Do you know that moment when you're in a panel session at a conference, and everyone (seemingly EVERYONE!) lifts up their phone to take a picture of the slide that's on the screen right then?

That happened a few weeks ago at the DTC Wine Symposium, during our session featuring two of Napa's most iconic brands, and how they leverage data to grow their DTC business.

What was the slide that everyone was so interested in?

The one that said "Wine may be romantic. But data is sexy."

Partly that slide is a nod to the popular article about data scientist being the sexiest job of the 21st century. That slide, too, queued up panelist Lailand Flaherty, DTC Director at Caymus, to explore the next step in the evolution: wine is romantic, data is sexy, and the "data person" is cool."

Here are three reasons why.

1. Visualizations. In our Instagram world, a picture says way more than a thousand words. Data people can SHOW, not just tell, what they mean, whether that's through infographics or visualizations or dynamic dashboards. The days of geeks in the corner with their spreadsheets are long gone.

2. Lailand spoke about facilitating cross-department communication, and being the "go-to" reference point for objective assessments to resolve potential debates within the business. What does the data say? Let us show you.

3. Lailand also described how being the data person enables her to show, quantitatively, the SKUs that are "hitting" and the geographies where new buyers are popping. It's cool to see and easily understand the visuals of that, sure. But it's cooler still when those hits turn into revenue.

That transaction - when data turns into revenue - is what earns data people a seat at the table. That is, indeed, the epitome of cool.

Thank you for reading, and for your interest. I'm here for any questions or comments you may have.

Cathy