational level because of this right always tied to the relevance why now why this right so but I think if you do it as part of like you're not alone with this right you're more you're one of those who want to uh build this foundational knowledge if you do it as a group always thinking what is going to be the benefit for yourself but also for your team that's uh how we did it right how it really paid off that's great and maybe Mark Russell do you want to expand on that Mark okay Russell I'll start with I'll I'll I'll pick one yeah so Russell yeah yeah sorry I love I love the question and and thank you for the person that answered it that asked that asked it right I mean what do you do if a large proportion of um you know your employees are not familiar with data literacy I would turn that on his head and say like well there is still a proportion of people that are familiar with data literacy within your organization find them we keep talking about peer-to-peer in you know over the course of this conversation we're having today find those people get them together right and then you've got small Embers you push those together and you can get some light and heat from it um and then use that as the foundation these are the these are the people that are interested right these are your future evangelists and then look at where they are in the organization if they're if they're confined to one fairly specific part of the organization that's one problem to solve but if they're more generally spread then you've got you know you you you're you're closer to that kind of transformation than you think than you think you are uh you just need to push those Embers from a common fire back out into the organization and and sort of just that oxygen that's great Mark your final note here on this one yeah just look there there's always going to be a large portion of the the the company or the people you work with who who aren't data literate that uh in some ways or form um our job is to try and to to get that data easily accessible for them but also help them understand it interpret it that's tough sometimes it's tough but you have to spend time and effort weeks months with people to to help them um but your job is as a data or analytics expert is to within is to build up your own credibility your own brand so people start coming to you for help and advice that's that's the best thing I do that takes time and it like most good things it takes time so true it's well worth the effort when it happens and I would add one final remark right that it's also a lot of communication because this is basically a building block that is going to allow you to continue right and to really becoming better and achieving what you want to achieve faster right so that's also a very powerful message to give them hope to acknowledge is going to take you time it's going to take you effort right so but I think if you focus the communications on that that level it's also a nice powerful uh statement right yeah I could agree more uh another question here uh from Katie uh it's a pretty strong question it was mentioned in a previous session about change management how can we encourage senior members of the team so leaders to upscale their data literacy instead of passing it off to junior members as they assume we are more tech savvy um so yeah maybe a broader question how do you approach the data literacy of senior leadership rather than uh you know the uh the broader uh organization uh Denise I'll start with you here as well yeah it's an interesting question because I think uh if you got to be senior is because you've demonstrated some behaviors that what we want and you also are curious and you're learning and you're being part of the learning culture so I don't think we've had that particular challenge here but I think even if we do like I said There Is No Escape right that you're gonna be still involved and whether it is your direct reports asking can I go to this conference this is going what I'm going to get knowledge right internally there's plenty of opportunities So eventually you'll end up being part of something right uh even perhaps a bit of peer pressure in a way if you want but um I think it's just so natural just to hear right if someone is having the results that you also wanting to to achieve yeah I think it's really you're going to give it a benefit of the doubt right and at least try it so yeah I don't think that's a particular problem we have at booking.com but um yeah if we had we tackle it that way right and also yeah everybody understands the role in development here right you as an individual you drive it so you're also able to push your manager for more feedback or insights right but you as a manager also understand what is your role into driving uh and fermenting knowledge as well right yeah that's awesome uh Mark uh maybe how do you approach building the data literacy of leadership uh profiles oh I'm not inure what that means but um um I don't know maybe how yeah I don't understand the question sorry so no maybe how would you approach uh you know uh building a learning culture when it comes to data skills or data Literacy for you know more senior people within the organization rather than um more Junior folks understood the question was also about yeah about rout change TR yeah and so so so for me we have a we have a team philosophy and a part of that team philosophy and it was built by members of the team and myself is that is our job to change people's minds with with data data and analytics that's our one of our key key key roles and so that includes me and includes the whole team and so you have to the way you present the way you you have to understand the political environment as well so some people may firmly believe that something is right even when they don't know they've invested it you have to know that they've invested a lot of effort and stuff and if your analysis is going to show the opposite then you need to be wary of that and communicate accordingly and so today we had two two piece of analysis that was presented one which was to do exactly that it was such a difficult piece of analysis to do a lot have been invested and basically said it didn't work that piece of analysis changed the people changed the minds of the people and change the actions they actually reverse what they did and then the other thing was really nice a piece of analysis around someone called Kellin Hanks who actually changed beding behavior and she showed that and suddenly that sparked ideas and sparked change within the organization um so two very nice nice piece of analysis that are driven actual actual change and so that happens at every levels of organization it's my job to help do it at the senior level but it should Ripple down so if you learn it at the lower levels and actually it will Ripple up to when you if that's what you choose to be if you want to be a data leader at the the end of your career then that that also will be an important part of your learning process that's excellent I'm gonna ask one more question but I'll only direct that Russell since he spoke quite a bit about hackathons uh for hackathons you need people who like to share and are good team players and are engage within the organization what's the best approach to encourage these individuals in the team to share their knowledge with others so what worked with you in the past wrestl creating kind