El Festival del IDQ Bloggers (June and July 2010)

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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

The 2010 Data Quality Blogging All-Stars

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The 2010 Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game is being held tonight (July 13) at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California.

For those readers who are not baseball fans, the All-Star Game is an annual exhibition held in mid-July that showcases the players with (for the most part) the best statistical performances during the first half of the MLB season.

Last summer, I began my own annual exhibition of showcasing the bloggers whose posts I have personally most enjoyed reading during the first half of the data quality blogging season. 

Therefore, this post provides links to stellar data quality blog posts that were published between January 1 and June 30 of 2010.  My definition of a “data quality blog post” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence. 

Please Note: There is no implied ranking in the order that bloggers or blogs are listed, other than that Individual Blog All-Stars are listed first, followed by Vendor Blog All-Stars, and the blog posts are listed in reverse chronological order by publication date.

 

Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen

From Liliendahl on Data Quality:

 

Dylan Jones

From Data Quality Pro:

 

Julian Schwarzenbach

From Data and Process Advantage Blog:

 

Rich Murnane

From Rich Murnane's Blog:

 

Phil Wright

From Data Factotum:

 

Initiate – an IBM Company

From Mastering Data Management:

 

Baseline Consulting

From their three blogs: Inside the Biz with Jill Dyché, Inside IT with Evan Levy, and In the Field with our Experts:

 

DataFlux – a SAS Company

From Community of Experts:

 

Related Posts

Recently Read: May 15, 2010

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Recently Read: January 23, 2010

The 2009 Data Quality Blogging All-Stars

 

Additional Resources

From the IAIDQ, read the 2010 issues of the Blog Carnival for Information/Data Quality:

Recently Read: May 15, 2010

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Recently Read is an OCDQ regular segment.  Each entry provides links to blog posts, articles, books, and other material I found interesting enough to share.  Please note “recently read” is literal – therefore what I share wasn't necessarily recently published.

 

Data Quality

For simplicity, “Data Quality” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence.

  • Something happened on the way to better data quality – Rich Murnane discusses facing the challenging reality that around 80% of data quality “issues” at his organization were not “technology” problems, but instead “social” (i.e., human) issues.

     

  • Data Profiling with SQL is Hazardous to Your Company’s Health – Stephen Putman explains that implementing a robust data profiling system is an essential part of an effective data management environment.

     

  • How to deliver a Single Customer View – Ken O’Connor previews his e-book (available via Data Quality Pro free download)  on how to cost effectively deliver a Single Customer View that satisfies the UK Financial Services Authority requirements.  The process steps in the e-book would also be more generally applicable to anyone planning a major data migration project.

     

  • Nerd Appeal or Boardroom Fare? – Marty Moseley explains data quality professionals generally do a very poor job in relaying the business value of data quality, and therefore we must strive to define meaningful, business relevant metrics.

     

  • Blind Vendor Allegiance Trumps Utility – Evan Levy examines the bizarrely common phenomenon of selecting a vendor without gathering requirements, reviewing product features, and then determining the best fit for your specific needs.

     

  • When Data Governance Turns Bureaucratic – Dan Power describes what he calls “reactive data governance” and how it can prevent organizations from realizing the full value of MDM.

     

  • Data Quality: The Movie – Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen explains although you can learn data quality from courses, books, and articles, it’s a bit like watching a movie and then realizing that the real world isn’t exactly the same as the movie’s world.

     

  • Why you should data profile – James Standen explains that initial data profiling provides crucial insight necessary for accurate estimates of the effort required on your business intelligence or data migration project.

     

  • How are you Executing your Data Quality Strategy? – Phil Wright examines the high level characteristics of three different approaches to executing your data quality strategy—by power, by process, and by promise.

     

  • Who’ll stop the rain – Frank Harland approaches the pervasive challenge of Business-IT alignment and collaboration from a new angle—by using data to form a divine triangle of Business, IT, and Data.

