Learn, Empower, Grow the Victoria Data Community

🕘 Schedule:

5:00 PM – Registration, networking and pizza
5:30 PM – Data Talk presentation - From Zero Impact to Real Action: A 5-Part Framework for Operational Change
6:30 PM – Networking

📊 From Zero Impact to Real Action: A 5-Part Framework for Operational Change

Most of us have built a pipeline, a model or a dashboard that worked perfectly, but changed nothing. The data was good and the report shipped, yet the same issue resurfaced, or worse, new and preventable, yet unexpected, issues emerged.

The cause is rarely technical. Data fails when it lacks an operational engine around it: agreed definitions, clear ownership, direct decision paths, and feedback loops.

In this talk, Jason will explore the decisions that helped tame the chaos, and discuss a five-part operational intelligence loop (Reality → Definition → Ownership → Decision → Feedback) that treats data quality as an ongoing operating practice rather than a one-time cleanup.

Three anonymized case studies will show the loop in practice:

• Case 1: Coverage & Control - Reconciling running systems against the official asset record to close technical, process, and governance gaps, which greatly improved both accuracy and attestability.

• Case 2: Audit Efficiency - Capturing compliance evidence as part of daily operations, instead of rebuilding it each year, cut audit effort from several thousand staff hours to under 40, sustained over three years.

• Case 3: AI-Readiness - An ongoing cleanup of scattered files, archives and institutional knowledge is building a governed foundation that makes AI a more effective and efficient thinking partner.

A generous Q&A session will follow. Bring a challenge from your own ecosystem: we'll look for its control points together, and trade the strategies that have held up over time.

Speaker: Jason Bunston is an independent IT consultant and solutions architect, and founder of Elite Conceptual Consulting. He brings 20+ years of experience across global enterprises and large public sector organizations to turning complex processes into workable practice in tightly governed environments.

🎯 Why Attend?

Whether you're a data leader, analyst, software engineer, or anyone who is curious about bridging technical work with business strategy, this session will help you:

• Map the ecosystem: Spot the visible and hidden dependencies and control points that shape data outcomes in large, strained environments. 🔍

• Test metric actionability: Try the six-question test to see whether a metric will drive real decisions 📊

• Start with minimum viable data: Begin with one recurring decision, not an expensive universal model 🎯

• Build ownership pathways: Raise ownership and feedback with stakeholders, even when you don't own the decision 🛠️

• Connect with fellow data enthusiasts 🤝

• Enjoy great conversations over pizza and refreshments 🍕🥤

💲Cost

• Free for Victoria Data Society members.

• $10 cover charge for non-members (pay at the door).

⭐ Become a member and attend this and other Data Talks for free for the year.

🕘 Schedule:
5:00 PM – Registration, networking, and pizza
5:30 PM – Data Talk presentation: Tech Spike to Scaled App: Lessons from Mapping Canada's Walkability with AI
6:30 PM – Networking

📊 Tech Spike to Scaled App: Lessons from Mapping Canada's Walkability with AI
It’s never been easier to build websites, apps, and tools. But if you can build anything, it’s harder than ever to work out what you should be building. At what point does a project tip over from a welcome distraction into something worth improving and, ultimately, commercializing?

As one answer, Christian Miles will walk through the backstory and commercial future of his travel time map for Canada.

🎯 Why Attend?
This session is for data practitioners, product managers, and map lovers to learn more about the technical and commercial details needed to bring complicated data to life through visualization. The session will help you:

• Accelerate Build Velocity: See how an AI-assisted workflow brought a national travel-time map to life—and the key lessons learned along the way 🚀

• Master Spatial Fundamentals: Understand the core geospatial and urban network science powering today's most important web maps 🌐

• Deploy Modern Web Tooling: Discover the exact technologies you (or your AI agents) can use right now to build and ship data-heavy maps 🛠️

• Cut Through the Noise: Apply sharp UI/UX design principles to ensure your data projects stand out against vibe-coded slop 🎨

• Connect with fellow data enthusiasts 🤝

• Enjoy great conversations over pizza and refreshments 🍕🥤

💻App
à portée is an interactive map that aggregates real travel times to show the relative access for a wide range of destinations across the whole of Canada. It combines data from OpenStreetMap, Overture Maps, Statistics Canada, and transit agency feeds to show how connected urban and rural places are by walking, cycling, and transit. The unique data source behind the map provides a grounding layer for AI agents to reason against the real world.

It helps renters, potential homebuyers, and tourists understand neighborhoods and regions and has wider interest from city planners, housing advocates, and commercial real estate professionals.

🖊️Bio
Christian Miles splits his time as the founder of Ammil Industries, a software development shop, and working locally with Pencil & Paper, the UX design studio led by Ceara Crawshaw. He brings a background in commercial SaaS sales and 15 years' experience consulting and leading teams of product contributors on projects spanning fraud detection, entity resolution, and cybersecurity. He designs and builds visual analytics applications, focusing on connected data visualizations, the infrastructure behind them, and the decisions they enable, and he brings the voice of the customer into product design. He speaks often at software and data conferences across North America.

💲Cost

• Free for Victoria Data Society members.

• $10 cover charge for non-members (pay at the door).

⭐ Become a member and attend this and other Data Talks for free for the year.