of Engagement for hackathons yeah yeah I mean maybe just push back a little bit on the question actually because I think the presumption in the question is that you need the you need to be an evangelist in order to even participate in a hackathon uh and I think a good hackathon isn't necessarily that way right uh you know some people are volunteers uh some people are volunt some people are incentivized in order to participate call it what you will right something we did um when we had a hackathon around AI um the whole thing was generative AI that was our second hackathon from last year I believe it was in October um we had a lot of great ideas really broad base of support and and uh entrance from around M&S but because of the generative AI aspect of it um one thing I I really push back against was we had a lot of great ideas within the data science team we've got a team of around 45 people here and they just wanted to create their own teams and I'm like you know we can't be like the you know what what it was what was it the 1988 um you know us basketball entrant into the Olympics right where you have all you know athletes you know competing against nonprofessional amateurs around the rest of the world so what we did is basically say we can't have that kind of one-sided evangelism don't just get the people who know facing off against the people who want to evangelize and have actual World business problems to solve so we integrated the two um we asked every single person on the data science team to go out and find somebody in the business who was uh wanted to be uh part of the hackathon and then support them directly as their sort of personal data scientist uh for for that particular team and what we found is there's a lot of people on the data science team who probably wouldn't have been that comfortable getting out and sort of becoming that evangelist you know and there's um but because of that sort of volunt telling um um we had a much broader base of support better technology on display uh much more rigorous sort of measurement programs in place and pairing the Evangelist with you know the the what do they say the Willing with the the worthy right so yeah that is awesome I couldn't agree more you know between There's No Escape and being volun told these are all great uh taglines I want to say a huge thank you for everyone who attended this session a huge thank you as well for Denise Mark Russell for joining us uh and sharing these insights everyone do give our speakers a lot of love with the Emojis with the chat as we can see it's all blowing up I really really really appreciate everyone who's joined us so far and everyone tune in for the last session of the day on data governance and then we're going to have an AMA with the data Camp Founders at the end uh and very excited for the next session thank you so much everyone great thank you thank you thanks everyoneall right all right all right I think we are live hello hello everyone for those who are joining us right now I see 500 plus people in this session tons of people in the chat people from Ottawa people from Greece let us know where you're joining from give us some love in the Emoji people from Australia India all over the world uh yeah the chat is going to get flooded shortly bise San Francisco Mexico London who UK Kenya Colorado Romania bonaza uh Philippines Seattle uh Lisbon okay all over the world uh we can keep going on and on uh we were speaking backstage uh about Ted lasso let us know everyone on the chat any Ted lasso fans do let us know we'd love we'd love to hear uh your thoughts um so yeah I've welcome everyone to the session on uh building a learning culture for analytics functions you know as we know data camp we can't stop talking about learning data skills and this sessions definitely write up our alley uh you know as organizations continuously invest in upskilling whether for analytics teams or not creating a culture of continuous learning uh isn't just beneficial it's essential so how do you build a culture of continuous learning how do you sustain it over the Long Haul uh and how do you measure a learning culture so well there are no better guests to answer these questions than today's balance I'm gonna start with Russell Johnson Chief data scientist at marks and Spencer Russell good to see you hey there how are you good afternoon good good awesome so Russell is the chief data scientist for M&S one of the UK's most trusted retail Brands and part of the F Fortune one 100 index he leads the AI and data science team which has helped to unlock seven figure cost savings across the Enterprise and eight figure incremental Revenue through online personalization anyone who checked out the building Roi session from the previous one that's definitely an example of building Roi uh prior to joining M&S uh Russell held leadership roles at meta including heading the data science Organization for meta's reality Labs uh he has an academic background in euroscience and has active side interest in history organizational behavior sailing and surfing uh he's originally from Atlanta and the USA but he's joining from London um next up is Denise grundal Lopez Denise good to have you on hi everybody Denise manages the learning programs for technical audiences across booking.com she's an expert in using technology data and modern HR practices to identify and solve learning needs he is a data cfor business administrator she has been heavily involved in the booking.com data training program and she was previously a learning manager at the car solar and Phillips last but not least is Mark Stern VP of bi analytics at bmgm Mark good to see you yeah hello everybody good morning good afternoon good evening awesome so Mark has over 20 years building and managing business intelligence analytics teams he is an expert in building data and machine learning capabilities to inform decision-making and deliver profit and cost saving he previously ran bi departments at tin Gala Coral group and bet Fred uh now before we get started just a bit of housekeeping uh we'll have some brief time for Q&A at the end of the session so do make sure to ask questions in the uh Q&A uh SE SE uh section of the chat and if you have any questions make sure to ask them uh we're also going to be live posting on social media uh so if you use the # DC radar we make sure to amplify your messages and we highly encourage you to fill out your profile and engage in the conversation uh so I'm gonna set the stage for today's conversation by Deep diving maybe into the why behind uh building a learning culture you know you're all actively engaged in the upskilling agenda of your or of your organizations um so maybe help us set the stage uh behind the motivation of uh why learning culture so what does a strong learning culture within an Antics function looks like or even broader within the organization and why is it important Russell I'll start with you yeah thanks D um yeah I think you know when we talk about a lot of the stuff that's been happening in the last year or so especially around AI um people won't adopt what they don't understand right so I mean we always talk about how the first sort of AI use case that we launched at M&S was uh an educational use case right bringing people up to with something right um I think it's really um I think it's really clear you know from history right people don't adopt new technologies if they're