     

  • “Dirty Harry” was right, “You've got to know your limitations” – Jim Whyte explains that MDM requires a deployment strategy that chunks up organizational and business process changes into small, manageable initiatives.

     

  • Have you built your DQ trust today? – Thorsten Radde explains that a “blame and shame” approach, although somewhat cathartic, is not an effective tool for improving an organization’s data quality.

     

  • The Data Accident Investigation Board – Julian Schwarzenbach outlines a “no blame” approach that would result in more data quality issues being reported, as well as leading to the true root causes of those problems being identified.

     

  • I have a dream – Graham Rhind shares his dream of a revolution in data management, where the focus is on prevention of data quality problems, rather than on trying to resolve them only after their detrimental effect becomes obvious.

     

  • My Data Governance Hero: A True Story – Amar Ramakrishnan shares a great story about encountering an unexpected hero who demonstrated an understanding of data governance and MDM challenges without using “industry speak.”

     

  • Attributes of a Data Rock Star – Jill Wanless provides a great summary of the attributes of a “data rock star” based on an excellent online magazine article recently written by Elizabeth Glagowski.

     

  • Three Conversations to Have with an Executive - the Only Three – Steve Sarsfield discusses how “data champions” must be prepared to talk about the value they bring to the organization in terms that will resonate with executives.

     

  • Demarcating The Lines In Master Data Governance Turf Battles – Judy Ko explains a common challenge, namely how different groups within an organization often argue about master data—what it is, how it is defined, and who “owns” it.

     

  • Data profiling: Are you closing the loop? – Dylan Jones explains how only using data profiling results to drive data cleansing efforts is missing the other part of the equation, namely also capturing and implementing defect prevention rules.

     

  • Data Management Best Practices for Today's Businesses – Tony Fisher uses the Three R's of enterprise data management (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) to explain how data is the one asset that every company has, but not every company exploits.

 

Social Media

For simplicity, “Social Media” also includes Blogging, Writing, Social Networking, and Online Marketing.

  • Blogging: The Good, the Bad, and the Really, Really Bad – Brenda Somich provides a brief blog post succinctly conveying a few key points and providing some useful general advice regarding the art of effective blogging.

     

  • The need for social media training is larger than ever – John Moore recaps a recent talk about extending thought leadership positions via social media, especially by leveraging it for professional networking—and while you are still happily employed.

     

  • Information as Theater – The Power of Humanized Description – Jay Baer relates the story of Randy Lauson, the best flight attendant that he has ever seen, as a great story about how information isn’t boring by accident—you make it that way.

     

  • New Adventures in Wi-Fi – Track 2: Twitter – Peter Thomas applies his very comprehensive but not overwhelming blogging style to the subject of Twitter, and thereby provides us with an excellent overview of my favorite social networking service.

     

  • The 4 Es of Social Media Strategy – Jill Dyché explains that although over time your social media strategy can incorporate each of the 4 Es (Expose, Engage, Entertain, Educate), a single prevailing need will likely drive your initial efforts.

     

  • What Role For The CMO In Social? – Mary Beth Kemp examines the possible roles that a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), and the marketing department, could play in an organization’s social media strategy.  Includes a very useful diagram.

     

  • Is Social Media a Fad? – On Day 6 of her 28 day blogging challenge, Tamara Dull shared a great video about social media, which includes some very compelling statistics provided by the Erik Qaulman book Socialnomics.

     

  • Social Media Resistance: Déjà Vu All Over Again – Phil Simon compares the current resistance to social media adoption shown by many organizations, with their similar reluctance in the 1990s regarding the creation of a corporate website.

     

  • Can you have a social system without a community or a collective? – Mark McDonald explains that not only can you have a social system without a community, approaching social media from this perceptive expands its true potential.

     

  • Social Media and BI – Kelly Pennock explains that the newest frontier for data collection is the vast universe of social media, which you need to incorporate into your company’s overall business intelligence strategy.

