Building Data-Driven Cultures in Sports, Film, and Streaming | Mikel Davis (VP of Strategic Analytics @ Peacock)

**SPEAKER_2** (0:08)
Data Storytellers, we are here again with an episode, and this is a long anticipated one, and we actually had a similar conversation yesterday with the guest, and now we're gonna, I guess, just dive right back in and explore it from all different angles. The guest today is Mikel Davis from Peacock, and it's my pleasure to have her on the show. Mikel, welcome.

**Mikel Davis** (0:33)
Hi, I'm super excited to be here.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:36)
Fantastic. So, look, before we explore your career journey, which I found fascinating, we're gonna talk about analytics in sports, analytics in filmmaking and all that. It's a very dynamic space today, data and analytics, right? So even when you and I started chatting, I think it was just over a year ago, you joined us in Nashville, we had some great conversations.
A lot changed since, right? So from your perspective, like how do you see all these changes in the industry and what's different to what it was, let's say even two, three years ago from your perspective?

**Mikel Davis** (1:14)
Yeah, I mean, I feel like the biggest change that's the buzzword right now is AI. I feel like in the past year, you can't really talk about data without hearing AI and every data and analytics conference has to have the theme of AI in it. So I feel like, and since the difference is that AI is becoming such a cornerstone in the conversation nowadays, but in a way that feels very familiar is how it reminds me of the introduction of data and analytics, you know, 10, 15 years ago, when people were just like, oh, we have to have data, but no one really understood how to use the data. They just knew that we had to have it. Similar with AI, everyone was talking about AI. We have to introduce AI into our organization, but there isn't much context around, you know, why do we need to have AI?
How should it be used? I think that's really interesting, seeing this conversation happen again. And I'm excited to see how AI just shapes the future, similar to how traditional data and analytics has shaped the future.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:15)
Absolutely. And just today, we had a conversation on LinkedIn. One of our advisory board members, Elon, shout out to Elon, he's been on the podcast a few times, that you guys actually met on the advisory board session as well. You shared out that article that I wrote based on, you know, the 100 plus conversations I've had this year with data analytics leaders and Fortune 1000 and other major global enterprise organizations and some of the key takeaways from that. And one, I think, comment popped up around how it seems to be that the data literacy conversation is getting rebranded into an AI fluency conversation, right? It seems to be almost like a more attractive proposition that, hey, let's make the organization data literate, right? To, hey, let's make them AI fluent. And ironically, the latter builds on the former. I think you cannot really have that AI fluency without proper data literacy. So it's a fascinating thing to watch unfold. And I don't know if I actually told you this when we spoke yesterday that how I got into this whole business analytics game was through data driven marketing. So first, after The Army, I work with senior marketers from big companies working on executive communities, bringing them together to exchange ideas and best practices, kind of similar to what we do in The Data Storytellers. And the buzz at the time, so we're talking 2014, right, it was data driven marketing. That was the next big thing. So it was digital transformation and then data driven marketing. And funnily enough, we had this executive program rolled out, focusing on data driven marketing. And we just had a hard time getting marketing directors on it for some reason, right? So everyone said that, yeah, that's the next thing, but everyone was a little bit hesitant about leaning into it fully. But then the people that we actually brought on to the course, and it was a huge success, were leaders of data and analytics, right? So I kind of found the marketing intelligence community first, and then from that it was the business analytics community, which is right up my alley, you know? I come from specifically reconnaissance and military intelligence, so that was like a perfect fit for me, right? And I do remember that at that time, data analytics was still something that most people haven't even heard about, right? So it was just kind of up and coming. And I see something similar happening with AI, but almost like more profound, right? Because this whole data analytics conversation has been slow cooking since the 80s, you know, since people started to gather information and data and spreadsheets and all that. But AI seems to be almost like a culmination of it, right? So Gen. AI was the spark that lit everything on fire. And I see this big transformation happening now where, you know, data kind of not even like taking the backseat, but more like almost in support of building something greater. I mean, AI is a data driven technology. That's what it is, ultimately, especially as we understand it today, mainly with this large language model, you know, development. Essentially, the data is now moving from the back end to the front end when the users can interact with it directly. And I see this more as like I told you yesterday that it's an AI bubble, but it's more like a.com bubble than, let's say, the crypto bubble was, right? So it's less of a passing trend, I think. It's still bubbling in the sense that the market forces behave in a certain way when something big happens, at the magnitude of the industrial revolution. So I look forward to seeing how this shakes out. And...