afraid of it and the best way to sort of counter that fear is through a bit of education so if you're not educating people first and foremost as your primary use case as your initial use case in any new technology whether it's printing presses or um you know uh looms and factories or AI then you're your people are going to be that fear is going to hold people back from from driving that adoption yeah I couldn't agree more and Denise maybe let you add here as well and what Russell said yeah absolutely and I think data is just a fundamental nowadays right so I cannot think of any Department here at booking.com that does not have business analyst or data analyst right it's just everywhere it informs our decision making we are better at making choices because of their insights they have right so it's just a a new reality for us uh and more and more of these data roles are just coming right they're proving their value every day so it's the it's to see even more of these coming yeah and Mark explain maybe the motivation behind building a learning culture at MGM yeah so in my mind I I work on a performance triangle and each point of that triangle has a word one word is enjoyment another is delivery and another is learning and all three have got to be balanced and if they're not then you have to address that they're fundamentals for performing at an excellent excellent level I think so learning is part of one of those those three three points of that triangle mhm that's great and uh you know we've uncovered the why maybe let's dig deep into the how and the what right um so maybe learning cultures are not built overnight right like any culture change program any uh you know large scale change within the organization does not happen overnight and many leaders today are here trying to get started maybe with building their own uh learning culture so maybe as a first step uh how do you assess your current organization or teams learning culture uh Denise I'll start with you here because this is I think a very specific HR question probably to think about at the beginning yeah yeah I think for booking.com we're in a very specific situation that learning or learn forever is one of our company values right so we really leave up to those expectations and also we do a great effort in upskilling our managers so they're supportive they understand how important development is right but this is just development that gets us to get the objectives that we are doing right on top of that we have a very um fostering community of learning from each other like we have a great pool of internal trainers right that's also how you get recognized for your expertise because you get to share it with others right but also we incorporate mentoring portals right so you really get to know more people in your role in other areas that are having similar challenges right so you can also increase your network but solve stuff at the same time right so we're very rich and on top of that we are tech companies so we have a great um culture of experimentation from failing from learning from your failures but also quite open Communications right there's a lot of stories and testimonials shared in our internal social media channels so it's just so organic so embedded into our daily work that I think it's h something quite unique I would say right so it's just a pleasure to be part of it yeah and maybe I'll double down here and ask you an additional question Denise you know when you think about the formula because you mentioned it's really deeply embedded in booking.com culture right uh what do you think are the main ingredients that make it so and I'll jump back to you Russell and Mark after that I think that it doesn't feel like the traditional learning that you have to do right or that is heavy I think as part of the topics and as part of how engaged the the specifically this data science analytics craft how we call it internally it just seems so organic so fun like it's very collaborative right so it just seems like you are achieving something together and learning from each other it's is less of a burden so to say right like you're just doing it with colleagues with like-minded people so I think that's what makes it a real success to be honest okay great and Russell maybe what was the first step M&S when you know building out the learning capabilities for analytics right uh early on in the journey when you think about the like assessing the current learning culture and how you think about scaling it yeah I mean just to just to um uh you know upvote what Denise just said I mean it's that peer-to-peer aspect that's really different about of analytics and data science learning I think um when you take a organization as big and as sort of diverse as Marx and Spencer I mean we have over 70,000 employees uh all but uh 5,000 of which are sort of Frontline employees colleagues that we have in store um obviously the training and educational needs for those those colleagues are very different from what we would think about sort of data and data science uh although there is a lot of overlap so how do you do upscaling for data data science analytics for those individuals in the course of doing Frontline type of work uh that's important and but that's more of a traditional L &d Type function for a retail organization how it's different for what we do uh for uh people within digital and technology for example is a little bit more along the lines of those that peer-to-peer sort of aspect that Denise was referring to so building things from the ground up we actually have a separate L &d function within digital and techn techology uh which is the organization that I roll up into that that does all of uh as the name suggests digital and Tech within M&S um and we have the Beam Academy that we built from scratch you know um um you know in partnership with with data camp and yourself Adele so um having different sort of uh methods and motivations and outcomes that we're trying to drive with that um that thepoke sort of uh educational organization that we have in Beam Academy I think that that's helped us sort of uh be more successful than just a broad-based generalized L&D function yeah that's great we're definitely going to talk about the Beam Academy and yeah maybe Mark let you expand here on what Russell and Denise said yeah I think um for me we measure it we every quarter we have an engagement survey in the whole organization um I think if you're not learning you're probably not engaged my team for the last six quarters have been in the top percentile of that organization survey so it's keeping that I look I encourage people to to try new things if I if I trust someone in my team and I and they're in their team they're trusted they're trusting to fail and so in order to stretch themselves and to learn they got to try new things and sometimes fail so that's also important yeah that's really great and you know a lot of you have mentioned a few things right peer-to-peer learning community and culture embedding learning as part of the uh the daily work and the culture Mark you just mentioned here something important encouraging people to learn and experiment uh and maybe as a followup here I'd love to see some examples of how your teams or organizations are embedding learning in Daily work what does that look like in practice Mark I'll start with you so a number of things so first thing that that that