 

Related Posts

Recently Read: March 22, 2010

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Recently Read: November 28, 2009

 

Recently Read Resources

Data Quality via My Google Reader

Blogs about Data Quality, Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence

Books about Data Quality, Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence

Social Media via My Google Reader

Blogs and Websites about Social Media, Social Networking, and Online Marketing

Books about Social Media, Blogging, Social Networking, and Online Marketing

Recently Read: March 22, 2010

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Recently Read is an OCDQ regular segment.  Each entry provides links to blog posts, articles, books, and other material I found interesting enough to share.  Please note “recently read” is literal – therefore what I share wasn't necessarily recently published.

 

Data Quality

For simplicity, “Data Quality” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence.

  • The Data Quality Herald Magazine – Dylan Jones, the founder and community manager of Data Quality Pro, recently released the first edition of a unique new magazine focused squarely on the needs of the data quality community.
  • Defining Master Data for Your Organization – Loraine Lawson recaps a recent David Loshin MDM vendor panel discussion, and looks at both the simple answer and the complex, but more useful, answer to the question “what is master data?”
  • What is Data Quality anyway? – Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen asks two excellent questions in this blog post (which also received great comments): “is data quality an independent discipline?” and “is data quality an independent technology?”
  • Business logic – Peter Thomas provides a hilarious adapted comic strip.
  • Police Untelligence – from IQTrainwrecks.com, which is provided by the IAIDQ, read the story about the home of an elderly Brooklyn couple that has been raided by the New York City Police Department 50 times over the last 4 years.
  • Metadata and 3-D Glasses – David Loshin explains the data governance, data stewardship, and metadata/harmonization albatross hanging around the neck of the common question “what is the definition of ‘customer’?”
  • No Enterprise wide Data Model – Ken O’Connor continues his excellent series about common enterprise wide data governance issues with this entry about the impact of not having an enterprise wide data model.
  • Putting data on the web – Rich Murnane shares an excellent recent TED video by Tim Berners-Lee showing some of the benefits of shared data on the web.
  • Building your Data Governance Board – Marty Moseley continues his overview of agile data governance by discussing how you select a data governance board, and how you establish data governance priorities.
  • The Change Paradox – Carol Newcomb examines the “change is good, but change is bad” paradox often encountered in consulting when recommended new technology or new methodology conflicts with your client's corporate culture.  
  • Data Quality Non-Believers – Phil Simon takes on the data quality non-believers making “dataless decisions” by relying on gut instincts to explain such things as customer churn, employee turnover, and intelligent spending of corporate funds. 
  • Data Cleansing to Achieve Information Quality – Jackie Roberts raises some interesting questions regarding the efforts needed to cleanse data though multiple stages of analytics and processes to achieve appropriate information quality.
  • Data Quality Principles within the PMO – Phil Wright provides a list of six excellent principles that must be met in order to help embed a culture of data quality, data assurance, and data governance within each new project.
  • Is computer analysis accurate? – Julian Schwarzenbach considers the accuracy of computer analysis in decision making, especially automated decision making that attempts to mimic human logic, intuition, and insight.

 

Related Posts

Recently Read: March 6, 2010

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Recently Read Resources

Data Quality via My Google Reader

Blogs about Data Quality, Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence

Books about Data Quality, Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence

Recently Read: March 6, 2010

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Recently Read is an OCDQ regular segment.  Each entry provides links to blog posts, articles, books, and other material I found interesting enough to share.  Please note “recently read” is literal – therefore what I share wasn't necessarily recently published.

 

Data Quality

For simplicity, “Data Quality” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence.

