This is the takeaway episode with Nachiket Mehta, an experienced data leader who has lived and breathed the “shift left”. In this episode we will unpack how ontology, events and culture unlock enterprise AI. We discuss why your ontologist needs to visit the fulfillment center, how to shift data teams from afterthought to proactive partner, and why the five why's matter more than your tech stack.

This is the takeaway episode with Nachiket Mehta, an experienced data leader who has lived and breathed the &ldquo;shift left&rdquo;. In this episode we will unpack how ontology, events and culture unlock enterprise AI. We discuss why your ontologist needs to visit the fulfillment center, how to shift data teams from afterthought to proactive partner, and why the five why's matter more than your tech stack.

Catalog and Cocktails is the honest, No-BS, non-sales-y podcast about data and analytics. This is your unfiltered chat about everything interesting in data and analytics. Join Juan Sequeda and Tim Gasper to explore emerging topics and hear from thought leaders, practitioners and executives across the data and analytics space.

Catalog and Cocktails is the honest, No-BS, non-sales-y podcast about data and analytics. This is your unfiltered chat about everything interesting in data and analytics. Join Juan Sequeda and Tim Gasper to explore emerging topics and hear from thought leaders, practitioners and executives across the data and analytics space.

Catalog & Cocktails: The Honest, No-BS Data Podcast

ServiceNow Podcast Program is a collection of podcast shows hosted by various ServiceNow experts and professionals covering different focus areas and a broad variety of topics. Come listen to our experts talk about what's going on at ServiceNow. Join the conversation!

Visit the Now Community forums

ServiceNow Podcast Program is a collection of podcast shows hosted by various ServiceNow experts and professionals covering different focus areas and a broad variety of topics. Come listen to our experts talk about what's going on at ServiceNow. Join the conversation!
<a href="https://community.servicenow.com/community">Visit the Now Community forums</a>

ServiceNow Podcasts

TAKEAWAY - Shift Left Everything: How Ontology, Events, and Culture Unlocked Enterprise AI with Nachiket Mehta 

This is the start of our 7th year of doing the podcast. Juan and Tim kick off the 12th season sharing who are the upcoming guests and what's the latest on their mind about this crazy data and AI world:
The new website (honestnobsdata.com) and discussed building a knowledge graph of the podcast itself 
Two types of semantics: for AI context vs. for system interoperability 
The vendor hype gap vs. practitioner reality
AI agent proliferation and the governance surface area explosion
AI cybersecurity: models escaping their sandboxes 
The economics of AI: accuracy, latency, and token cost as the new CAP theorem
The great convergence, "triangle of consolidation" and “postmodern data stack”
OSI and Apache Nessie
Work as the center of gravity
Bridging the operational and analytics worlds

This is the start of our 7th year of doing the podcast. Juan and Tim kick off the 12th season sharing who are the upcoming guests and what's the latest on their mind about this crazy data and AI world:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">The new website (<a href="http://honestnobsdata.com">honestnobsdata.com</a>) and discussed building a knowledge graph of the podcast itself&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">Two types of semantics: for AI context vs. for system interoperability&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">The vendor hype gap vs. practitioner reality</li>
<li aria-level="1">AI agent proliferation and the governance surface area explosion</li>
<li aria-level="1">AI cybersecurity: models escaping their sandboxes&nbsp;</li>
<li aria-level="1">The economics of AI: accuracy, latency, and token cost as the new CAP theorem</li>
<li aria-level="1">The great convergence, "triangle of consolidation" and &ldquo;postmodern data stack&rdquo;</li>
<li aria-level="1">OSI and Apache Nessie</li>
<li aria-level="1">Work as the center of gravity</li>
<li aria-level="1">Bridging the operational and analytics worlds</li>
</ul>

Honest No-BS Data Podcast 7th Year and Season 12 Kick Off

Can't believe it's already been 6 years. Thank you to our amazing guests and specially our listeners. In this season finale episode, Juan and Tim rant about the honest no-bs discussions they've had in 2026 and what are the topics they are looking forward to cover in the next season. 

Can't believe it's already been 6 years. Thank you to our amazing guests and specially our listeners. In this season finale episode, Juan and Tim rant about the honest no-bs discussions they've had in 2026 and what are the topics they are looking forward to cover in the next season.&nbsp;

6th YEAR SEASON FINALE: Juan and Tim Rant

Jason Doerr has spent years watching governance programs undermine themselves by cataloging everything without a use case, naming data stewards who have nothing to actually do, and building central teams that become blockers instead of enablers. In this episode, he walks through what pragmatic governance actually looks like: start with use cases, give stewards real work to action on, and let the central team set principles rather than police behavior. He also digs into PADU (Preferred, Acceptable, Discouraged, Unacceptable) as a practical roadmap framework, how LLMs can accelerate semantic layer creation without generating vanity metrics, and why the governance operating model is shifting toward agentic management ... whether the governance community is ready for it or not.

Jason Doerr has spent years watching governance programs undermine themselves by cataloging everything without a use case, naming data stewards who have nothing to actually do, and building central teams that become blockers instead of enablers. In this episode, he walks through what pragmatic governance actually looks like: start with use cases, give stewards real work to action on, and let the central team set principles rather than police behavior. He also digs into PADU (Preferred, Acceptable, Discouraged, Unacceptable) as a practical roadmap framework, how LLMs can accelerate semantic layer creation without generating vanity metrics, and why the governance operating model is shifting toward agentic management ... whether the governance community is ready for it or not.

TAKEAWAY - Shift Left Everything: How Ontology, Events, and Culture Unlocked Enterprise AI with Nachiket Mehta

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