might in when you join my team everybody gets a complimentary data Li data Camp license for everybody they're encouraged to use it the technical skills so they're really encouraged to make time and space for it and we share time with da Camp we've been to your offices in in the Empire State we've had you over here in in Jersey City and we we've watch the game together in our bar SP at the end of the day and um yeah so part of that is again having having fun and enjoyment but also we've run hackathons with you so trying new things just stretching stretching the minds we also do a lot of stuff we also brought in a whole week where we we did data consultancy skills presentation and stuff the 20 people went on that we we encourage that to fill it down so that happens and today we've had everybody in the office and we we we have three or four presentations where people who want to share some of the work they've done and so all of that encourages people to learn from each other and collaborate and and stretch your mind yeah that's great and maybe Denise uh Russell how how is learning look like in the kind of in the flow of work uh for employees at booking.com and MNS I'll I'll start with you Denise thank you yes I think I building up what Mark said right here at booking hackathons are also a a a prominent format right and I would say there's no Escape because we have so much formats and platforms for them to explore that we're really catering all their preferences and really uh formats right of how they like to learn um so we also measure quite often engagement on different platforms right we take also monthly meetings with data Camp to understand the data right what's the data telling us we also have uh a lot of this group actually creates their own internal conference so they're super engaged right on top of that we allow them to go to external conferences as well so it's just really plenty of formats for them to explore right like I said they can even be mentors and internal trainers so I would say there's no Escape right there is everywhere a learning opportunity we have books everywhere so it's very present very embedded here in the physical environment here at the campus as well right yeah I feel like a tagline for a learning culture There Is No Escape really sets the sets the scene for The Wider organization uh There Is No Escape from learning uh Russell yeah maybe share with us how how does the uh learning and the flow of work look like for M&S yeah I mean to double down on a couple different points number one the hackathon concept is great you know I mean I've I've had the privilege of sort of seeing that work at a couple of different companies you know U when I was at Facebook where that sort of culture comes from I think originally um and certainly do the same sort of thing over at M&S um I think it's just it gives visibility and some time and a safe space for people to to basically Not Just Produce ideas right which is sort of the core part of the hackathon culture but also just to meet other like-minded people that are sort of movers and shakers those thousand points of light those peer-to-peer sort of interactions that Denise was talking about earlier um I think that's you know really a lot of the positive value um and we also do a couple other things on the team you know all of my heads of here we all have presentation uh sort of parts of our kpis or goals you know very much an each one to each one uh kind of mentality right we're expect to be evangelists as much as we are expected to be data scientists I think it's an important part of the role um it's no good sort of uh uh sort of being in the back closet somewhere crunching out models and spreadsheets and and dashboards I mean you've got to be out there educating and sort of inspiring people to to get excited about not just data but what it what it can do in an organization yeah and I I want to touch upon that uh Russell you mentioned the term evangelizing within the organization I think that's such an important element of any learning culture um maybe diving a bit deeper there uh you know a big thing that we think about is how to you know not just get executive sponsorship for a learning program but how do you get executive excitement for a learning program how do you lead by by example as a leader uh when trying to establish a learning culture Within the organization right Mark you also mentioned this uh you alluded to this when you mentioned you encourage your team to to learn to experiment to try new things maybe what would be advice that you would give leaders or uh would be leaders here on the call on how they can set an example for the team on how to embed learning as part of you know daily work or uh the team's culture essentially Mark I'll start with you yeah so it's important to promote your team the new work that comes out it's important to get it surfaced help them help them present it I think look we talked about those hackathons not just doing the hackathons we also got you know the team team arranged this I I didn't they they they set it up and I just just encouraged it but they even got the the chief executive the cro to to to to judge it right so they're not only that there's a there's a high bar in terms of presid they're getting good feedback from those sort of people and they're seeing people at the the company who really really show by putting their time in effort towards it it's valued I think so yeah it's about as a leaders just just just stand back stand at the back and try and promote and when people have ideas encourage it encourage it to happen yeah that's great and then maybe Russell well you know we've worked quite a bit uh we're going to touch upon the Beam Academy but there's I'm one thing that I'm always impressed about with marks and Spencer is just how much excitement of a culture there is around learning how much effort there is so maybe walk us through that bit kind of the the executive sponsorship and how leaders have have um you know set an example for a lot of different folks within the organization to approach learning yeah I think yeah I mean last year I mean in 2023 I mean we certainly um a lot of the technological advances in AI kind of kind of threw us a bone here right a natural experiment in sort of how we can do better executive engagement because um you know unless you're working for a big tech company or something like that most CEOs were not sort of ready for that right it was suddenly I'm on the back foot what kind of CEO am I am I the CEO that sort of has good people in place that can sort of help to inform and educate about a new technology that I myself uh might not understand or am I is this something you know sort of scary that uh I need I need help understanding and but don't have the right people in place so putting those events together um I think is really really important getting people in and saying like you you need to be a leader as a CEO you need to be an executive sponsor of this even if you don't necessarily understand it and by coming being a judge at a hackathon or uh participating in some of these events that we run um you know like our our AI events that we did last year that you participated in this is a great way to basically say you know uh to a CEO look you can you can lead on this even if you don't really understand what it's all about you don't have to understand what it's about you can be a leader