  • Let the Data Geeks Play – Rob Paller is hosting a contest on his blog challenging all data geeks to submit an original song (or parody of an existing one) related to MDM, Data Governance, or Data Quality.  Deadline for submissions is March 20.
  • The First Step on your Data Quality Roadmap – Phil Wright describes how to learn lessons from what has happened before, and use this historical analysis as a basis for planning a successful strategy for your data quality initiative.
  • Bad word?: Data Owner – Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen examines how the common data quality terms “data owner” and “data ownership” are used and whether they are truly useful.  Excellent commentary was also received on this blog post.
  • Data as a smoke screen – Charles Blyth discusses how to get to the point where your consumers trust the data that you are providing to them.  This post includes a great graphic and received considerable commentary.
  • MDM Streamlines the Supply Chain – Evan Levy ruminates on the change management challenge for MDM—where change truly is constant—and how the supply chain can become incredibly flexible and streamlined as a result of MDM.
  • MDM as a Vendor Fight to Own Enterprise Data – Loraine Lawson (with help from actor Peter Boyle) looks at another angle of the recent MDM vendor consolidation, based on the recent remark “MDM is the new ERP” made by Jill Dyché. 
  • Data Quality Open Issues and Questions? – Jackie Roberts of DATAForge issues the blogosphere challenge of discussing real-world best practices for MDM, data governance, and data quality.  This blog post received some great comments.
  • Noise and Signal – David Loshin examines the implications of the rising volumes of unstructured data (especially from social media sources) and the related need for data (and metadata) quality to help filter out the signal from the noise.  
  • A gold DQ team! – Daniel Gent, inspired by the recent Winter Olympics and his country's success in ice hockey, discusses the skills and characteristics necessary for assembling a golden data quality team. 
  • Unpredictable Inaccuracy – Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen incites another thought-provoking discussion in the comments section of his blog with this post about the impact on data quality initiatives caused by the challenging reality of time.
  • Does your data quality help customers succeed? – Dylan Jones searches for the holy grail of data quality—providing your customers with great information quality that enables them to achieve their goals as quickly and simply as possible.
  • Charm School: It’s Not Just for IT Anymore – Jill Dyché reminds the business that it’s their business, too—and illustrates the need for a sustained hand-off cycle between IT and the business—and the days of the IT-business mind-meld are over.
  • Data Quality Lip Service – Phil Simon examines why leaders at many organizations merely pay lip service to data quality, and makes some recommendations for getting data quality its due.  Simon Says: “Read this blog post!”
  • What is the name of that block? – Rich Murnane provides a fascinating discussion about looking at things differently by sharing a TED video with Derek Sivers, who explains the different way locations are identified in Japan.
  • Aphorism of the week – Peter Thomas recently (and thankfully) returned to active blogging.  This blog post is a great signature piece representative of his excellent writing style, which proves that long blog posts can be worth reading.
  • How tasty is your data quality cheese? – Julian Schwarzenbach explains data quality using a cheese analogy, where cheese represents a corporate data set, mold represents poor data quality, which causes indigestion—and poor business decisions.
  • Wild stuff: Nines complement date format – Thorsten Radde provides a great example of the unique data quality challenges presented by legacy applications by explaining the date format known as Nine’s complement. 

 

Social Media

For simplicity, “Social Media” also includes Blogging, Writing, Social Networking, and Online Marketing.

  • Ten Things Social Media Can't Do – B.L. Ochman provides a healthy reminder for properly setting realistic expectations about social media, and provides a great list of ten things you should not expect from social media.
  • A Manifesto for Social Business – Graham Hill discusses how the nature of business is inexorably changing into a new kind of Social Business that is driven by social relationships, and lists fifteen themes (the Manifesto) of this change.
  • Framing Your Social Media Efforts – Chris Brogan explains there are three fundamental areas of practice for social media: (1) Listening, (2) Connecting, and (3) Publishing.
  • Minding the Gap – Tara Hunt examines the gap between the underlying values of business and the underlying human values that drive community.  This blog post also includes an excellent SlideShare presentation that I highly recommend.
  • The Albert Einstein Guide to Social Media – Amber Naslund channels the wisdom of Albert Einstein by using some of his most insightful quotes to frame a practical guide to a better understanding of social media.

 

Book Quotes

An eclectic list of quotes from some recently read (and/or simply my favorite) books.

