Information as a Second Language: Enabling

Data Literacy for Digital Society

Published: 21 September 2018 ID: G00365697

Analyst(s): Valerie Logan

Digital society expects its citizens to “speak data.” Unless data and analytics
leaders treat information as the new second language of business,
government and communities, they will not be able to deliver the
competitive advantage and agility demanded by their enterprises.

Key Challenges
■ Poor data literacy is the second highest inhibitor to progress, as reported by respondents to
Gartner’s third annual Chief Data Officer Survey, behind culture change and just ahead of lack of
talent and skills.
■ An information language barrier exists across business units and IT functions, rooted in
ineffective communication across a wide range of diverse stakeholders. As a result, data and
analytics leaders struggle to get their message across and information assets go underutilized.
■ Although academic and professional programs are beginning to address the disparity in talent
and skills, in many cases they reinforce the information language barrier with narrow content
focus, bias toward tools training, and lack of contextualization by role.
■ While conversant in the “people, process and technology” capabilities of business models,
many C-level executives and professionals do not speak data fluently as the new critical
capability of the digital era. Data and analytics leaders must find new ways to bridge this gap.

Recommendations
For data and analytics leaders, in support of their programs:

■ Cultivate information as a second language (ISL) across business and IT stakeholders by first
establishing the base vocabulary, clarifying industry and business domain “dialects,” and
developing levels of proficiency.
■ Drive and sustain improvements to your organization’s data literacy by identifying areas where
data is spoken fluently, where language gaps exist, and establish an ISL proof of concept for
language development.
 ■ Change the way you and others interact with leaders, stakeholders and peers by speaking data
in context in everyday interactions with colleagues, managers and even executives and board
members, and as a basis for outcomes-oriented business cases.

Table of Contents

Strategic Planning Assumptions............................................................................................................. 2

Introduction............................................................................................................................................ 3
Analysis.................................................................................................................................................. 4
Cultivate ISL Across Business and IT Stakeholders...........................................................................6
Drive and Sustain Improvements to Your Organization’s Data Literacy.............................................. 9
Do You Speak Data?.................................................................................................................. 9
What We Have Is a Failure to Communicate............................................................................. 10
Set Up an ISL Proof of Concept................................................................................................10
ISL Training and Development Programs.................................................................................. 11
Change the Way You and Others Interact With Leaders, Stakeholders and Peers by Speaking Data
.......................................................................................................................................................11
Gartner Recommended Reading.......................................................................................................... 12

List of Tables

Table 1. Data Literacy Levels of Proficiency.............................................................................................9

List of Figures

Figure 1. Data Literacy as the New Core Capability of Digital Society......................................................3

Figure 2. Gartner's Third CDO Survey: Internal Roadblocks to Success..................................................5
Figure 3. ISL: Enabling Data Literacy for Digital Society.......................................................................... 6
Figure 4. The Base Vocabulary of ISL — The VIA Model......................................................................... 7

Strategic Planning Assumptions

By 2020, 80% of organizations will initiate deliberate competency development in the field of data
literacy, acknowledging their extreme deficiency.

By 2020, 50% of organizations will lack sufficient artificial intelligence (AI) and data literacy skills to
achieve business value.

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 Introduction
With successive waves of data and analytics initiatives spanning decades, the professional diversity
among those who design these solutions (“creators”) and those who use them (“consumers”) has
never been broader. In addition to classic business versus IT heritage, diversity now includes:

■ Veterans versus rookies (e.g., a seasoned organizational veteran with a 30-plus-year career vs.
a brand new data science PhD university graduate)
■ Data versus analytics backgrounds (e.g., an enterprise data architect vs. a business intelligence
developer or operations research specialist)
■ Industry vertical experience (e.g., healthcare analytics vs. banking analytics specialists)
■ Business domain experience (e.g., marketing analytics professionals vs. supply chain analysts)
■ Scope of experience (e.g., geographical scope of local, regional or global; organizational scope
of function, business unit, division, enterprise or ecosystem)

While natural and healthy, this professional diversity is creating an environment in which there is no
shared common language, resulting in a fundamental communication challenge when sponsoring,
proposing, leading, designing or using data and analytically based solutions.

While conversant in the “people, process and technology” capabilities of business models, most
executives and business and IT professionals do not “speak data” fluently (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Data Literacy as the New Core Capability of Digital Society

Source: Gartner (September 2018)

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 As data and analytics become pervasive in all aspects of businesses, communities and even our
personal lives, the ability to communicate in this language — that is, being data literate — is the
new organizational readiness factor.