by simply participating and judging and then just having a having a curious mind about it and it's that culture of curiosity um that sort of I mean we talk about sort of first principles I mean we're talking about education here on on this particular webinar but even before that you need to instill this culture of curiosity and that's what we're sort of Leaning into um Executives with be curious and then we can help you uh sort of be educated yeah that's great and Denise maybe you know learning is a big part of the booking.com culture already right uh so maybe uh I'll reframe the question for you um how did you know the early executive team at booking.com from a you know leadership history perspective right um how did it initially Forge that as a cultural value like what were um what what were the behaviors of the leadership team that got you know codified as part of the of the culture that it became such a strong cultural value yeah and I think thinking about what you both said it's also uh the habit of sharing right in qbrs in MBR Sly business reviews or monthly business reviews the impact right what are you doing better as a result of this how is the initiative that we are all these formats how are they allowing you to do your work better or to actually reach your objectives right so that sharing also Braden perspective from other team to say I'm gonna give it a try right I was quite hesitant but after seeing the success of this team I may give it a try right so that also helps unlock the resistance and also be more open to consider right again uh it's a lot of sharing of okay is this really giving us the results we want are we also serving our customers better as a result of this intervention of this program right so I think ultimately the results and the testimonials are actually doing the job right you're basically getting your job done so then you get more prompt into what else can we try can we do it faster more I don't know in a fun way right or more scalable but uh it's always based on those results right the impact of of all these programs and all these efforts yeah wrestle Mark I'm not sure if you want to react to that as well like maybe walk walk walk through is how kind of results oriented uh kind of a results oriented approach also feeds into the learning culture so Russell maybe I'll start with you here yeah I think in some of our certification programs I mean uh when we talk about things that happen in our in our Beam Academy like our L &d function that's specific towards digital and Technology um we talk about the number of um certification when we do events we talk about the the reach um you know we have it's it's very very sort of um uh uh campaign driven metric driven we look for outcomes uh so I I think it's that's sort of what distinguishes it from a lot of other uh L &d Type programs I mean when you got an L&D program that has that's trying to advance the course of data it only makes sense that you use a lot of data in order to evaluate the um the of it yeah that's great Mark uh maybe yeah walk us through how results factoring in here thinking to tie this together so one one thing we do so this is about just learning as part of your job and as part of the organization and does ultimately data driven but means actually you've got to learning culture within your organization so one of the things we have set up is a causal laboratory and so the causal laboratory means that anybody any customers that come on are randomly selected so I get a small percentage of every customer they belong to me not Marketing in my team okay so we don't get any marketing and my job is to therefore experiment and understand and demonstrate lifting performance and demonstrate I can perform better than the the marketing team CR so it's a big challenge right it's a learning not only is it a nice competition but actually we're creating value and we're all learning in the process so coming through I know often people say they're they're learning a d when they got a report that's not you got take risks and you got to allow allow to give to to to gain something very precious yeah that's that's great I I love that as a challenge you know definitely you know uh there's no escape and challenge are both great great kind of taglines and motivators here uh maybe one thing that sorry Russell that you interject I was gonna say Mark by the way I'm writing this down actually I mean if I could steal 10% of ms's marketing budget and divert it to data science yeah sure they they signing up too initially you have to give me some notes on how to do that yeah that's that's great and there's one question actually we got in the question section that I was planning on exactly asking it myself so I'm actually I'm going to uh let aani ask it himself so initial enthusiasm for learning is common but how do you maintain momentum over time how do you prevent how do you prevent learning initiatives from becoming just another checkbox um you know I was going to talk about how big of a challenge it is to sustain learning momentum over time over the Long Haul right um Russell you know you've been at the Beam Academy at least at least my knowledge it's been a few years now right um year now yeah yeah so uh maybe walk us through how you've built approached uh building and keeping momentum for example behind learning what best practices you have I'll also you know relay this question to Denise and Mark so yeah walk us through how do you sustain uh learning momentum over time yeah I I love the question right because I mean I think we've all been through the uh the little box checking exercises of take a taking health and safety uh you know an anti fraud uh L&D type of quiz right these are not the things that anybody willingly signs up for uh and and Rebels and spending their free time doing right I love security IT training and love learning how to my security badge as much as an next 30 minutes on a on a survey to do that um so I mean if we take that as sort of the example of what bad looks like and then flip that on his head like how do we make that a little bit more alive and make people want to do that nobody wants to take a health and safety um you know test all the time but we want people to be like have a lifelong interest in sort of uh evangelizing um both um you know their own learnings and helping others to learn uh things around data and data science so I think um as I mentioned we have the Beam Academy here uh which is our DNT or digital and Technology Learning and Development function I think from the beginning it was sort of set up to do something uh really different you know educate uh we have 75,000 employees including a lot of Frontline colleagues working in stores the the digital skills necessary in order to um you know do your work as a colleague in store as a store manager as a regional sales manager for Marks and Spencer that's what Beam Academy uh is is there to support you doing um and there's lots of certifications where people can do that and it but it also um caters towards people that are interested in in uh upskilling themselves and other things as well you know everything from you know uh Excel technology um to data analysis we have quite a few uh l seven graduates you know as well in dat allliance uh so all of these are sort of now embedded in the business and so we have that thousand points of light kind of thing that the Beam Academy is is helping