  • From Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin – “You don't become indispensable merely because you are different.  But the only way to be indispensable is to be different.  That's because if you're the same, so are plenty of other people.  The only way to get what you're worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.”

 

Related Posts

Recently Read: January 23, 2010

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Recently Read: December 7, 2009

Recently Read: November 28, 2009

 

Recently Read Resources

Data Quality via My Google Reader

Social Media via My Google Reader

Books about Data Quality, Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence

Blogs about Data Quality, Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence

Books about Social Media, Blogging, Social Networking, and Online Marketing

Blogs and Websites about Social Media, Social Networking, and Online Marketing

Recently Read: January 23, 2010

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Recently Read is an OCDQ regular segment.  Each entry provides links to blog posts, articles, books, and other material I found interesting enough to share.  Please note “recently read” is literal – therefore what I share wasn't necessarily recently published.

 

Data Quality

For simplicity, “Data Quality” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence.

  • Data Quality Blog Roundup - December 2009 Edition – Data Quality Pro always provides a great collection of the previous month's best blog posts, this particular entry covers my data quality “recently reads” from before the start of the new year.

     

  • Hostile Environment Data Harassment – Phil Simon discusses the common tendency for an organization's culture to not only compartmentalize data issues, but also tolerate “data carelessness” and irresponsibility.

     

  • Data Profiling For All The Right Reasons, Part 1 – In this Hub Designs Blog guest post, Rob DuMoulin begins a tool-agnostic five-part series about data profiling using psychology and Jungian word association analysis.

     

  • Personal Data – an Asset we hold on Trust – Daragh O Brien shares an intriguing case study about data protection, and discusses the key stages and data protection principles in the Information Asset Life Cycle.

     

  • Standardizing Data Migration – Evan Levy uses a motion picture industry analogy to suggest establishing a separate functional team that’s responsible for data packaging and distribution.

     

  • A Data Quality Riot Act – Rob Paller shares a great real-world example of data quality challenges even when an enterprise system is well-designed with protocols specifically put in place to ensure proper data management and data quality.

     

  • What is a MDM Strategy – Charles Blyth channels the ancient wisdom of Sun Tzu to explain that an MDM strategy is the overarching governance that defines the goals, reasons, approach and standards of its individual initiatives.

     

  • Data Quality issue in my new database - or so we thought... – Rich Murnane shares an interesting real-world example of how not every apparent data problem turns out to be an actual data quality issue.

     

  • Diversity in City Names – Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen explains the challenges inherit in global data quality using the example of the many ways that the city of Copenhagen, Denmark can be represented due to linguistic variations.

     

  • How data quality derives from meta data – Rayk Fenske examines the relationship between data quality management and metadata management by discussing directed functional dependency as well as a hierarchy in requirements.

     

  • The Quality Gap: Why Being On-Time Isn’t Enough – Jill Dyché discusses the all-too-common tendency to emphasize efficiency over effectiveness in enterprise project management, where everything is date-driven and not quality-driven.

     

  • Name Patterns and Parsing – David Loshin explains that personal names, although conceptually straightforward, are beset by many interesting pattern variations, making them a very daunting data quality challenge. 

     

  • A true story of how data quality issues can cripple a business – Graham Rhind shares a remarkable real-world example that illustrates very well the effect poor data quality (and lack of information quality) can have at every level of an organization.

     

  • WANTED: Data Quality Change Agents – Dylan Jones explains the key traits required of all data quality change agents, including a positive attitude, a willingness to ask questions, innovation advocating, and persuasive evangelism.

     

  • The Power of Slow - Paul Boal begins an excellent series about slow by explaining that a proper understanding of slow truly reveals it is the far more efficient approach—and not just for data quality. 

     

  • Data vs. Facts, Illustrated - Mark Graban discusses the common problem of relying too much on reports and dashboards without verification of the underlying data—and shares a hilarious picture to illustrate the point.   

