Bad Data In, Confident Wrong Answers Out | Shree Neve, ClicData

David Sweenor 0:05 Hello, and welcome to the Data Faces podcast on location, coming to you live from the BARC Data and Analytics Retreat at the Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Colorado. I am joined by Shree Neve, who is VP of Operations at ClicData. Shree, welcome to the Data Faces podcast on location.

Shree Neve 0:25 Thanks a lot, David.

David Sweenor 0:26 So part of this show is to get behind the people and what they do. So I’m going to ask you about that in a minute. But what did you want to be when you grew up before you got into data and analytics?

Shree Neve 0:39 I think I was fascinated by many careers. I think the first thing I wanted to be was a pilot. That’s what I remember. I have recollection about growing up. And then probably at one point I got scared of being a pilot because I was scared of heights. So I guess that was not the right field and what intrigued me to get into data eventually was I loved maths and I loved working with numbers and data made the right sense because you’re working with numbers and data analytics was the space where I could continue working with numbers.

David Sweenor 1:13 All right, amazing. So can you tell us a little bit about your role in ClicData? What do they do?

Shree Neve 1:18 So as VP of Operations, I take care of mostly the North American market of ClicData. ClicData is a data analytics and a management platform, especially catered towards mid-market organization. So we’re in this space of data analytics where there are a lot of tools out there, but we wanted to build something which could be focused for mid-market and small-medium enterprises. So we had that foundation in mind. Let’s design a product that any business user can use. Personally, I manage the operations in terms of managing the sales, support, services, anything that goes towards making a decision for the North American market. So you do everything?

David Sweenor 1:58 I do everything for the North American market.

Shree Neve 2:00 Okay.

David Sweenor 2:01 Wow, amazing. And so what are your customers asking you about ClicData?

Shree Neve 2:09 like what’s top of their mind like what’s the most common question you’re getting from them i think the common question in everyone’s mind right now is how do i use ai right that’s uh i want to use ai to create fancy dashboards i want to use ai to create amazing visualizations i want to use ai to create prediction i think that’s the question that everyone is asking I feel a little bit too early. People are running towards asking that question before trying to fix the underlying problems that they might have. AI can give you great results with good confidence, but if you feed bad data, it will give you bad results with great confidence still. Right, and you might not know sometimes. That’s the challenge.

David Sweenor 2:54 So how do you go about setting up this context, if you will, this knowledge repository for when you’re engaging a new client. How do you think about this? What does it need to give you confident results that aren’t BS?

Shree Neve 3:10 I think the simplest philosophy I have with most of the clients I’m talking with is don’t start with the tool, don’t start with the data. Start with the business decision you want to make. Start with what question do you want to answer and then find the data around that question and then find the right AI tool that could use that data. But many people are doing it the other way around. I want to use this AI tool. Let’s feed the data into that and figure out what question to ask. And I think that results in wrong answers or incorrect assumption for your foundation. If you change that, probably you’ll get the right foundation set up before… at getting results from AI.

David Sweenor 3:52 Right, you don’t have to boil the ocean. What is that decision you want to make? Work backwards from that. Exactly. Get that aligned and move on to the next one. Okay, and I want to maybe ask you just a question about this retreat, this data and analytics retreat hosted by BARC. What’s your experience so far? It’s quite different than any event I’ve been to. What’s your take on it?

Shree Neve 4:17 Yeah, very different for me as well to any other event. I think what I really love about the event is quite focused. You’re with a group of 20, 30 people really talking about data in this particular space who have been in this particular vertical for such a long time and have… Good opinions, not just one strong opinion, but I think a discussion that opens up in both directions, open for feedback. So that’s what I ended up liking so far. And there were some great topics about data governance, about the methodology that you need to use to set up in your business and how you can work by a donor that he told us. So far, I enjoyed it, yeah.

David Sweenor 5:01 Yeah, this is very unique. The content is amazing, and it’s different from the perspective, like, people, they’ll interrupt you if you’re presenting, and they’ll say, like, I don’t agree with that, I agree with that, have you thought about that? And it’s quite different from some of maybe the larger conferences where you don’t get that interaction. You certainly don’t get the networking that’s here. I mean, the conversations have been amazing.

Shree Neve 5:21 And it’s great. Spending three days with 25, 30 people, you get a chance to talk with everyone and not just… Have a brief conversation that this is what I do. Hand over a business card and just walk away. But actually make meaningful connection. Go a little bit beyond what you do in work. What’s your personal life like? What is that matters to you? What’s your philosophy in life? I think those are meaningful connections. And I think this does provide that opportunity to do that.

David Sweenor 5:48 Absolutely. So for our listeners and our viewers out there, if they want to know more about you or ClicData, where should they go?

Shree Neve 5:56 Yeah, you can always visit us at ClicData.com. That’s C-L-I-C. C-L-I-C-D-A-T-A.com. And you have a contact form there or LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn and I’ll be happy to answer your questions. All right.

David Sweenor 6:13 Well, Shree, thank you for joining the Data Faces podcast. It’s been a pleasure having you. Thank you so much, David. Cheers.

Shree Neve 6:20 Thanks.