to create and then how do you fan the flames right how do you keep those Embers uh going rather than just like separating all those Embers and scatter them away from the fire and suddenly everything sort of dies out and stops producing light and heat you've got to bring them Embers back together in these events um and we do a lot of events with Beam Academy um Adele you had the you had the uh well we had the privilege of having you into one of our let's talk it's my privilege you um you added a bit of excitement to us so thank you again for that um but events like that where we have uh a lot of people in the company that are attending remotely and um and in person I mean our let's talk AI event where we basically talked about here's the AI technology and here's what it means for the future of marks and Spencer we we did that fairly early last year um and we had I think we broke all the records in terms of internal events of any kind that we did at M&S uh last year that was uh that was the big thing and I think most of that was was uh you know you were driving the attendance there um I wouldn't say so myself but yeah I a lot a lot a lot smarter people on that panel than than me but yes okay but we had a really really good time and I think more importantly we really got the attention of you know uh Executives hey what's going on let me understand you know how you're how you're framing this what how this works for the company but also it gives everybody a chance who's really interested in it to come in and then participate you know and uh the evangelists create future evangelists um you know through that through that program yeah that's great I love that point the last point at the end of kind of you know the ambassadorship of of that uh that effect that you see when you build up excitement uh Denise Mark Denise I'll start with you yeah how do you sustain learning over the Long Haul yeah so part of my job is to really create a monthly newsletter right of everything that is new but also we tailor that newsletter to audience but also what's going on in that season right what are people naturally thinking about for example Jan is all about building better habits for example right so how do you support also the the personal need that this person have and then just try to leverage that right on top of that we do a lot of communication quarter monthly right on acknowledgement as well who has completed what like some sort of leaderboard in some programs right but acknowledgement of the effort right because that's the behavior we want want to role model right so those who are doing it like we're trying to celebrate it right and I think we've done a very data driven approach already so we're able to understand what are the natural Peaks and what's the natural flow right so we already know Q3 is a very strong quarter for people to learn it's also a bit of like back to school right of what's happening outside work so we tried really to build campaigns somewhere in September with wind cool prices right or we try to celebrate or find an excuse depending on the audience to try to um just bring that excitement and help them think also how can that um yeah relates into the work and the programs that we have right so but it's really datadriven understanding the audience that we're catering but it's a lot of communication right uh of what's new what's popular give it a try also hear how it's helping other people right um but it's constant acknowledgement as well right um even at the end of the year we s like emails those internal trainers that help us drive learning how many sessions they did right was it well received so all this really makes it as part of like once you close the year you are able to see okay here in this quarter we did this quarter two we that that and just sharing that uh with with the the actual Learners or or colleagues it's it's um they already are waiting to hear right what's going to be the next event in September type of thing right so yeah we also try to get prices right or gamified in a way so that they're they just build up the excitement on this right but acknowledgement acknowledging the efforts uh it's also really a good uh effort right whether it's from the lmd team or the manager itself or the team it's something that is also part of the the campaign and the communications that we run I couldn't agree more especially on the acknowledgement side Mark yeah I'll let you expand on how you approach building a learning culture over the long hul at bet bet MGM I think Denise that's a good point the acknowledgement I think that that's important to to keep the encouragement going when when we got feedback I got feedback it was less about acknowledgement from me or more senior leaders or people on the side it was more the contemporaries that they want ackowledgement for I think that was so that's that's a key for me for for getting them to share their work with their contemporaries but I try to I try to hire natural curios curious people right and then you your job is just to feed that Curiosity as a leader to feed and uh try create new data sets run of new data sets more difficult interesting problems new tech new new tech techniques or something we've never tried before so just encourage it and open that up yeah that's really great and in a lot of ways a lot of what you're discussing here especially Denise and Russell when you discuss kind of the B Academy and what you've do with the campaigns right is that the uh you know learning leader data leader uh whoever whoever is in charge of the uh analytics upscaling um uh Pro program needs to think a lot of times like a marketer rather than just a traditional Learning and Development professional or data leader right um maybe walk us through what skills you think kind of like from that marketing hat you need to adopt to be able to succeed at building a learning culture for the Long Haul Denise let start with you yeah I think it's also a lot of understanding your audience right like who are they tools they're used what formats they use even to communicate right because I think you need to mirror and be where they are meet them where they are try to speak their language right acknowledge the challenges that they have give them some hope that we're trying to work on the same goals that's why we're trying to um expose them to different Alternatives or different formats right but that's always a joint effort that we're trying to get something for what right is it that we're trying to reach our goal like customers better right but jump in the same collaborative Spirit um by speaking their language right just posting or writing in the channels where this community is active um that's that's quite a good uh step right in in understanding who your audience is um yeah just be part of it as much as you can right yeah and Russell what are some great marketing tactics that have worked at M&S yeah I mean you know like Denise mentioned I mean it's a lot of internal um internal marketing uh you know I think about somebody who does this really really well I'll just give a quick name shout out to lindsy Marshall who runs our beam 100% And I know you know linday really really well but I mean linday is like in my mind like that an expert in in within a fairly silid organization like M&S uh you can just imagine different business units um uh all sort of contributing D DNT digital and technology is is sort