Speakers: Sheryl Martin, Membership Director
Sheryl Martin: Hello! I'm Sheryl Martin, and I'm the Membership Director with the Enterprise Data Strategy Board.
How do you serve the community in your role as Membership Director?
Sheryl Martin: Each time I first meet a member, the very first thing I say to them is to think of me as their concierge for all things related to data. So what does that mean? It means that I'm here to make sure that they have conversations that are relevant to them each and every week. I'm here to research responses to questions that they have. I'm here to connect them one-on-one to members that make sense for them that may be on a similar journey. I'm here to make sure they get the best value each and every day for themselves and the organization to grow their data management areas, data strategy, and all things data.
What’s something new members are surprised about after they join the community?
Sheryl Martin: Our new members are surprised by quite a few things. Number one, I think they are taken back by how open and giving everyone is in a confidential, unbiased environment. No one's giving away their secret sauce. They're supporting one another in a peer community. They're helping each other move forward on a journey or how to manipulate data and think through that. So they are very giving. I think people are overwhelmingly surprised by how many resources we have in our Member Center, and how I can help them to get to these things, so they don't have to spend a lot of time researching it. Which gets to my favorite last thing: That five minutes with Sheryl, I think they're surprised with how much value they can get from that. I can incorporate questions for them into calls that they can't make when they're too busy, I can get them notes and recording links of those calls that they might miss. I can introduce them to people one-on-one that have expertise in areas that matter to them. I can get them in front of people without anyone being biased, because it's not a sponsor or a vendor putting them in front. It's somebody that they want to talk to, whether it's about a tool, a vendor, or just a way of dealing with data.
What do you think makes this community different from other peer groups?
Sheryl Martin: The number one thing that differentiates this community from any other out there. I hear about this time and time again is that we're vendor-free, we're sponsor-free. So why does that matter? Because we're bringing together senior leaders from the world of data at all large companies that are not being put in front of you with a secret agenda. They're not being put in front of you with any bias to talk about a specific tool that might work well for you. Whatever it is we're talking about, whether it be a vendor, a tool, ways to deal with AI, we're doing that with real practitioners with no bias. So you might get good opinions, you're also gonna hear what's not so good. It's real talk, with people that matter to you, on journeys that you're on, without anyone pushing anyone's agenda.