Gartner defines data literacy as follows (see also Note 1):

The ability to read, write and communicate data “in context,”

including an understanding of data sources and constructs,
analytical methods and techniques applied, and the ability to
describe the use case application and resulting value.

Data literacy is a two-way communication dynamic — writing/speaking and reading/understanding.

Whether translating to the board how data and analytics manifest in company use cases, explaining
how to creatively blend internal and external datasets, or describing advanced analytics techniques
including AI, speaking data is the new language of the digital economy (see “Fostering Data Literacy
and Information as a Second Language: A Gartner Trend Insight Report.”)

Analysis
In Gartner’s third annual Chief Data Officer Survey, top data and analytics leaders, who are
responsible for harnessing the value of data and insight for the organization, voiced a critical
challenge of poor data literacy, alongside related challenges of shifting the business culture and lack
of talent (see Figure 2).

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 Figure 2. Gartner's Third CDO Survey: Internal Roadblocks to Success

CDO = chief data officer

For more findings from the survey, see “Survey Analysis: Third Gartner CDO Survey — How Chief Data Officers Are Driving Business
Impact.”

Source: Gartner (September 2018)

In their role, chief data officers (CDOs) are tasked with enabling a community of creators and
consumers of data-driven solutions. In doing so, they encounter a wide range of data and analytics
skills levels and language abilities. The information language barrier can exist locally or systemically,
regardless of program scope or organizational maturity. Addressing it requires a mindset shift, and
deliberate acknowledgment and intervention to course-correct. Similar to the days of Six Sigma or
business process re-engineering, some will naturally understand the foundational role that data

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 plays in business transformation, but most will not. Skilled leadership and deliberate change
management discipline are required to course-correct, beginning with the acknowledgment of
information as the new second language of the ongoing digital revolution (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. ISL: Enabling Data Literacy for Digital Society

AI = artificial intelligence; ML = machine learning

Source: Gartner (September 2018)

Cultivate ISL Across Business and IT Stakeholders

The foundation of any language is a base vocabulary. According to Wikipedia (Note 2), we begin
with simple, generally accepted uses of the terms “data” and “information”:

■ Data is a set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables

■ Information is that which informs, and can be encoded into various forms for transmission and
interpretation

In the case of information as a language (Note 3), the base vocabulary is composed of three
elements: Value, Information and Analytics — the VIA model (see Figure 4).

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 Figure 4. The Base Vocabulary of ISL — The VIA Model

ISL = information as a second language

Source: Gartner (September 2018)

1. Value:
■ Business outcomes, questions, decisions, actions, metrics.
■ Integrated information and analytics applied in terms of a decision in the context of a
business moment.
■ Integrated strategies, governance, use cases, business process integration and
contextualized applications, approaches, change management and organizational
constructs.
2. Information:
■ Data sources, quality, data types and management methods.
■ Related strategies, governance, technologies and organizational constructs.
■ Spans the information life cycle, from creation to archive/deletion.

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 3. Analytics:
■ Business intelligence, reporting, analytical methods, artificial intelligence, machine learning.
■ Related strategies, methods, governance, technologies and organizational constructs.

In addition to a base vocabulary, with any language, dialects form specific to a particular social
group or region. In the case of ISL, natural dialects emerge aligned with:

■ Industry vertical domain dialects (e.g., speaking healthcare data)

■ Business process horizontal domain dialects (e.g., speaking marketing data)
■ Technical domain dialects (e.g., conceptual, logical and physical architectures; specific
programming/coding languages; mathematical and analytical techniques; data management vs.
content management disciplines)

(See “Harnessing the Pervasive Nature of Domain Data and Analytics.”)

In developing data literacy, five commonly accepted levels of proficiency apply, summarized in Table
1.

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 Table 1. Data Literacy Levels of Proficiency

Level Definition Example

Conversational Basic understanding of the concepts A professional who has a basic understanding of an
of data, analytics and use cases; one analytics value proposition and the ingredients involved.
who “gets it” but cannot explain it to
others.

Literacy Ability to speak, write and engage in A professional who can explain all aspects of an analytics
data and analytics programs and use use case, including the industry problem, business
cases. process moment/decision affected, data sources
leveraged, and analytical methods applied.

Competency Competent in designing, developing An experienced data and analytics program manager who
and applying data and analytics has designed and delivered analytical projects from
programs. concept through outcome.