of a partner to all um like Lindsay in order to that job really really well as she does is you know you've got to tailor that message to the audience uh and that means doing something uh somewhat different for clothing in home that you might do for Foods right you know within within M M&S uh I think Lindsay does that really really well um and then you know basically be able to put those different sort of marketing messages and different ways of talking tailored messages but still be able to S the S synthesize the whole so you can see the entire outcome yeah and Mark marketing tactics that worked at bat yeah it's it's a large part of my role a huge part of my role to to uh people don't realize that I'm n at heart but actually I spend less and less time in the data but uh it's about it's about look we have once a month we have a be Alex Steering group is chaired by the the the CEO and the SE Suite my job is to present what's going on are we get in the right direction the priorities and direction of the team uh you know we we push the engagement stuff then more recently we've done a road show with the product leaders sharing with them for two hours everything we we do so putting together that Insight that presentation and putting it is a isn't a straightforward task it takes days sometimes takes weeks to to pull that together and take that through so yeah it's incredibly important part of my job incredibly important part yeah could couldn't agree more it's a it's a an additional skill set to have as a leader that is extremely important that no one tells you you need to have um so I do want to take questions from the audience but I'll ask one final question from my side before uh we get started um as we CL as we close out you know what is one single piece of advice you would give to analytics leader or a learning leader any leader on here on the call for that matter when it comes to building an effective learning culture uh Denise I'll start with you yeah and I think it goes to understand your audience right what is burning for them what's important for them and just really bring that awareness also not just for their unit right but what are we trying to achieve as a function largely right what are the challenges that we have broadly speaking but also internally right what's where do you want to start like have some really alignment with um maybe a career framework that you have right different skill sets or levels but I think it's really about um be with your audience understand understand what's top of priority for them and uh just stay super close to them yeah that's awesome Mark your your single advice um just keep checking in with yourself that you are continually learning and continually driving forward yourself and you continually curious and then and share that enthusiasm with the people in your team great Russell your final advice to sum it all up um yeah I think just like I mentioned just like last year I mean sort of History kind of threw us a bone with AI suddenly become becoming top of mind for everybody uh I would say like for organizations that are if you really find it that you're struggling to create an L&D type of function you know that can advance skills and data and data science um don't be afraid of using those pain points or that misunderstanding or things that people are worried about in order to say hey I'm doing something more than just creating a general L &d program I'm solving a particular business problem or particular business fear or a particular business paino and then get as specific as possible with your Executives and say this is what I'm trying to do I'm going to solve this problem and then use that to sort of springboard yourself and your program into a broader L &d uh function for data and data science that's great um so we're going to get a lot of questions from the audience please everyone do use the Q&A feature there's already a lot of questions uh shown so I'm going to have a uh question from Jaren which I think is going to be really relevant how do you build a data literacy culture from scratch when a large proportion of the workforce are unfamiliar with data literacy where do you start Denise I'll start with you here yeah and I think we did that a couple of years right ago uh with some topics and I think this is great when we build some foundational uh programs right and you try to put cohorts of people right or business units but you are really driving a lot of communications into let's build this together we want to build this foundational level because of this right always tied to the relevance why now why this right so but I think if you do it as part of like you're not alone with this right you're more you're one of those who want to uh build this foundational knowledge if you do it as a group always thinking what is going to be the benefit for yourself but also for your team that's uh how we did it right how it really paid off that's great and maybe Mark Russell do you want to expand on that Mark okay Russell I'll start with I'll I'll I'll pick one yeah so Russell yeah yeah sorry I love I love the question and and thank you for the person that answered it that asked that asked it right I mean what do you do if a large proportion of um you know your employees are not familiar with data literacy I would turn that on his head and say like well there is still a proportion of people that are familiar with data literacy within your organization find them we keep talking about peer-to-peer in you know over the course of this conversation we're having today find those people get them together right and then you've got small Embers you push those together and you can get some light and heat from it um and then use that as the foundation these are the these are the people that are interested right these are your future evangelists and then look at where they are in the organization if they're if they're confined to one fairly specific part of the organization that's one problem to solve but if they're more generally spread then you've got you know you you you're you're closer to that kind of transformation than you think than you think you are uh you just need to push those Embers from a common fire back out into the organization and and sort of just that oxygen that's great Mark your final note here on this one yeah just look there there's always going to be a large portion of the the the company or the people you work with who who aren't data literate that uh in some ways or form um our job is to try and to to get that data easily accessible for them but also help them understand it interpret it that's tough sometimes it's tough but you have to spend time and effort weeks months with people to to help them um but your job is as a data or analytics expert is to within is to build up your own credibility your own brand so people start coming to you for help and advice that's that's the best thing I do that takes time and it like most good things it takes time so true it's well worth the effort when it happens and I would add one final remark right that it's also a lot of communication because this is basically a building block that is going to allow you to continue right and to really becoming better and achieving what you want to achieve faster right so that's also a very powerful message to give them hope to acknowledge is going to take you time it's going to take you effort right so but I think if