Using Data in Thought Leadership | Anthony J. Algmin | 219

Peter Winick

Using Data for effective Thought Leadership.

How Data can be used for effective thought leadership.

An interview with Anthony J. Algmin about data leadership,publishing, and authorship.

Today we sit down with Anthony J. Algmin, Founder and CEO of Algmin Data Leadership. Anthony is the author of Data Leadership: Stop Talking About Data and Start Making an Impact! Anthony shares his journey of starting his company, writing his book and how he uses data as a thought leader. He also discusses why creating a audio book is a useful tool when creating a book. We discuss reasons to revisit your own book now and whether you should hold back your IP or make it fully accessible.

Three Key Takeaways from the Interview:

Why Thought Leaders should make their IP accessible.
How revisiting your own book can give you a fresh look at your own Thought Leadership.
Why Thought Leaders need to understand the data they have and how it could be utilized.

Do you need a team to help validate your content? We can analyze the metrics, providing data you can use to leverage your ideas and strengthen your conclusions. Reach out to Thought Leadership Leverage and start the conversation.

Transcript

Peter Winick And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage. And you’re joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Anthony J Algrin. He’s the founder and CEO of Alchemy and Data Leadership. He is not only a pioneer of data leadership, he’s the author of the very first published book on this subject, which was called Data Leadership. Stop talking about data and start making an impact. He’s the founder of his firm, as I mentioned, and he also does a fair amount of speaking, advising, training and consulting. So checking lots of our R boxes, if you will. Welcome aboard today, Anthony. How are you?

Anthony J Algrin I’m doing great, Peter. Thanks for having me. It’s excited to be here.

Peter Winick Cool. So first, before we dive into the journey, just quickly define because I don’t think it’s a term that many people are familiar with. What is data leadership.

Anthony J Algrin Right? So data leadership is a term I coined basically because data management or data governance, all this data stuff that people are doing just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t getting the actual results that we needed to. And so data leadership is, is about taking all of those things that we do with data and impacting our business for the better in as big a way as possible. And that’s really what data leadership is all about. It’s about maximizing what we call data value.

Peter Winick Got it. And it regardless of the business or industry that you’re in, every business is a take a business today.

Anthony J Algrin It needs to be.

Peter Winick Yeah, exactly. Okay, cool. So you coined the term, right? You’ve got the firm. Then you wake up one day and say, I think I’ll write a book. Right? So what’s the story behind that? Was this the, you know, is this story of, you know, ten people said, Anthony, you should write a book or you thought you should write one. What’s the back story? Well, you know.

Anthony J Algrin It was really the book kind of happened in parallel to the business. And it was really all both are kind of this culmination of everything I’ve done in the decades of my career. And it was kind of this this shining light that everything has been kind of building up to because it was really like I’ve been trying to solve problems with data and technology and consulting and all this for a long time. It was really recognizing that I was starting to coalesce some really good ideas that were somewhat original in the space, and I felt like a book would be the best way to bring them all together and then help people understand this. And that’s really what the business is about too. It’s really about saying data leadership is important. We’re not getting this right without this data leadership concept. Here’s what it is and here’s how it’s going to make a difference to what you need to do as a business. And so it was really kind of both in parallel. I realized I needed to do them both to get the message out in as complete a way as possible.

Peter Winick Okay. So once you decide, I’m going to do this, what did you learn about the publishing world and then how did that impact the decisions that you that you made or didn’t make in terms of I’m going to publish in this manner?

Anthony J Algrin Yeah, I have a kind of unique story, I think, in this in this capacity, in that I started writing when I knew I had to put it together as a book. There were a couple of things I wanted to do for me in terms of writing the book, and that is I wanted to write the book as a complete exercise. I didn’t want to just pull together a bunch of articles that I’d written before, what have you. I really wanted it to be a book from the very beginning, so I wrote it. I wrote pretty much, I’d say about 80% okay. And I said, okay, how do I now I know that I’ve actually put all these down and created something that I think has some potential here. How can I get it in as many people’s hands as possible? And so I approached the organization that I do a lot of speaking with called Data Versity, and I said, Hey, would you guys be interested in publishing this? Like, I don’t know if you want to do. They hadn’t done any books before, but they did a lot of online stuff. They did these conferences, all of this. And I said, okay, I talked to Tony Shaw, who was the senior is the CEO of the university. I said, Tony, would you be interested in this? He’s like, Funny you should mention that. We’ve been looking for the right first book to publish. And so it was kind of this natural convening together where they were at this point. I was at this point, and I realized that, hey, if I’m already doing a lot of conference speaking with these guys and they want to publish this book, this is an avenue that can get data leadership top of mind for as many people as possible. And that’s really what it was all about.

