• Executive Advisory Council

  Recap & Action Items: June 30, 2021 EAC Meeting

  Posted by Leslie Cook (Adm) on June 30, 2021 at 7:07 am

  Hello UAI EAC Members,

  Thank you for attending the June 30, 2021 UAI Executive Advisory Council (EAC) meeting. It was a pleasure to reconnect with you all. 

  We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to join us today and for the thoughtful input you provided during our discussions. Thank you!

  Please find below a quick recap of our discussions and the action items that UAI will accomplish over the next couple of months in collaboration with you.
  Please find the recording of today’s EAC meeting and a PDF version of the slide deck in the EAC Library (click the link to go directly to the library and scroll to the bottom of the page for the recording). 

  UAI EAC Recap and Action Items – June 30, 2021:

  • UAI Updates
    • New Member Welcome
      • New Utility Members
        • National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC)
        • Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E)
        • New Jersey Natural Gas
      • New Solution Provider Members
        • Cognite
        • EN Engineering
        • Opus One
    • ACTION ITEM: Register for UA Week – use your complimentary registrations from your membership
      • In-Person: October 13-15, 2021 in Dallas TX at the Gaylord Texan
      • Virtual: December 8-9, 2021
      • http://www.utilityanalyticsweek.com
    • 2021 SAB Meeting Schedule
      • Virtual (Quarterly)
        • Wednesday, September 29, 2021 at 12:00 PM CT
        • Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 12:00 PM CT
      • October in-person EAC Meeting at UA Week, Dallas, TX | Gaylord Texan:
        • EAC: October 13, 2021 at 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
        • We took a poll to determine who could make it to the in-person meeting
        • ACTION ITEM: If you missed this meeting and would like to take the poll, please do so as follows. Please include “Yes” or “No” and also include your name and utility. To take the poll, go to http://www.menti.com, use code: 5471 5588
        • ACTION ITEM: UAI will check back in with the EAC in late July/early August to see if more travel restrictions have been lifted for October
    • UAI Training – Utility Analytics 101
      • Website up in a couple of weeks to learn more and register/purchase virtual classroom, public classroom, and private group training
      • Beta run of the course on July 26-28, 2021 – I will be recruiting SAB and EAC members to take the course
      • Still pushing to host our first virtual classroom course in August
    • UAI Excellence Awards
      • Nomination deadline extended to this Friday, July 2, 2021
      • ACTION ITEM: Get those nominations in by Friday, July 2, 2021!
    • UAI Content/Research Update – content released between April 1 – June 30, 2021
      • Recently Published Member Only Content
        • OUC’s Meter Data Platform (use case)
        • SoCalGas Understanding Performance Mgmt and Org Strategy Team Business Impact – Award Winning! (use case)
        • Citizen Data Scientist (e-book)
      • Recently Published Public Content – reference slide deck in the library for this lengthy list
    • Strategic Advisory Board (SAB) Discussion Update
      • During the June 29, 2021 SAB meeting, the members of the SAB approved the SAB mission and purpose and continued to develop the SAB charter document. Once finalized, we will share the SAB charter with the EAC
      • During the June 29, 2021 SAB meeting, the members of the SAB talked about “Member engagement fatigue and survey fatigue”. Following is a recap of that discussion
        • Examples of fatigue:  
          • Member Engagement: Downturn in June Community attendance, Utility submissions for UA Week, activity on Ask Your Network in UAI Connect, Excellence Awards Nominations
          • Survey: IoT/Edge Computing Survey (created 4/29/21): Survey was out there for 8 weeks, multiple requests sent to take it, incentive offered to win $50 Amazon gift card – 20 responses to date
          • ACTION ITEM: Please search for Weekly Member Update (mark it on your whitelist) – Subject line includes: [Member Update] and it will come from UAI@news.endeavorb2b.com and UAI@enews.utilityanalytics.com
        • SAB members provided wonderful insight on member and survey fatigue that we are experiencing.
          • Remarks specific to member engagement fatigue: Due to an increase in project demands, stress from returning to the office to work, “travel revenge”, i.e. people taking vacation after not using it in a long time/embracing summer travel; members currently have less time to devote to membership engagement and research surveys than they previous did in 2020 or even just a few months ago. SAB members unanimously agreed that they would still like and value receiving communications, content, community conversation invites, etc. from UAI. They do not want to see UAI take a break from communications. They see it and they are consuming it even though they may not reply or participation at this time. This may continue for a few more months or even to the end of 2021, but they will bounce back and re-engage. 
