Everybody does it. Why not be good at it?

It's data modeling week here. Read the ​past emails here​.

One of my first classes in seminary was “Intro to Theology”. The professor started the class off with a statement I’ve never forgotten.

“You are already a theologian. So why not be a good one?”

Most of us sitting in the class thought “theologians” were people from history books or Ivy League professors writing the textbooks in our library. That professor shattered our idea of “a theologian” and gave us a simpler definition: Anyone who thinks or talks about God is a theologian. Most of us weren’t very good at developing our ideas, asking questions, or thinking through challenging theology topics well.

When he said “You are already a theologian. So why not be a good one?” the whole class was ready to go. We were already doing this thing... it was worth it to get better at it.

If you work with data in any way then you are already a “data modeler”. It’s not an ivory tower practice only for Enterprise Architects and academic book writers. Most of us do it.

The vast majority of us aren’t very good at it.

Data modeling is saving data in any shape or form. If you input data into Excel, you are modeling data. You build Power BI reports you are modeling data. If you are an application developer, you have to model data. If you are a sales exec building out a contract estimate in Excel you are modeling data.

You are already a data modeler. So why not be good at it?

Learn the patterns, practice, and questions required

to shape data in the best way possible

to deliver value for

your business.

I’m here,

Sawyer

from ​The Data Shop