Bridging the Knowledge Gap

All this made me think. There is a huge gap between what these people know about data modeling (and can use in their daily work) and what most people in the field know (and can use in their daily work). Many people can’t use advanced (and even some quite basic) concepts simply because they simply don’t know they exist. This has real-world consequences: projects fail or take longer than necessary, products are worse than they could be or don’t work at all because the people involved didn’t have the necessary knowledge.

How can we bridge this knowledge gap? Currently, people that have significant data modeling knowledge acquired it in the course of some kind of hero’s journey; they didn’t learn it at school or during their university years (Stephan Volkmann might be the exception that proves the rule). But the hero’s journey approach doesn’t scale. People take too long to get knowledgeable on their own and most people don’t get there at all.

Therefore, we need to talk about education. Specifically, we should be able to answer the following questions:

I would love to hear your thoughts on this matter. How can we bridge the knowledge gap and get from the current hero’s journey approach to something more of a trade school approach? I think we all would be better off if more people had the vocabulary to discuss data modeling matters and make informed decisions in this realm.

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