DAMA International

OCDQ Radio is a vendor-neutral podcast about data quality and its related disciplines, produced and hosted by Jim Harris.

DAMA International is a non-profit, vendor-independent, global association of technical and business professionals dedicated to advancing the concepts and practices of information and data management.

On this episode, special guest Loretta Mahon Smith provides an overview of the Data Management Body of Knowledge (DMBOK) and Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) certification program.

Loretta Mahon Smith is a visionary and influential data management professional known for her consistent awareness of trends in the forefront of the industry.  Since 1983, she has worked in international financial services, and been actively involved in the maturity and growth of Information Architecture functions, specializing in Data Stewardship and Data Strategy Development.

Loretta Mahon Smith has been a member of DAMA for more than 10 years, with a lifetime membership to the DAMA National Capitol Region Chapter.  As President of the chapter she has the opportunity to help the Washington DC and Baltimore data management communities.  She serves the world community by her involvement on the DAMA International Board as VP of Communications.  She additionally volunteers her time to work on the ICCP Certification Council, most recently working on the development of the Zachman and Data Governance examinations.

In the past, Loretta has facilitated Special Interest Group sessions on Governance and Stewardship and presented Stewardship training at numerous local chapters for DAMA, IIBA, TDWI, and ACM, as well as major conferences including Project World (IIBA), INFO360 (AIIM), EDW (DAMA) and the IQ.  She earned Certified Computing Professional (CCP), Certified Business Intelligence Professional (CBIP), and Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) designations, achieving mastery level proficiency rating in Data Warehousing, Data Management, and Data Quality.

Popular OCDQ Radio Episodes

Clicking on the link will take you to the episode’s blog post:

• Demystifying Data Science — Guest Melinda Thielbar, a Ph.D. Statistician, discusses what a data scientist does and provides a straightforward explanation of key concepts such as signal-to-noise ratio, uncertainty, and correlation.

• Data Quality and Big Data — Guest Tom Redman (aka the “Data Doc”) discusses Data Quality and Big Data, including if data quality matters less in larger data sets, and if statistical outliers represent business insights or data quality issues.

• Gaining a Competitive Advantage with Data — Guest William McKnight discusses some of the practical, hands-on guidance provided by his book Information Management: Strategies for Gaining a Competitive Advantage with Data.

• Doing Data Governance — Guest John Ladley discusses his book How to Design, Deploy and Sustain Data Governance and how to understand the difference and relationship between data governance and enterprise information management.

• Demystifying Master Data Management — Guest John Owens explains the three types of data (Transaction, Domain, Master), the four master data entities (Party, Product, Location, Asset), and the Party-Role Relationship, which is where we find many of the terms commonly used to describe the Party master data entity (e.g., Customer, Supplier, Employee).

• Measuring Data Quality for Ongoing Improvement — Guest Laura Sebastian-Coleman discusses bringing together a better understanding of what is represented in data with the expectations for use in order to improve the overall quality of data.

• The Blue Box of Information Quality — Guest Daragh O Brien on why Information Quality is bigger on the inside, using stories as an analytical tool and change management technique, and why we must never forget that “people are cool.”

• Data Governance Star Wars — Special Guests Rob Karel and Gwen Thomas joined this extended, and Star Wars themed, discussion about how to balance bureaucracy and business agility during the execution of data governance programs.

• Good-Enough Data for Fast-Enough Decisions — Guest Julie Hunt discusses Data Quality and Business Intelligence, including the speed versus quality debate of near-real-time decision making, and the future of predictive analytics.

• The Johari Window of Data Quality — Guest Martin Doyle discusses helping people better understand their data and assess its business impacts, not just the negative impacts of bad data quality, but also the positive impacts of good data quality.

• The Art of Data Matching — Guest Henrik Liliendahl Sørensen discusses data matching concepts and practices, including different match techniques, candidate selection, presentation of match results, and business applications of data matching.

• Studying Data Quality — Guest Gordon Hamilton discusses the key concepts from recommended data quality books, including those which he has implemented in his career as a data quality practitioner.

Enterprise Data World 2010

Enterprise Data World 2010 was held March 14-18 in San Francisco, California at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.

Congratulations and thanks to Tony Shaw, Maya Stosskopf, the entire Wilshire Conferences staff, as well as Cathy Nolan and everyone with DAMA International, for their outstanding efforts on delivering yet another wonderful conference experience.

I wish I could have attended every session on the agenda, but this blog post provides some quotes from a few of my favorites.

Applying Agile Software Engineering Principles to Data Governance

Conference session by Marty Moseley, CTO of Initiate Systems, an IBM company.