     

  • The Value of Data – Marty Moseley discusses the core issue that most businesses still do not understand the value of data to their organizations, and shares some findings from a recent data governance survey.

     

  • ETL, Data Quality and MDM for Mid-sized Business – Steve Sarsfield on challenges of investing in enterprise software faced by small to medium sized businesses, and opportunities in the freemium model of open source alternatives such as Talend.

     

  • Beyond Data Ownership to Information Sharing – Joe Andrieu provides an interesting look at the often polarizing topics of data ownership, data privacy, and information sharing, explaining that we want to share our information, on our terms, protect our interests, and enable service providers to do truly amazing things for us and on our behalf. 

     

  • The Great Expectations of BI – Promising new blogger Phil Wright provides an excellent Dickensian inspired explanation of why, in many organizations, business intelligence doesn't live up to its great expectations.   

 

Social Media

For simplicity, “Social Media” also includes Blogging, Writing, Social Networking, and Online Marketing.

 

Book Quotes

An eclectic list of quotes from some recently read (and/or simply my favorite) books.

  • From Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun – “Expressing ideas is often the only way to fully understand what ideas are, and to know what it is you really think.  Expression makes learning from the criticism of others possible, and I'm happy to look like a fool if in return I learn something I wouldn't have learned any other way.”

     

  • From The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin – “The opportunity cost of investing your life in something that's not going to get better is just too high.”

     

  • From Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone. by Mitch Joel – “It's no longer about how much budget you dump into advertising and PR in hopes that people will see and respond to your messaging.  The new online channels will work for you as long as you are working for them by adding value, your voice, and the ability for your consumers to connect, engage, and take part.  This new economy is driven by your time vested—and not by your money invested.”

Recently Read: December 21, 2009

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Recently Read is an OCDQ regular segment.  Each entry provides links to blog posts, articles, books, and other material I found interesting enough to share.  Please note “recently read” is literal – therefore what I share wasn't necessarily recently published.

 

Data Quality

For simplicity, “Data Quality” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence.

  • Welcome to DQ Directions – In this blog post, Dylan Jones of Data Quality Pro formally announced the DQ Directions online conference, which will debut in Q2 2010, and will feature presentations from experts and industry thought leaders specializing in data quality, data governance, and master data management.

     

  • Ways to 'Communivate' your Data Issues – In her Purple Cow of a blog post, Jill Wanless (aka Sheezaredhead) explains that ‘Communivate’ is a combination of the words communicate and innovate, and it means to communicate in an innovative way, which she does regarding the importance of data quality.

     

  • ’Tis the Season for a Data Governance Carol – Part 1 and Part 2 – In his excellent two-part series, Rob Paller of Baseline Consulting uses a Dickensian framework to explain the importance of data governance and data quality – and the fact that there isn’t a simple framework to blindly follow for Data Governance.

     

  • The “Santa Intelligence” Team – An excellent Christmas-themed blog post from Paul Boal, in which we learn that Santa does indeed have a Business Intelligence team.

     

  • Data quality is for life not just for Christmas – In this Diary of a Marketing Insight Guy blog post, Simon Daniels reminds us data quality can be a gift that will keep on giving—if data quality management is built into the heart of an organization’s processes and operations.

     

  • Finding a home for MDM – In his second post on the DataFlux Community of Experts, Charles Blyth examines where master data management (MDM) fits within your overall enterprise architecture.

     

  • The Decade of Data: Seven Trends to Watch in 2010 – In his blog post on Informatica Perspectives, Joe McKendrick examines some up-and-coming trends that he predicts will shape the data management space in 2010.

     

  • Are we ready for all this data? – In his blog post, Rich Murnane uses some recent news stories to ponder if even us experienced data geeks are really ready for the amount of data we're going to need to manage due to the unrelenting increases in data volumes.

 

Social Media

For simplicity, “Social Media” also includes Blogging, Writing, Social Networking, and Online Marketing.

 

Book Quotes

An eclectic list of quotes from some recently read (and/or simply my favorite) books.

