Announcing Data Literacy Month

We’re proud to announce data literacy month. This September, we’re dedicating an entire month to live events, podcasts, articles, and more, covering the ins and outs of driving data literacy for individuals and organizations. Join us for a line-up of events featuring thought leaders and practitioners at the forefront of driving data literacy.

Why Data Literacy Month

Data literacy is the ability to read, write, communicate, analyze, and reason with data. From an organizational perspective, it is a spectrum of data skills ranging from data-driven decision-making to advanced technical skills in data science, data engineering, and machine learning, resulting in everyone generating value from data at scale. Building data literacy skills eliminate the fear of data from your organization's people, leading to improved decision-making, productivity, employee retention, customer experience, and more. 

September 8 is International Literacy Day. International Literacy Day takes place every year around the world to remind the public of the importance of literacy as a matter of dignity and human rights and to advance the literacy agenda toward a more literate and sustainable society. Given the rising importance of data literacy in the 21st century, we wanted to extend this celebration and shine a light on data literacy throughout September. 

What to Expect in September 

Throughout September, we have an exciting line-up of events, webinars, podcasts, articles, and cheat sheets. Here’s what you can expect!

Webinars

• September 6, 11:00 AM ET, Cindi Howson, Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot and host of the Data Chief Podcast, joins us for a fireside chat on how leaders can drive the data literacy plan within their organization.
• September 7, 11:00 AM ET, Kate Strachnyi, founder and community manager at DATAcated, joins us to discuss how to grow a career in data, build a personal brand, and foster belonging within the data literacy community.
• September 8, 10:30 AM ET, Jordan Morrow, Author of Be Data Literate and Be Data Driven and arguably the godfather of data literacy, joins us to discuss what data skills everyone needs to know to succeed.  
• September 21, 11:00 AM ET, Brent Dykes, Author of Effective Data Storytelling, joins us to discuss creating a data storytelling culture within your organization.
• September 22, 11:00 AM ET, Data Journalists Betsy Ladyzhets, Michelle McGhee, and Kimberly Herrington join us to discuss how data journalists deliver data stories to the world.
• September 23, 11:00 AM ET, join DataCamp’s Justin Saddlemyer for a fun live training on data visualization in Python for absolute beginners.
• September 27, 11:00 AM ET, join Marcela Schrank Fialova, Head of the Data Academy at Allianz, for a deep dive into how Allianz upskilled 6,000 people using DataCamp for Business.
• September 28, 11:00 AM ET, join Emily Hayward, Data & Digital Change Manager at CBRE, for a deep dive into CBRE’s data transformation program.

DataFramed Podcast

Throughout September, all DataFramed podcasts will be dedicated to data literacy. Subscribe to DataFramed to catch upcoming episodes, and start binge listening to previous data literacy episodes here:

• Starbucks’s Head of Data Literacy, Megan Brown, discusses how to drive data culture within an organization.
• Salesforce’s Director of Data Science, Anjali Samani, outlines the hallmarks of a high-performing data-driven organization.
• President of the Burning Glass Institute and Chairman of Lightcast, Matt Sigeleman, discusses the future of data skills in an increasingly hybridized labor force.

Cheat Sheets

Stay tuned for new cheat sheets covering statistics fundamentals, dashboard design best practices, data storytelling, and more. In the meantime, check out our previous cheat sheets to accelerate your data literacy journey. 

• Data Cleaning Checklist
• Data Visualization Cheat Sheet
• Power BI Cheat Sheet
• Tableau Cheat Sheet
• SQL Basics Cheat Sheet

Stay Tuned

We hope you’re excited for data literacy month as much as we are. To stay connected with all that’s coming throughout the month, check out the following resources:

• Learn more about data literacy month
• Check out our upcoming events
• Subscribe to DataFramed
• Start the Understanding Data Topics track