Quotes from the session:

• “Data governance is 80% people and only 20% technology”
• “Data governance is an ongoing, evolutionary practice”
• “There are some organizational problems that are directly caused by poor data quality”
• “Build iterative 'good enough' solutions – not 'solve world hunger' efforts”
• “Traditional approaches to data governance try to 'boil the ocean' and solve every data problem”
• “Agile approaches to data governance laser focus on iteratively solving one problem at a time”
• “Quality is everything, don't sacrifice accuracy for performance, you can definitely have both”

Seven iterative steps of Agile Data Governance:

1. “Form the Data Governance Board – Small guidance team of executives who can think cross-organizationally”
2. “Define the Problem and the Team – Root cause analysis, build the business case, appoint necessary resources”
3. “Nail Down Size and Scope – Prioritize the scope in order to implement the current iteration in less than 9 months”
4. “Validate Your Assumptions – Challenge all estimates, perform data profiling, list data quality issues to resolve”
5. “Establishing Data Policies – Measurable statements of 'what must be achieved' for which kinds of data”
6. “Implement the data quality solution for the current iteration”
7. “Evaluate the overall progress and plan for the next iteration”

Monitor the Quality of your Master Data

Conference session by Thomas Ravn, MDM Practice Director at Platon.

Quotes from the session:

• “Ensure master data is taken into account each and every time a business process or IT system is changed”
• “Web forms requiring master data attributes can NOT be based on a single country's specific standards”
• “There is no point in monitoring data quality if no one within the business feels responsible for it”
• “The greater the business impact of a data quality dimension, the more difficult it is to measure”
• “Data quality key performance indicators (KPI) should be tied directly to business processes”
• “Implement a data input validation rule rather than allow bad data to be entered”
• “Sometimes the business logic is too ambiguous to be enforced by a single data input validation rule”
• “Data is not always clean or dirty in itself – it depends on the viewpoint or defined standard”
• “Data quality is in the eye of the beholder”

Measuring the Business Impact of Data Governance

Conference session by Tony Fisher, CEO of DataFlux, and Dr. Walid el Abed, CEO of Global Data Excellence.

Quotes from the session:

• “The goal of data governance is to position the business to improve”
• “Revenue optimization, cost control, and risk mitigation are the business drivers of data management”
• “You don't manage data to manage data, you manage data to improve your business”
• “Business rules are rules that data should comply with in order to have the process execute properly”
• “For every business rule, define the main impact (cost of failure) and the business value (result of success)”
• “Power Shift – Before: Having information is power – Now: Sharing information is power”
• “You must translate technical details into business language, such as cost, revenue, risk”
• “Combine near-term fast to value with long-term alignment with business strategy”
• “Data excellence must be a business value added driven program”
• “Communication is key to data excellence, make it visible and understood by all levels of the organization”

The Effect of the Financial Meltdown on Data Management

Conference session by April Reeve, Consultant at EMC Consulting.

Quotes from the session:

• “The recent financial crisis has greatly increased the interest in both data governance and data transparency”
• “Data Governance is a symbiotic relationship of Business Governance and Technology Governance”
• “Risk management is a data problem in the forefront of corporate concern – now viewing data as a corporate asset”
• “Data transparency increases the criticality of data quality – especially regarding the accuracy of financial reporting”

What the Business Wants

Closing Keynote Address by Graeme Simsion, Principal at Simsion & Associates.

Quotes from the keynote:

• “You can get a lot done if you don't care who gets the credit”
• “People will work incredibly hard to implement their own ideas”
• “What if we trust the business to know what's best for the business?”
• “Let's tell the business what we (as data professionals) do – and then ask the business what they want”

Social Karma

I presented this session about the art of effectively using social media in business.

An effective social media strategy is essential for organizations as well as individual professionals.  Using social media effectively can definitely help promote you, your expertise, your company, and its products and services. However, too many businesses and professionals have a selfish social media strategy.  You should not use social media to exclusively promote only yourself or your business. 

You need to view social media as Social Karma.

For free related content with no registration required, click on this link: Social Karma

Live-Tweeting at Enterprise Data World 2010

The term “live-tweeting” describes using Twitter to provide near real-time reporting from an event.  When a conference schedule has multiple simultaneous sessions, Twitter is great for sharing insights from the sessions you are in with other conference attendees at other sessions, as well as with the on-line community not attending the conference.

