OCDQ Blog Bicentennial

Welcome to the Obsessive-Compulsive Data Quality (OCDQ) Blog Bicentennial Celebration!

Well, okay, technically a bicentennial is the 200th anniversary of something, and I haven’t been blogging for two hundred years. 

On March 13, 2009, I officially launched this blog.  Earlier this year, I published my 100th blog post.  Thanks to my prolific pace, facilitated by a copious amount of free time due to a rather slow consulting year, this is officially the 200th OCDQ Blog post!

So I decided to rummage through my statistics and archives, and assemble a retrospective of how this all came to pass.  Enjoy!

 

OCDQ Blog Numerology

The following table breaks down the OCDQ Blog statistics by month (clicking on the month link will take you to its blog archive), with subtotals by year, and overall totals for number of blog posts, unique visitors, and page views.  The most popular blog post for each month was determined using a pseudo-scientific quasi-statistical combination of page views, comments, and re-tweets.

Month

Posts

Unique Visitors

Page Views

Most Popular Blog Post

MAR 2009 5 623 3,347 You're So Vain, You Probably Think Data Quality Is About You
APR 2009 8 2,057 6,846 There are no Magic Beans for Data Quality
MAY 2009 5 2,048 5,084 The Nine Circles of Data Quality Hell
JUN 2009 5 2,105 4,785 Not So Strange Case of Dr. Technology and Mr. Business
JUL 2009 8 2,460 6,083 The Very True Fear of False Positives
AUG 2009 11 2,637 6,146 Hyperactive Data Quality (Second Edition)
SEP 2009 9 2,027 3,778 DQ-Tip: “Data quality is primarily about context not accuracy...”
OCT 2009 11 2,645 5,971 Days Without A Data Quality Issue
NOV 2009 9 2,227 4,177 Beyond a “Single Version of the Truth”
DEC 2009 13 1,698 3,779 Adventures in Data Profiling (Part 8)

2009

84

20,527

49,996

 

Month

Posts

Unique Visitors

Page Views

Most Popular Blog Post

JAN 2010 14 2,323 4,807 The Dumb and Dumber Guide to Data Quality
FEB 2010 12 2,988 6,296 The Wisdom of the Social Media Crowd
MAR 2010 14 3,548 6,869 The Circle of Quality
APR 2010 15 4,727 8,774 Data, data everywhere, but where is data quality?
MAY 2010 13 2,989 5,418 What going to the dentist taught me about data quality
JUN 2010 15 3,420 6,735 Jack Bauer and Enforcing Data Governance Policies
JUL 2010 13 3,410 8,600 Is your data complete and accurate, but useless to your business?
AUG 2010 17 4,047 8,195 The Real Data Value is Business Insight

2010

113

27,452

55,694

 

 

Posts

Unique Visitors

Page Views

 

Totals

197*

47,979

105,690

 

* Since this is the third one published in September 2010, it is officially the 200th OCDQ Blog post!

 

Some of my favorites

In addition to the most popular OCDQ Blog posts listed above by month, the following are some of my personal favorites:

  • The Three Musketeers of Data Quality — Although people, process, and technology are all necessary for data quality success, people are the most important of all.  So, who exactly are some of the most important people on your data quality project?
  • Fantasy League Data Quality — This blog post attempted to explain best practices in action for master data management, data warehousing, business intelligence, and data quality using . . . fantasy league baseball and football.
  • Blog-Bout: “Risk” versus “Monopoly” — A “blog-bout” is a good-natured debate between two bloggers.  Phil Simon and I debated which board game is the better metaphor for an Information Technology (IT) project: “Risk” or “Monopoly.”
  • Collablogaunity — Mashing together the words collaboration, blog, and community, I created the term collablogaunity (which is pronounced “Call a Blog a Unity”) to explain some recommended blogging best practices.
  • Do you enjoy writing? — A literally handwritten blog post about the art of painting with letters and words—aka writing.
  • MacGyver: Data Governance and Duct Tape — This allegedly Emmy Award nominated blog post explains data stewardship, data quality, data cleansing, defect prevention, and data governance—all with help from both MacGyver and Jill Dyché.
  • The Importance of Envelopes — No, this was not a blog post about postal address data quality.  Instead, I used envelopes as a metaphor for effective communication, explaining that the way we deliver our message is as important as our message.
  • Dilbert, Data Quality, Rabbits, and #FollowFriday — This blog post revealed a truth that all data quality experts know well: All data quality issues are caused by rabbits—either a cartoon rabbit named Roger, or an invisible rabbit named Harvey.
  • Finding Data Quality — With lots of help from the movie Finding Nemo, this blog post explains that although it is often discussed only in relation to other enterprise information initiatives, eventually you’ll be finding data quality everywhere.

 

Find your favorites

Find your favorites by browsing OCDQ Blog content using the following links:

  • Best of OCDQ — Periodically updated listings, organized by topic, of the best OCDQ Blog posts of all time

 

Thank You

So far, OCDQ Blog has received over 900 comments, which is an average of 50 comments per month, and 5 comments per post. 

Although a fair percentage of the total number of comments are my responses, Commendable Comments is my ongoing series (next entry coming later this month) that celebrates the truly commendable comments that I regularly receive from my readers.

Thank you very much to everyone who reads OCDQ Blog.  Whether you comment or not, your readership is deeply appreciated.