El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (June and July 2010)

IAIDQ Blog Carnival 2010

Welcome to the June and July 2010 issue of El Festival del IDQ Bloggers, which is a blog carnival by the IAIDQ that offers a great opportunity for both information quality and data quality bloggers to get their writing noticed and to connect with other bloggers around the world.

 

Definition Drift

Graham Rhind submitted his July blog post Definition drift, which examines the persistent problems facing attempts to define a consistent terminology within the data quality industry. 

It is essential to the success of a data quality initiative that its key concepts are clearly defined and in a language that everyone can understand.  Therefore, I also recommend that you check out the free online data quality glossary built and maintained by Graham Rhind by following this link: Data Quality Glossary.

 

Lemonade Stand Data Quality

Steve Sarsfield submitted his July blog post Lemonade Stand Data Quality, which explains that data quality projects are a form of capitalism, meaning that you need to sell your customers a refreshing glass and keep them coming back for more.

 

What’s In a Given Name?

Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen submitted his June blog post What’s In a Given Name?, which examines a common challenge facing data quality, master data management, and data matching—namely (pun intended), how to automate the interpretation of the “given name” (aka “first name”) component of a person’s name separately from their “family name” (aka “last name”).

 

Solvency II Standards for Data Quality

Ken O’Connor submitted his July blog post Solvency II Standards for Data Quality, which explains the Solvency II standards are common sense data quality standards, which can enable all organizations, regardless of their industry or region, to achieve complete, appropriate, and accurate data.

 

How Accuracy Has Changed

Scott Schumacher submitted his July blog post How Accuracy Has Changed, which explains that accuracy means being able to make the best use of all the information you have, putting data together where necessary, and keeping it apart where necessary.

 

Uniqueness is in the Eye of the Beholder

Marty Moseley submitted his June blog post Uniqueness is in the Eye of the Beholder, which beholds the challenge of uniqueness and identity matching, where determining if data records should be matched is often a matter of differing perspectives among groups within an organization, where what one group considers unique, another group considers non-unique or a duplicate.

 

Uniqueness in the Eye of the NSTIC

Jeffrey Huth submitted his July blog post Uniqueness in the Eye of the NSTIC, which examines a recently drafted document in the United States regarding a National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC).

 

Profound Profiling

Daragh O Brien submitted his July blog post Profound Profiling, which recounts how he has found data profiling cropping up in conversations and presentations he’s been making recently, even where the topic of the day wasn’t “Information Quality” and shares his thoughts on the profound benefits of data profiling for organizations seeking to manage risk and ensure compliance.

 

Wanted: a Data Quality Standard for Open Government Data

Sarah Burnett submitted her July blog post Wanted: a Data Quality Standard for Open Government Data, which calls for the establishment of data quality standards for open government data (i.e., public data sets) since more of it is becoming available.

 

Data Quality Disasters in the Social Media Age

Dylan Jones submitted his July blog post The reality of data quality disasters in a social media age, which examines how bad news sparked by poor data quality travels faster and further than ever before, by using the recent story about the Enbridge Gas billing blunders as a practical lesson for all companies sitting on the data quality fence.

 

Finding Data Quality

Jim Harris (that’s me referring to myself in the third person) submitted my July blog post Finding Data Quality, which explains (with the help of the movie Finding Nemo) that although data quality is often discussed only in its relation to initiatives such as master data management, business intelligence, and data governance, eventually you’ll be finding data quality everywhere.

 

Editor’s Selections

In addition to the official submissions above, I selected the following great data quality blog posts published in June or July 2010:

 

Check out the past issues of El Festival del IDQ Bloggers

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (May 2010) – edited by Castlebridge Associates

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (April 2010) – edited by Graham Rhind

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (March 2010) – edited by Phil Wright

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (February 2010) – edited by William Sharp

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (January 2010) – edited by Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (November 2009) – edited by Daragh O Brien

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (October 2009) – edited by Vincent McBurney

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (September 2009) – edited by Daniel Gent

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (August 2009) – edited by William Sharp

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (July 2009) – edited by Andrew Brooks

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (June 2009) – edited by Steve Sarsfield

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (May 2009) – edited by Daragh O Brien

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (April 2009) – edited by Jim Harris

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (April 2009)

image Welcome to the April 2009 issue of El Festival del IDQ Bloggers, which is a blog carnival for information/data quality bloggers being run as part of the celebration of the five year anniversary of the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ).