Peter Winick That’s very cool. So let’s unpack that a little bit. Right? So Data Versity has an interest in this space and obviously having you out there as a speaker. So there’s a win for them that they get to be the publisher on the book. There’s a win for you. You get to write the book that you wanted to write, right? And then there’s also the revenue side of this, right, in terms of the book is generating money. You don’t have to be at the beck and call or at the mercy of a publisher where your goals and objectives are out of alignment. My my assumption would be your goals and objectives are very closely aligned with that diversity. Therefore, that makes sense for you guys to partner on this.

Anthony J Algrin Absolutely. The incentive, like the way I looked at it, I could have gone with a few different publishing houses, had some insurance, but I would be one of many, many books for diversity. I was the first book. They’re going to be very interested in making sure this is successful. Sure. And so that combined with literally everyone I talked to, experts in the space, people have written several books. they’re like, Anthony, just know you’re never going to make any money on this book. And I said, okay, like data management books tend to not make it to the top of the bestseller lists.

Peter Winick Yeah, Good. Good to great has nothing to worry about. Right. We didn’t put that one off. Or Malcolm Gladwell is still eating caviar. It’s all good. Yeah.

Anthony J Algrin Now I’d like to think that it’s at that level, at that quality, and I certainly find it that interesting. But, you know, in all realistic expectations, the point for me was never about making money. And I don’t think it should be. If you’re gonna go write a book, do not do it to try to make money. There’s something you need to say. And that with data first it became that.

Peter Winick Yeah so I want to touch on something really important that you said where you were joking about a little bit, but you know, data, leadership books, etc., you know, don’t become bestsellers. And the trick is that’s really not the point, right? So right. You don’t write this book with the objective of saying, I’m going to be a New York Times bestseller or sell 100,000 copies or, you know, it’s the next tipping point or something like that. You have a niche book in a niche market, right? And that’s a place that’s important for you to be. So it makes a lot of sense that your calibration is realistic. Where I see people go off the rails is they have a similar book not subject matter, but niche book, niche market. They’re well-known in that space, they’re speaking the business in that space, etc. And then they apply mass marketing book tips which are just silly, like airport buys, like doing podcast tours where they’re very liberal with respect to the types of podcasts that they’ll be on, right? They, they just apply the wrong tactics. So tell me about the things that you did. To a to make the book a success. And B, what are you and got adversity discuss to say here’s some things that we’ll look at together and agree that will be the determinant or a KPI or something of a success factor in the book.

Anthony J Algrin Absolutely. I love this question because it was always that I felt that there was potential in this topic to go beyond what that niche was, that data versity market, and it was designed from the very beginning. It was designed to be the kind of book a data person like me gives to their executives when they get back from a data versity event.

Peter Winick So it’s the crossover drug of data books.

Anthony J Algrin Yes, it’s to help those folks connect to all these things that they have awareness like people get that data is important, they understand that, but they don’t know what to do about it. And it impacts way a wide range of people beyond that, quote unquote, data management community. So when I went to data first and said, okay, can we get a book together and put this in the hands of the folks that can give it to the people that they work for, and then that can impact their companies? They don’t have to hire me as a consultant or send 25 people to these conferences, but man, we can add a lot of value if we can get some of these insights into people’s hands, into people’s brains and how they’re operating as businesses. Data versity loved the idea and that’s where like now in a niche book later on in March I’ll be going to Enterprise Data World which is a the biggest data management conference of the year, thousand people, all of whom will have an opportunity to get my book for free as part of their conference. And so they’ll be able to go and bring that back as a big takeaway from the event.

Peter Winick So that’s you. So that’s where I wanted to go next. Exactly. So now you’ve got a thousand people at the leading industry event that will have your book in their in their goodie bag or whatever as a as a takeaway. Right. Is it a physical, tangible thing? They go back to their authors. They share that with their people. They share that with their executives. Do you have some examples, either data or anecdotal, of some success that you’ve achieved? You, you or data versity as a result of the book being out in the universe today?