          • Remarks specific to survey fatigue include: SAB members think we should be less broad with our surveys in the future as this will help them get surveys to the right people. They also agreed we should send surveys to the Content Subcommittee for review and advice prior to launching.
  • EAC Discussions – Please reference the meeting recording in the library for the full discussions – only snippets included below:
    • Define Descriptive Analytics Bucket – historical analytics, foundational analytics, traditional business analytics?
      • During this discussion, we were trying to figure out how to better explain the “descriptive analytics bucket” for events as people register and as attendees select their sessions during events
      • Specific comments made by EAC members during this discussion include:
        • “It should include business intelligence. Use the definitions on the maturity curve as the standard.”
        • “It should include data engineering”
        • “Reporting and Dashboarding is also descriptive analytics. What about also data discovery”
        • “We include Visual Management in Descriptive Analytics too. ‘Management’ being visual analytics to cause decisions. perhaps different, smarter decisions. Our Visual Mgmt standard includes trend to 1st SEE are we winning or losing vs a metric target; the drivers of the gap to target (Pareto) & the impact / effort or influence within the goal.”
        • “It can be historical analytics but can also be dynamic through dynamic dashboards streaming data”
        • “Reinforce the measure. Data engineering is part of the full gamut of the maturity model”
        • “If you want to define 3 buckets could we define them and then update to the maturity curve?”
        • “I’m not sure about linking to maturity model. It is possible (and in fact is the case for us) that a low maturity organization can have pockets of more advanced analytics.”
    • Fail Fast – Understanding the value of sharing what didn’t work and why
      • EAC members think this is an important part of our discussions and encourage UAI to continue to push members to share lessons learned from what did not work.
      • Specific comments made by EAC members during this discussion include:
        • “One of our mantra’s is to fail fast. It has definitely helped push the boundaries. It tends to go against the utility mindset regarding risk.”
        • “Lessons learned help others who want to attempt a similar use case to understand potential issues and find alternative solutions.”
        • “It is about iterative discovery!”
      • ACTION ITEM: EAC to identify lessons learned use cases and send them to Leslie Cook at lcook@utilityanalytics.com
    • Your Analytics Journey – Sharing your journey no matter where you are or what maturity level
      • UAI has Utility Members of all shapes, sizes, and maturity levels. We want to include all of stories of your journeys in our events and Community Conversations. Don’t be afraid to share your story, no matter where you are on the maturity curve and even if you are not yet to the finish line of your journey. 
      • Specific comments made by EAC members during this discussion include:
        • “Strategic use cases vs operational use cases”
        • “When inviting us to present or when do a call for speakers, let us know what buckets we are looking for”
        • “I agree that asking for speakers from each level of maturity may help”
        • “I think it’ll help if we encourage topics from all the levels of maturity and advertise the need for all levels in the call for speakers”
  • Informal Open Discussion and Networking
    • Members of the EAC took the last 20 minutes of today’s meeting for an informal open discussion. EAC Members asked for advice and shared knowledge and experience. 
    • ACTION ITEM: The EAC asked UAI to add time to each EAC meeting for informal open discussion and networking

  Thanks again for attending, and actively participating and engaging in today’s EAC meeting discussions. It is such a pleasure to work with this wonderful group of members. As mentioned above, please find the recording of today’s EAC meeting and a PDF version of the slide deck in the EAC Library (click the link to go directly to the library and scroll to the bottom of the page for the recording).

  Cheers,

       @Leslie

  ——————————
  Leslie Cook
  Membership & Digital Engagement Manager
  Utility Analytics Institute (UAI)
  719-203-8650, lcook@utilityanalytics.com
  ——————————

  Leslie Cook (Adm) replied 3 years, 4 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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