 

A blog carnival is a collection of posts from different blogs on a specific theme that are published across a series of issues.  Anyone can submit a data quality blog post and experience the benefits of extra traffic, networking with other bloggers and discovering interesting posts.  It doesn't matter what type of blog you have as long as the submitted post has a data quality theme. 

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers will run monthly issues April through November 2009.

 

Can You Say Anything Interesting About Data Quality?

This simple question launched the first blog carnival of data quality that ran four issues from late 2007 through early 2008:

Blog Carnival of Data Quality (November 2007)

Blog Carnival of Data Quality (December 2007)

Blog Carnival of Data Quality (January 2008)

Blog Carnival of Data Quality (February 2008)

 

How to give your Data Warehouse a Data Quality Immunity System

Vincent McBurney is a manager for Deloitte consulting in Perth, Australia.  His excellent blog Tooling Around in the IBM InfoSphere looks at the world of data integration software and occasionally wonders what IBM is up to.  His data quality motto: "If it ain’t broke, don't fix it."

Vincent submitted How to give your Data Warehouse a Data Quality Immunity System that discusses how people who obsessively keep bad quality data out of a data warehouse may be making it unhealthy in the long run.

 

Stuck in First Gear

Michele Goetz is a free-lance consultant helping companies make sense of their business through better analysis, marketing best practices, and marketing solutions.  Her excellent blog Intelligent Metrix guides you on your journey from data to metrics to insight to intelligent decisions.  Her blog de-mystifies business intelligence and data management for the business, and helps you bridge the Business-IT gap for better processes and solutions that drive business success.

Michele submitted Stuck in First Gear that discusses the common problem when companies make big investments in enterprise class solutions but only use a portion of the capabilities, which is like driving a Porcshe in first gear.

 

When Bad Data Becomes Acceptable Data

Daniel Gent is a bilingual business analyst experienced with the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), decision making, change management, database design, data modeling, data quality management, project coordination, and problem resolution.  His excellent blog Data Quality Edge is a grassroots look at data quality for the data quality analyst in the trenches.

Daniel submitted When Bad Data Becomes Acceptable Data that discusses how you need to prioritize bad data and determine when it is acceptable to keep it for now.

 

Customer Value and Sustainable Quality

Daniel Bahula is a strategy and operations improvement professional with an extensive project experience from multinational telco, software development and professional services companies.  His excellent blog DanBahula.net defies a simple definition and is a great example of how it doesn't matter what type of blog you have as long as the submitted post has a data quality theme.

Daniel submitted Customer Value and Sustainable Quality that discusses Six Sigma and its relevance to addressing data quality issues.

 

Data Quality, Entity Resolution, and OFAC Compliance

Bob Barker is the editor of Identity Resolution Daily, which is a corporate blog of Austin, TX-based Infoglide Software strongly dedicated to citizenship, integrity and communication.  The blog has recently been gaining guest bloggers with varying points of view, helping it to become an excellent site for information, dialogue and community.

Bob submitted Data Quality, Entity Resolution, and OFAC Compliance that discusses how entity resolution is different from name matching and traditional data quality.

 

Selecting Data Quality Software

Dylan Jones is the editor of Data Quality Pro, which is the leading data quality online magazine and free independent community resource dedicated to helping data quality professionals take their career or business to the next level.

Dylan submitted Selecting Data Quality Software that discusses how to find the right data quality technology for your needs and your budget.

 

AmazonFail - A Classic Information Quality Impact

Since 2006, IQTrainwrecks.com, which is a community blog provided and administered by the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ), has been serving up regular doses of information quality disasters from around the world.

IAIDQ submitted AmazonFail - A Classic Information Quality Impact that looks behind the hype and confusion surrounding the #amazonfail debacle.