Fluency Fluent in all three elements of the In utilities, a smart meter registers kilowatt (kW) usage.
information language (VIA) across Over time, it creates kWh averages and peak demand. This
most business domains within an is interpreted by a billing department associate far
industry vertical. differently than a distribution planning manager, given the
nature of their roles, and the ways in which they use the
data and analytics in context. A fluent data speaker in the
utilities industry would be able to explain all of these use
cases.

Multilingual Fluency across all three elements of An experienced data and analytics strategy consultant
the information language (VIA) across who has designed and delivered analytical solutions
multiple business domains, industries across multiple industries and business domains, and can
and ecosystems. explain them to non-native speakers.

VIA = value, information, analytics

Source: Source: Gartner (September 2018)

Drive and Sustain Improvements to Your Organization’s Data Literacy

Identify areas in your business where data is spoken fluently, where language gaps exist, and
establish an ISL plan and initial proof of concept (POC) for language development.

Do You Speak Data?

To gauge your organization’s degree of data literacy, start by identifying where data is spoken
fluently:

■ Identify fluent and native speakers who speak data naturally and effortlessly. Start with
business analysts, subject matter experts, data stewards and architects within your existing
business intelligence competency centers, analytics centers of excellence and end-user
organizations. Native speakers often originate from consulting backgrounds or information
services companies. Fluent speakers should be adept at describing contextualized use cases

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 and outcomes, the analytical techniques applied to them, and the underlying data sources,
entities and key attributes involved.
■ Identify skilled translators — those who have, historically, served as the mediators across data
and analytics programs, and authors of related business cases. Classic translators are often
enterprise data or information architects, data scientists, information stewards and related
program managers.

What We Have Is a Failure to Communicate

Identifying where language barriers are inhibiting progress is equally important to identifying where
data is spoken fluently:

■ Identify areas where communication barriers are inhibiting the effectiveness of data and
analytics initiatives, paying particular attention to business-IT gaps, data/analytics gaps and
veteran/rookie gaps.
■ Actively listen for business outcomes not clearly articulated in terms of explicit action. What
business moments are being enabled with enhanced data and analytics capabilities? What
operational decisions are being improved? What processes are being improved with
algorithms? (See “Data and Analytics Strategies Need More Concrete Metrics of Success,”
“Toolkit: Use Business Moments to Identify Hidden Value Opportunities for Your Enterprise” and
“Toolkit: Analytics Business Opportunities From Almost 200 Use Cases.”)
■ Identify key stakeholders who require specialized translations to better sponsor, understand
and support initiatives, with specific attention to C-level executives who must speak data and
analytics at a conversational level to lead by example. To assess data literacy levels, ask key
stakeholders to articulate the value of data as a strategic asset in terms of business outcomes,
including enhanced business moments, monetization and risk mitigation.
■ Identify and maintain a list of words and phrases used throughout the organization that are
either too vague (business speak like “better decision making” or “the right info for the right
people at the right time”) or too precise (tech speak like “modernizing our data infrastructure for
exogenous data sources”). These lists can then be used to engage the data and analytics team
in crafting ways to better articulate them. Examples might include business speak like “better
decision making” or “the right info for the right people at the right time” (vague), or tech speak
like “modernizing our data infrastructure for exogenous data sources” (confusingly precise).
Leverage key data and analytics program artifacts like a data catalog, business glossary and
data dictionary as foundational resources and references. Another technique is to create/collect
a set of “use this, not that” or “this is in, while this is out” pairings, as a type of game to amplify
language that is relevant, and what should not be used. This type of collective gaming exercise
could result in an internal guidance document for internal distribution, and reinforcing common
phrases.

Set Up an ISL Proof of Concept

As you surface areas where language gaps are inhibiting progress, conduct an initial ISL proof of
concept (POC) as a basis for language training and development:

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 ■ Select an area of the business to establish an ISL POC as a demonstration of the need and
opportunity for enhanced communication and a shared language. Pick a “friendly” area where
clear gaps have surfaced, and in which you have willing, diverse participants. Have each
member self-assess their “data fluency” level.
■ Conduct an ISL workshop centered on an existing analytical use case, and ask members to
articulate the use case from their own point of view. Capture the similarities where language is
shared, and where differences exist. After the workshop, have each member reassess their
“data fluency” level. Capture lessons learned.
■ Raise awareness and understanding of the data literacy gap by broadcasting the story,
calling attention to the problem, opportunity and outcomes of the POC.