  • From Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuk – “Your business and your personal brand need to be one and the same...Your latest tweet and comment on Facebook and most recent blog post—that's your résumé now...It's a whole new world, build your personal brand and get ready for it.”

     

  • From A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink – “Empathy is neither a deviation from intelligence nor the single route to it.  Sometimes we need detachment; many other times we need attachment.  The people who will thrive will be those who can toggle between the two.” 

     

  • From Connected by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler – “Just as brains can do things that no single neuron can do, so can social networks do things that no single person can do...our connections to other people matter...most of all it is about what makes us uniquely human...To know who we are, we must understand how we are connected.”

Recently Read: December 7, 2009

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Recently Read is an OCDQ regular segment.  Each entry provides links to blog posts, articles, books, and other material I found interesting enough to share.  Please note “recently read” is literal – therefore what I share wasn't necessarily recently published.

 

Data Quality

For simplicity, “Data Quality” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence.

  • Data Quality Blog Roundup - November 2009 Edition – Dylan Jones at Data Quality Pro always provides a great collection of the previous month's best blog posts, which covers most of the my “recently reads” for data quality.

     

  • The value of Christmas cards – In this Data Value Talk blog post from Human Inference, we learn about how sending Christmas cards can optimize your data quality.

     

  • Santa Quality – Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus—as well as a Saint Nicholas, a Père Noël, a Weihnachtsmann, and a Julemand.  In this blog post, Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen explains some ho-ho-holiday data quality issues.

     

  • Some TLC for Your Data – Data really needs some tender loving care.  Daniel Gent explains in his latest blog post.

     

  • Determining data quality is the first key step – In the second part of a blog series on data migration, James Standen explains that a data migration project will be required to actually improve data quality at the same time, and therefore it is really two projects in one.  The post contains the great line: “data quality sense tingling.”

     

  • Data Chaos and Five Truisms of Data Quality – In his debut post on the DataFlux Community of Experts, my good friend Phil Simon provides a quick case study and five universal truths of data quality.

 

Social Media

For simplicity, “Social Media” also includes Blogging, Writing, Social Networking, and Online Marketing.

 

Awesome Stuff

An eclectic list of articles, blog posts, and other “non-data quality, non-social media, but still awesome” stuff.

  • The Greatest Book Of All Time? – Josh Hanagarne (a.k.a. the “World’s Strongest Librarian”) recently reviewed a book he received from Ethan.  Josh has a simple philosophy of life — “Don’t make anyone’s day worse” — if you are having a bad day (like I was the day I found this), then check this out.

     

  • Cute Apple parody from The Sun – Rob Beschizza on Boing Boing shares a great one minute video of a recent commercial from The Sun about “The UK's best handheld for 40 years.”


Recently Read: November 28, 2009

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Recently Read is an OCDQ regular segment.  Each entry provides links to blog posts, articles, books, and other material I found interesting enough to share.  Please note “recently read” is literal – therefore what I share wasn't necessarily recently published.

 

Data Quality Blog Posts

For simplicity, “Data Quality” also includes Data Governance, Master Data Management, and Business Intelligence.

 

Social Media Blog Posts

For simplicity, “Social Media” also includes Blogging, Social Networking, and Online Marketing.

 

Book Quotes

An eclectic list of quotes from some recently read (and/or simply my favorite) books.

  • From The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki – “Refuse to allow the merit of an idea to be determined by the status of the person advocating it.”

     

  • From Purple Cow by Seth Godin – “We mistakenly believe that criticism leads to failure.”

     

  • From How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer – “The best decision-makers don't despair.  Instead, they become students of error, determined to learn from what went wrong.”

     

  • From The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt – “Whuffie is the residual outcome—the currency—of your reputation.  You lose or gain it based on positive or negative actions, your contributions to the community, and what people think of you.”

     

  • From Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith – “You accrue social capital as a side benefit of doing good, but doing good by itself is its own reward.”