Anthony J Algrin Yeah. So I think that, yeah, one of the things that that still tickles me is like one of the reasons that I wrote the book is to say, you know, if I could just have this reach somebody that probably wouldn’t have found me otherwise or found diversity otherwise. And when it was, it was the first week I think that the book was out. Somebody had bought it and read it and committed to me on LinkedIn saying, Anthony, thank you for writing this. It just speaks to me and it’s going to make a huge difference in what we’re doing. And once I heard that the first time, I’m like, they had to take the initiative to reach out to me and say that. But when I knew that that was starting to have that kind of impact on them, that it could have that kind of impact on many different people. And that’s like those kinds of nuggets will keep you going for a long time. Like that’s the kind of thing that, you know, the book can do. And really, so many of the lessons and what we tried to do with the book was, you know, add a bunch of easy to understand make an impact statements, have all these little call outs and make an impact. And they’re things that you could just, you know, have a little nugget that can influence what you do. And those are coming from the experiences that I’ve had either in consulting or developing technology or being an executive. And they’re drawn from real life experiences. We tell a lot of different stories and things like that that can help you take data, take these kinds of capabilities in your organization or potential capabilities in your organization, and make them real in terms that anybody can understand.

Peter Winick Fantastic. If you’re enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you’d like to help spread the word about our podcasts, please leave us a review and share it with your friends. We’re available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps as well as at Thought Leadership Leverage dot com. Forward slash podcasts. So any anything you would have done differently with regards to publishing the book either from a content perspective, distribution, you know, anything that you picked up along the way? geez, if I had to do it again, I would I would do this piece differently.

Anthony J Algrin Yeah. I mean, I think I learned about writing in a business context through that experience. You just you build the experience and you learn more. So there would certainly be things that I would be able to do much more quickly next time, especially in terms of like editing process and organizing the thoughts and things like that. But, you know, for the most part, I’m pretty happy with where we got to, although I will say like, you know, after you write a book, you don’t read this book constantly, right? You’ll go for a few months. And you won’t have looked at it. And they’ll pick back up. And a few weeks ago I did the recording. So for the audio book, I actually did the voice recording for the audio book that’s coming out soon. And I went through it and I’m like, Wow, there’s actually some good points in here. There’s actually some really good things there. Well, it was one of those things where it was it wasn’t in Ram anymore. It had been like written to the disk. And so you come back and you’re like, wait a second, there really is some really good stuff and it just energizes you over and over again. So for any authors out there, highly recommend doing an audiobook or recording, even if you’re not going to release that as the official one, but go through it with that kind of pacing because it will remind you of what it was like to write it in the first place and then just revisit it on a regular basis. This is definitely worth doing.

Peter Winick Cool. So have there been any ideas or opportunities or other thoughts around additional derivative product offerings or solutions, whatever they may be, either on the consulting side or maybe digital training or whatever, that can now be extracted from the book. Because, you know, one of the benefits of a book is a forcing mechanism to get your thoughts in a in a clear and concise way that that knowledge can be transferred to others in a smart way versus it being stuck in your brain is the, you know, the curse of the expert.

Anthony J Algrin Sure. And that’s really something where, you know, we I wrote the book and then created some consultative offerings for my business. And they’re tied very closely together, this whole data leadership framework. And there’s ways that we can apply it in our in our mandate of leadership for clients. But I decided early on, too, that that was something that I felt these ideas are important enough that I didn’t want to keep a super tight grip on them. I didn’t want to, like label everything with, you know, IP this and trademark that and like make it so hard for people to use. And so what I’m trying to do now is to create additional training courses. I’m interested in potentially pursuing like a MBA graduate school version of data leadership to try to bring that to folks. And it’s really more of a focus and help me reorient my business actually to become more of a training and advocacy organization.

Peter Winick So I want to push on something you said there that I think people struggle with is the sense that I should hold back, right? They’re only going to pay 20 bucks for the book. Why should I put all my, you know, my brilliant IP in there for others to steal because it’ll cannibalize my consulting business when the fact is it’s actually the opposite, right? Like there’s one group of folks that will buy book and pay the 20 bucks, whatever the book is, and either do something with it or not. That’s okay. Somebody attempt to do something in their own firms. That’s okay. Then there’s another group that says, Well, this Anthony dude, he’s really, really smart. He’s talking about the pain that I have. Pick up the phone and get him in here and we need some help. Right. And I think it’s the latter, which is really where things actually play out more. And I’ve never seen a case where there’s a benefit of someone pulling back and not showing the world their IP.

Anthony J Algrin Yeah. If they don’t know who you are. Right. You know what the ideas even are in the first place. They’re not going to ask you for help. And to I wonder, you know, if a certain amount of gratitude for the folks that have been doing things like this that maybe I put together some unique ideas. And I think that, you know, there’s a lot of original stuff in all of this that that is really worth seeing. But I’m still standing on the shoulders of giants who have been doing this for decades and decades. And this comes from the experience that I’ve had in my career. I want to help others the same way other people have helped me. And if that can be the book or that could be training or that can be consulting or what have you, fine. But I want people to take these ideas and run with them as far as they like to, rather than having them just sit idle on a desk somewhere that no one ever sees.