ISL Training and Development Programs

■ Data and analytics leaders should plan for and deliver deliberate competency and language
development programs. These include intentional cross-training of priority roles (business
analysts, data scientists, data engineers and sponsors) with direct input from academic
institutions, research organizations and consulting organizations.
■ Skilled translators and multilingual instructors will begin to emerge, similar to early pilots
and adopters of second language development programs (see Note 4), or Six-Sigma-type black
belt training programs, as a sign of the deliberate and wide adoption of the new language of
digital society.
■ System integrators, consulting providers and technology providers must develop related
programs for their professionals to raise their fluency in speaking data.

Change the Way You and Others Interact With Leaders, Stakeholders and Peers by
Speaking Data
“Be the change you want to see in the world” — Mahatma Gandhi.

Model the language you want to encourage and nurture across your organization. Speak data “in
context” in everyday interactions, with board members and team members, to set the tone for the
new mode of communication. With each discussion, call attention to the three key aspects of the
language: the business outcome (first and foremost), the data elements involved, and the analytical
techniques that support the business outcome. Talk business — not just data or analytics.

In addition to conducting a POC, initiate cross-team training for information language development.
Consider fun ways to advance awareness and learning (e.g., techno-speak Bingo). Challenge your
current data and analytics team members to teach their “dialect” of the language to other members
of the team to ensure everyone receives a comprehensive view of the use case, analytics and data.
After this cross-training, test each member of the team by insisting they teach/translate to someone
else outside of the group.

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 In addition to information language development, data and analytics leaders should use
visualization and a maturing set of communication techniques — storytelling, customer journey
maps, glossaries and infographics, for example — to convey the business impact of applying data
and analytics to the business moments that matter most.

Additional research contribution and review was provided by Mark Beyer, Erick Brethenoux, Frank
Buytendijk, Matt Cain, Lydia Clougherty-Jones, Melissa Davis, Alan Dayley, Alan D. Duncan, Cindi
Howson, Carlie Idoine, Saul Judah, Doug Laney, Deb Logan, Michael Moran, Thomas Oestrich,
Jamie Popkin, Mike Rollings, Rita Sallam, Kurt Schlegel, Svetlana Sicular, Andrew White.

Acronym Key and Glossary Terms

ISL information as a second language (alternate acronym: I2L)

Gartner Recommended Reading

Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

“Fostering Data Literacy and Information as a Second Language: A Gartner Trend Insight Report”

“Leadership Vision for 2019: Data and Analytics Leader”

“Survey Analysis: Third Gartner CDO Survey — How Chief Data Officers Are Driving Business
Impact”

“Break Through the Four Barriers Blocking Your Full Data and Analytics Potential — Keynote
Insights”

“Harnessing the Pervasive Nature of Domain Data and Analytics”

“100 Data and Analytics Predictions Through 2022”

“How to Establish a Data-Driven Culture in the Digital Workplace”

“Toolkit: Use Business Moments to Identify Hidden Value Opportunities for Your Enterprise”

“Toolkit: Analytics Business Opportunities From Almost 200 Use Cases”

“Applied Infonomics: Why and How to Measure the Value of Your Information Assets”

Evidence
This research is based on hundreds of client inquiries and interactions with many analysts across all
aspects of data literacy, and related data and analytics topics, across industries and business
domains.

The data for this report comes from Gartner’s third annual Chief Data Officer Survey, conducted
during July, August and September 2017 by phone and online. The survey included 287 CDOs,

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 chief analytics officers and other high-level data and analytics leaders from across the world. The
purpose of the survey was to test a set of five hypotheses about the CDO role and the office of the
CDO, in order to understand how this rapidly growing business function is maturing and the
resulting business impact.

Note 1 About Literacy (Data Literacy)

Data literacy is the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, including an
understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied, and the
ability to describe the use case, the application and resulting value.

Information literacy is the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to
identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.
(Source: The United States National Forum on Information Literacy.)

Note 2 About Data (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom)

Excerpts from Wikipedia include the following simple, generally accepted definitions:

■ Data — A set of values of qualitative or quantitative variables.

■ Information — That which informs, and can be encoded into various forms for transmission
and interpretation.
■ Knowledge — A familiarity, awareness or understanding of someone or something, such as
facts, information, descriptions or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by
perceiving, discovering or learning.
■ Wisdom — The ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common
sense and insight.

Note 3 About Language (Information as a Language)

Language is a system of communication. The study of language is linguistics.

Note 4 About Second Languages

A person’s second language is a language that is not the native language of the speaker, but that is
used in the locale of that person. In contrast, a foreign language is a language that is learned in an
area where that language is not generally spoken. (Source: Wikipedia.)

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