Three years in pursuit of a mission that really matters

[jrineakter]

On July 11, 2019, we celebrated our third anniversary of data.world’s launch. We gathered at the Alamo Drafthouse, followed by bowling and axe-throwing (yes, you read that right—it’s a thing now) at High 5. It was tremendous fun and I truly feel so proud to be a part of our amazing team.

In last year’s anniversary letter, I referenced the release of our first Public Benefit Corporation Report as a Certified B Corporation®. At that time we decided to make our Report public to all, instead of just our shareholders, and it highlighted how we’ve been fulfilling our public mission and proudly benefiting the world as a result. It has been a very busy past year, and so I collaborated with our team to highlight all of the amazing things we’ve been up to since then to continue to fulfill our public mission, which is:

...to (a) strive to build the most meaningful, collaborative and abundant data resource in the world in order to maximize data's societal problem-solving utility, (b) advocate publicly for improving the adoption, usability, and proliferation of open data and linked data, and (c) serve as an accessible historical repository of the world's data.

Data Literacy
While "data" seems to be a hot button for just about everyone these days, there is still a tremendous gap in the knowledge level of many. This includes not just practitioners, but many who have much they could add to the data discussion in an organization’s quest to become more efficient and effective. We’ve been usa whatsapp number data working hard to help lead the data.world community, as well as provide commercial services, to educate the market and raise the level of discourse around data. From the moment we helped co-author the Manifesto for Data Practices (check out the origin story here), we realized how much the industry needed this assist to really evolve. Together with the help of the data.world community, representing some of the world’s best data scientists and analysts, we have delivered this content in three main categories:

1. Self-Serve Content
Between datapractices.org, videos, and tutorials, there is a host of freely available content/courseware that people can consume at their own pace. Much of this work is also able to be integrated and used by anyone who would like to augment their own training materials, even if it's as a commercial offering. We believe that better content that becomes a consistent story will only help the industry and make more opportunity for everyone.

2. Guided Training
For those who would like a little bit more of a guided experience, data.world is partnering with other commercial companies and the community to be able to deliver this content in a customized and instructor-led format. This is great for teams and corporate clients who need a much more bespoke solution to education and data literacy.

3. Peer Discourse
It's lonely at the top! One of the most difficult trends in research around the data ecosystem is that 50-60% of data leaders are going to fail in the next three to five years. Many times it's because there aren't any resources for those roles, and no one for them to discuss the pressing issues of their position, especially at a strategic level. data.world is partnering with Board.org to help found "The Data Board" which is a vendor-free, confidential discussion for people leading data efforts at big brands.