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Thijs Cobben – Data Alchemist

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Speaking · Keynotes · In-house sessions

Two thousand years of data, one evening your audience won’t forget.

I tell the story of data the way it actually happened — through Roman censors, burning archives and the inventions of the 1970s — and turn it into lessons your data team, board or audience can use on Monday morning.

Invite me to speak →See the two talks
40 years in the data craftEnglish or DutchNo vendor slides
TC
Thijs CobbenData Alchemist · author of History of Data
The talks

Pick a century. I’ll bring it back to yours.

Both talks come from the research behind my book History of Data. Each runs as a 45-minute keynote or a longer interactive session, and I tailor the closing lessons to your sector and audience.

I
578 BC – AD 2
  • Format45-min keynote, or 75 min with Q&A
  • Best forData & governance teams, leadership offsites, privacy and public-sector audiences
  • LanguageEnglish or Dutch
Talk I

The Roman Census

… and what we can learn from it today

In the sixth century BC a Roman king, said to have been born a slave, ordered every Roman citizen onto the Field of Mars. Name, father, age, wife, children and every possession, declared in public — and anyone who stayed away could lose their property and be sold into slavery. With that, Rome built the first database that ran a state: one register that decided who paid tax, who fought in the front line and whose vote counted.

In this talk I treat the Roman census as what it really was: a data system. We follow it from its origin to the censors who kept it, from the burning of the archive on the Capitol in 83 BC to the bronze and wax records that replaced it. And we look east to Han China, which counted 59.6 million people in AD 2 with a household register whose descendant is still in use today.

Every data problem your organisation struggles with today, Rome had first. Some of its solutions were better than ours.

What your audience will hear

  • The free-rider problem. Why a fast-growing Rome had to switch from birth to wealth as its key — a schema change that rewired tax, army and politics in one go.
  • The censors. Two elected officials with 18-month terms and the power to demote a senator with one note. The first data stewards, with real teeth.
  • Who counted — and who didn’t. Citizens and independent women declared themselves; slaves, up to a quarter of Italy, did not exist in the data.
  • When the list becomes a weapon. From moral notes to Sulla’s proscriptions: the same register, a very different use.
  • Fire, bronze and continuity. The archive that burned, the Tabularium that still stands, and why China’s registers outlived dynasties while Rome’s did not.

What they take home

  • Data is never neutral. Your schema decides who counts. Ask who is missing from your dataset.
  • Measurement changes behaviour. Romans hid wealth from the censor; your teams game your KPIs. Design for it.
  • Governance needs a person, not a policy. What the censor had that most data owners lack: mandate, term and consequences.
  • Plan for the fire. Lineage, redundancy and a Tabularium of your own.
  • Purpose drift is the real risk. Data collected for one goal will be used for another. Decide the limits before someone else does.
Data governanceData ethics & privacyHistory of dataLeadership
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II
1970 – 1979
  • Format45-min keynote, or 75 min with Q&A
  • Best forData & tech conferences, architecture and platform teams, CDO and CIO forums
  • LanguageEnglish or Dutch
Talk II

The Impact of Invention

How the 1970s shaped how we think about data today

In ten years, almost everything we still build on was invented. The relational model in 1970. The microprocessor in 1971. Ethernet in 1973. SQL and TCP/IP in 1974. The first data protection laws in Hesse and Sweden. And in the living rooms, VHS against Philips’ Video 2000 — the better system that lost.

This talk is about what happened next. Why one invention becomes the standard everybody builds on, and another, often technically superior, disappears. Why committees rarely decide that, and markets usually do. And why the real cost of a standard is almost never in the standard itself, but in the chain of compliance, reporting and box-ticking that grows around it — from the cookie banner to the certificate nobody can explain anymore.

A standard is valuable if you can build on it without calling the committee.

What your audience will hear

  • The engine. Why every standard, from the Sumerian barley grain to UTF-8, is an agreement about meaning — and why Codd’s relational model let programmers finally talk about data instead of pointers.
  • The process. Video 2000 versus VHS, seen from behind a rental counter in Eindhoven. The thin TCP/IP beating the seven layers of OSI. A North Korean delegate at the ITU with no opinion.
  • The bill. How one 2002 spam lawsuit became a law, a cookie rule and eventually the cookie banner — while the spam folder solved the actual problem.
  • Five that were worth it, five that were not. From positional notation with zero to decimal time and the certificate without measurement.

What they take home

  • A test for every standard on your desk. Can you build on it, or can you only cite it?
  • Bet on adoption, not elegance. How to spot the VHS in your own technology choices before you commit.
  • Count the chain, not the rule. Where compliance quietly eats your team’s capacity, and how to make that visible.
  • Read the next wave early. AI regulation is following the same three steps — engine, process, bill. Knowing the pattern lets you lead instead of comply.
Data architectureStandards & regulationTechnology strategyAI governance
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Why book these talks

History as a mirror, not a museum.

Stories people repeat

A king born a slave, a censor who could strike a senator off the list, a pig, a sheep and a bull at the end of every count. Your audience will retell them at the coffee machine — and remember the lesson attached.

A shared language

History gives a mixed room — engineers, managers, the board — neutral ground to talk about data without getting stuck in the politics of your own platform.

Made for your room

Conference keynote, team offsite, lunch session or customer event. Before every talk we have a short call so the closing lessons match your sector and your audience.

Invite me to speak

Tell me about your audience. I’ll tell you what I’d bring.

Conference, company event, data team offsite or a small dinner with your leadership team — every request gets a personal reply within two working days.

  1. You send the basicsDate, audience, the talk you have in mind. Two minutes.
  2. We have a short callFifteen minutes on your audience and what should stick with them.
  3. I tailor the talkSame stories, lessons sharpened for your sector and your room.

Rather talk first? Book a 30-minute call.

Which talk?

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