 

You’re a Leader - Lead

Daragh O Brien is an Irish information quality expert, conference speaker, published author in the field, and director of publicity for the IAIDQ.  His excellent blog The DOBlog, founded in 2006, was one of the first specialist information quality blogs.

Daragh submitted You’re a Leader - Lead that explains although there’s a whole lot of great management happening in the world, what we really need are information quality leaders.

 

All I Really Need To Know About Data Quality I Learned In Kindergarten

My name is Jim Harris.  I am an independent consultant, speaker, writer and blogger with over 15 years of professional services and application development experience in data quality.  My blog Obsessive-Compulsive Data Quality is an independent blog offering a vendor-neutral perspective on data quality.

I submitted All I Really Need To Know About Data Quality I Learned In Kindergarten that explains how show and tell, the five second rule and other great lessons from kindergarten are essential to success in data quality initiatives.

 

Submit to Daragh

The May issue will be edited by Daragh O Brien and hosted on The DOBlog

For more information, please follow this link:  El Festival del IDQ Bloggers


Data Quality Whitepapers are Worthless

During a 1609 interview, William Shakespeare was asked his opinion about an emerging genre of theatrical writing known as Data Quality Whitepapers.  The "Bard of Avon" was clearly not a fan.  His famously satirical response was:

Data quality's but a writing shadow, a poor paper

That struts and frets its words upon the page

And then is heard no more:  it is a tale

Told by a vendor, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

 

Four centuries later, I find myself in complete agreement with Shakespeare (and not just because Harold Bloom told me so).

 

Today is April Fool's Day, but I am not joking around - call Dennis Miller and Lewis Black - because I am ready to RANT.

 

I am sick and tired of reading whitepapers.  Here is my "Bottom Ten List" explaining why: 

  1. Ones that make me fill out a "please mercilessly spam me later" contact information form before I am allowed to download them remind me of Mrs. Bun: "I DON'T LIKE SPAM!"
  2. Ones that after I read their supposed pearls of wisdom, make me shake my laptop violently like an Etch-A-Sketch.  I have lost count of how many laptops I have destroyed this way.  I have starting buying them in bulk at Wal-Mart.
  3. Ones comprised entirely of the exact same information found on the vendor's website make www = World Wide Worthless.
  4. Ones that start out good, but just when they get to the really useful stuff, refer to content only available to paying customers.  What a great way to guarantee that neither I nor anyone I know will ever become your paying customer!
  5. Ones that have a "Shock and Awe" title followed by "Aw Shucks" content because apparently the entire marketing budget was spent on the title.
  6. Ones that promise me the latest BUZZ but deliver only ZZZ are not worthless only when I have insomnia.
  7. Ones that claim to be about data quality, but have nothing at all to do with data quality:  "...don't make me angry.  You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
  8. Ones that take the adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" too far by using a dizzying collage of logos, charts, graphs and other visual aids.  This is one reason we're happy that Pablo Picasso was a painter.  However, he did once write that "art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."  Maybe he was defending whitepapers.
  9. Ones that use acronyms without ever defining what they stand for remind me of that scene from Good Morning, Vietnam: "Excuse me, sir.  Seeing as how the VP is such a VIP, shouldn't we keep the PC on the QT?  Because if it leaks to the VC he could end up MIA, and then we'd all be put out in KP."
  10. Ones that really know they're worthless but aren't honest about it.  Don't promise me "The Top 10 Metrics for Data Quality Scorecards" and give me a list as pointless as this one.

 

I am officially calling out all writers of Data Quality Whitepapers. 

Shakespeare and I both believe that you can't write anything about data quality that is worth reading. 

Send your data quality whitepapers to Obsessive-Compulsive Data Quality and if it is not worthless, then I will let the world know that you proved Shakespeare and I wrong.

 

And while I am on a rant roll, I am officially calling out all Data Quality Bloggers.

The International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ) is celebrating its five year anniversary by hosting:

El Festival del IDQ Bloggers – A Blog Carnival for Information/Data Quality Bloggers

For more information about the blog carnival, please follow this link:  IAIDQ Blog Carnival