Peter Winick Yep. We’ll talk a little bit more because I think that was another great point that you made, is this concept of standing on shoulders, right? So there there’s a group that thinks, if I put out a book and it has to be 1,000% original, unique, something no one’s ever heard before. And the reality is that is so incredibly rare or so incredibly naive that it’s just not obtainable. But this concept of, you know, which is a more collaborative sort of open source, if you will, concept of, yes, you’re standing on the shoulders of giants, but you’re not regurgitating, you’re adding to this conversation and you’re moving it forward in a concrete way supported by actionable, doable tact, you know, things that people can read and do. This is not a highfalutin, theoretical academic textbook. So can you comment on that?

Anthony J Algrin Well, and it really kind of comes back full circle to what we talked about at the very beginning, where these are ideas that I have that have influenced what I ended up producing in data leadership as a book, right? Because I went down the path, I’m like, I need to write a book. I have all these ideas floating around. I don’t want to add just one more data governance book or one more data quality book. And I’m going to I mean, it made me sad inside to think about like, just one more of these. I wanted to add something truly unique. And that’s when I realized data leadership was really what it was all about. And then I went and Google data leadership. I realize nobody’s talking about this. I’m like, okay, we’re on to something now. And so that’s when it kind of launched that idea forward and propelled me in terms of my action to make all that happen. And that I mean, that is a huge piece of advice for anybody out there who’s thinking about finding their niche and hasn’t quite coalesced that that is the kind of thing to look for, is how can you take all of these weird experiences? We all have weird experiences, don’t have a unique path, you know. And so what is it unique about your path that taught you something that might be hard for other people to have picked up? And for me, that was data leadership. But for you it could be anything. Anything else. I can’t even predict what that might look like, but that is the kind of thing that would get you going in that right direction.

Peter Winick I love it. So anything that you would advise. So let’s say there’s somebody out there now whose profile matches you. 10 or 15 years ago, a young man, if you’re younger, anything, and they’re thinking, Yeah, maybe I might write a book, right? Want to may want to write a book, I may want to speak, I may want to dive into this sort of universe of thought, leadership and anything that you would advise them to either do or not do.

Anthony J Algrin Stop thinking so much and start writing.

Peter Winick Just do it.

Anthony J Algrin I mean, it’s really like that’s the kind of emphasis behind the subtitle, the book to it’s like, stop all this talking about these things that you’re going to do or all these ideas that you make something happen. Start going down the path you can correct once you’re down the pathways. But if you know, you might want to head in the direction like do I want to go left or right? Well, I think I want to go right, go right and then start thinking what happens next? And it’s taking action, getting some momentum behind you. That’s going to carry you a lot further than spending a year saying, what should I do with a publishing thing or what have you? None of those decisions matter today. Just start writing. Find that idea. Make it happen.

Peter Winick I love that. I think that’s great advice and I love it coming from a data guy. Right? It’s an almost just do it piece because there are folks that you know, it’s analysis paralysis. Right. Where they just, you know, a little more research, a little more research. And it’s like, okay, I haven’t picked up the proverbial pen yet and written a word, you know, like go home and write a blog today of 500 words. Go home and do it again next week and next week and next week. And the world and the market will tell you if it resonates or not, Right? And then you build on that. And, you know, one of the beautiful things about the way the world is structured today is the risk reward of, okay, go spend six months of your life, write a book, and then throw it out into the universe and see if it lands with a thump, you know, is a pretty big risk versus there’s so many experiments you can do either on stage or on the web or whatever to just get a sense of what resonates and what does it.

Anthony J Algrin That’s right. That’s right. And that’s one I like. I love the verbalization. I love the speaking side of this. And had I not done speaking for many years, I probably would have wouldn’t have had the courage to try to put these ideas into words in the book. And for me, that was the right path. But for others, they may think, okay, I want to write these ideas out and then I might start to speak more. What have you go to where you find joy and where you enjoy those kinds of experiences. Because if writing a book sounds like a horrible idea to you, like it sounds like a tremendous amount of pain, don’t do it. It’s worse opposite. It’s words like you got to really love it, even if.

Peter Winick You want to admit it’s painful, right? So imagine if you dealt with, my God, Well, this has been awesome and I appreciate your time and I appreciate you sharing your journey. It’s an interesting path, and I think you made a lot of wise decisions along the way and some creative ones. So thank you so much for sharing.

Anthony J Algrin Thank you, Peter. It’s been a pleasure to be here.

Peter Winick To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our Web site at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com to reach me directly. Feel free to email me at Peter at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.