you focus the communications on that that level it's also a nice powerful uh statement right yeah I could agree more uh another question here uh from Katie uh it's a pretty strong question it was mentioned in a previous session about change management how can we encourage senior members of the team so leaders to upscale their data literacy instead of passing it off to junior members as they assume we are more tech savvy um so yeah maybe a broader question how do you approach the data literacy of senior leadership rather than uh you know the uh the broader uh organization uh Denise I'll start with you here as well yeah it's an interesting question because I think uh if you got to be senior is because you've demonstrated some behaviors that what we want and you also are curious and you're learning and you're being part of the learning culture so I don't think we've had that particular challenge here but I think even if we do like I said There Is No Escape right that you're gonna be still involved and whether it is your direct reports asking can I go to this conference this is going what I'm going to get knowledge right internally there's plenty of opportunities So eventually you'll end up being part of something right uh even perhaps a bit of peer pressure in a way if you want but um I think it's just so natural just to hear right if someone is having the results that you also wanting to to achieve yeah I think it's really you're going to give it a benefit of the doubt right and at least try it so yeah I don't think that's a particular problem we have at booking.com but um yeah if we had we tackle it that way right and also yeah everybody understands the role in development here right you as an individual you drive it so you're also able to push your manager for more feedback or insights right but you as a manager also understand what is your role into driving uh and fermenting knowledge as well right yeah that's awesome uh Mark uh maybe how do you approach building the data literacy of leadership uh profiles oh I'm not inure what that means but um um I don't know maybe how yeah I don't understand the question sorry so no maybe how would you approach uh you know uh building a learning culture when it comes to data skills or data Literacy for you know more senior people within the organization rather than um more Junior folks understood the question was also about yeah about rout change TR yeah and so so so for me we have a we have a team philosophy and a part of that team philosophy and it was built by members of the team and myself is that is our job to change people's minds with with data data and analytics that's our one of our key key key roles and so that includes me and includes the whole team and so you have to the way you present the way you you have to understand the political environment as well so some people may firmly believe that something is right even when they don't know they've invested it you have to know that they've invested a lot of effort and stuff and if your analysis is going to show the opposite then you need to be wary of that and communicate accordingly and so today we had two two piece of analysis that was presented one which was to do exactly that it was such a difficult piece of analysis to do a lot have been invested and basically said it didn't work that piece of analysis changed the people changed the minds of the people and change the actions they actually reverse what they did and then the other thing was really nice a piece of analysis around someone called Kellin Hanks who actually changed beding behavior and she showed that and suddenly that sparked ideas and sparked change within the organization um so two very nice nice piece of analysis that are driven actual actual change and so that happens at every levels of organization it's my job to help do it at the senior level but it should Ripple down so if you learn it at the lower levels and actually it will Ripple up to when you if that's what you choose to be if you want to be a data leader at the the end of your career then that that also will be an important part of your learning process that's excellent I'm gonna ask one more question but I'll only direct that Russell since he spoke quite a bit about hackathons uh for hackathons you need people who like to share and are good team players and are engage within the organization what's the best approach to encourage these individuals in the team to share their knowledge with others so what worked with you in the past wrestl creating kind of Engagement for hackathons yeah yeah I mean maybe just push back a little bit on the question actually because I think the presumption in the question is that you need the you need to be an evangelist in order to even participate in a hackathon uh and I think a good hackathon isn't necessarily that way right uh you know some people are volunteers uh some people are volunt some people are incentivized in order to participate call it what you will right something we did um when we had a hackathon around AI um the whole thing was generative AI that was our second hackathon from last year I believe it was in October um we had a lot of great ideas really broad base of support and and uh entrance from around M&S but because of the generative AI aspect of it um one thing I I really push back against was we had a lot of great ideas within the data science team we've got a team of around 45 people here and they just wanted to create their own teams and I'm like you know we can't be like the you know what what it was what was it the 1988 um you know us basketball entrant into the Olympics right where you have all you know athletes you know competing against nonprofessional amateurs around the rest of the world so what we did is basically say we can't have that kind of one-sided evangelism don't just get the people who know facing off against the people who want to evangelize and have actual World business problems to solve so we integrated the two um we asked every single person on the data science team to go out and find somebody in the business who was uh wanted to be uh part of the hackathon and then support them directly as their sort of personal data scientist uh for for that particular team and what we found is there's a lot of people on the data science team who probably wouldn't have been that comfortable getting out and sort of becoming that evangelist you know and there's um but because of that sort of volunt telling um um we had a much broader base of support better technology on display uh much more rigorous sort of measurement programs in place and pairing the Evangelist with you know the the what do they say the Willing with the the worthy right so yeah that is awesome I couldn't agree more you know between There's No Escape and being volun told these are all great uh taglines I want to say a huge thank you for everyone who attended this session a huge thank you as well for Denise Mark Russell for joining us uh and sharing these insights everyone do give our speakers a lot of love with the Emojis with the chat as we can see it's all blowing up I really really really appreciate everyone who's joined us so far and everyone tune in for the last session of the day on data governance and then we're going to have an AMA with the data Camp Founders at the end uh and very excited for the next session thank you so much everyone great thank you thank you thanks everyone\n"