Data syntrophy

I ran across the term, syntrophy, back when I was an microbial ecologist. It means ‘interaction for the common good’ and since then I’ve been thinking about what that could mean in the context of the data ecosystem.

I’ve been on the bring people to data, and bring data to people, sides of things. I’ve been to events, joined communities, coordinated communities and organized meetings. There are amazing people doing hard work with good intentions, but we’re all struggling.

We’ve made progress; open source, open science, open data, new policies, new programs, expanding access. Yet we struggle to work on consensus, turn policies into actions, build equitable systems, fund crucial programs, and most of all to support the people doing the work of building and maintaining.

Something feel like it’s missing. And to me, who’s been in the building and maintaining, who has friends and colleagues in the building and maintaining, what I come back to is centering people and supporting leaders. Those people who Brené Brown describes as “anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential”. What spaces and resources can we create that support leaders, for our common good, so we can continue to create common goods?

So, that’s the goal of this newsletter, to both explore what that might look like, and to share ideas and resources, to provide guidance and connection for all our leaders in this data ecosystem. What can we do together?