Enterprise Data World 2010 had a great group of tweeps (i.e., people using Twitter) and I want to thank all of them, and especially the following Super-Tweeps in particular:   

Karen Lopez – @datachick

April Reeve – @Datagrrl

Corinna Martinez – @Futureratti

Eva Smith – @datadeva

Alec Sharp – @alecsharp

Ted Louie – @tedlouie

Rob Drysdale – @projmgr

Loretta Mahon Smith – @silverdata 

Additional Resources

Official Website for DAMA International

LinkedIn Group for DAMA International

Twitter Account for DAMA International

Facebook Group for DAMA International

Official Website for Enterprise Data World 2010

LinkedIn Group for Enterprise Data World

Twitter Account for Enterprise Data World

Facebook Group for Enterprise Data World 

Enterprise Data World 2011 will take place in Chicago, Illinois at the Chicago Sheraton and Towers on April 3-7, 2011.

Related Posts

Enterprise Data World 2009

TDWI World Conference Chicago 2009

DataFlux IDEAS 2009

Social Karma (Part 1)

An effective social media strategy is essential for organizations as well as individual professionals.

Using social media effectively, including blogging and social networking sites (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), can definitely help promote you, your expertise, your company, and its products and services. 

However, it is sad—but true—that too many people and companies have a selfish social media strategy. 

You should not use social media to exclusively promote only yourself or your business. 

You need to view social media as Social Karma. 

If you can focus your social media and social networking efforts on helping others, then you will get much more back than just a blog reader, a LinkedIn connection, a Facebook friend, a Twitter follower, or even a potential customer.

I am not a Social Media Expert—but I play one on the Internet

I am not a social media “expert.”  In fact, until late 2008, I wasn't even interested enough to ask people what they meant when I heard them talking about “social media.”  I started blogging, tweeting, and using other social media in early 2009. 

Please let me do the complex math for you—I still have less than one year of actual experience with social media.

I don't know how you define expertise—and I do acknowledge the inherent difficulty in vetting expertise in such a new and rapidly evolving field—but less than one year of experience with anything does not an expert make, in my humble opinion.

However, I have spent over 15 years in computer science and information technology related disciplines, as a software engineer, consultant, and instructor.  I have considerable experience and expertise applying technology in a business context in order to implement solutions for Global 500 companies in a wide variety of industries. 

Therefore, I am not a complete moron—but I will leave it to you to determine the actual percentage.

I am currently a full-time writer making all of my income from social media—mainly from blogging and mostly from ghostwriting for corporate blogs.

I am not trying to sell you anything. 

I am going to freely share what I have learned so far, including what I have learned from people with far more experience using social media.  As I stated previously, I hesitate to call anyone an expert in such a rapidly evolving discipline, but I will mention several resources I have found helpful. 

I have absolutely no affiliation or any paid relationship with any person, website, event, product, or book that I recommend.

About This Series

The primary reason that I am organizing my thoughts about social media involves my preparation for an upcoming conference presentation about using social media effectively for business purposes (more details in the next section).

I am publishing this content as a series on my blog, not only to provide supporting material for the small group of people that actually attend my conference session, but also because I have learned firsthand how the two-way conversation that blogging provides via comments from my readers, greatly improves the quality of my material.

Throughout this series, I will combine traditional blog posts with presentation slides, podcasts, and videos, in order to build a multimedia library of supporting material—all freely available, no registration required.

Enterprise Data World 2010

Enterprise Data World is the business world’s most comprehensive vendor-neutral educational event about data and information management.  This year’s program will be bigger than ever before, with more sessions, more case studies, and more can’t-miss content, providing over 200 hours of in-depth tutorials, hands-on workshops, practical sessions and insightful keynotes to take you to the forefront of your industry.   

Enterprise Data World 2010 will be held March 14-18 in San Francisco, California at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.

The full conference agenda can be viewed by clicking on this link: Enterprise Data World 2010 Conference Agenda.

The registration options can be viewed by clicking on this link: Enterprise Data World 2010 Conference Registration. 

Use the discount code of EDW10SPKR for a $100 discount off your registration fees. (Discount code expires on February 26.)

On Monday, March 15 from 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM, I will be presenting (30 minutes of material and 30 minutes of Q&A):

Social Karma: The Art of Effectively Using Social Media in Business

In Part 2 of this series:  We will discuss leveraging social media for “listening purposes only” as a passive (and safe) way to determine what (if any) type of active involvement with social media makes sense for you and/or your company.

Related Posts

Social Karma (Part 2) – Social Media Preparation

Social Karma (Part 3) – Listening Stations, Home Base, and Outposts

Social Karma (Part 4) – Blogging Best Practices

Social Karma (Part 5) – Connection, Engagement, and ROI Basics

Social Karma (Part 6) – Social Media Books

Social Karma (Part 7) – Twitter

Enterprise Data World 2009

Formerly known as the DAMA International Symposium and Wilshire MetaData Conference, Enterprise Data World 2009 was held April 5-9 in Tampa, Florida at the Tampa Convention Center.

Enterprise Data World is the business world’s most comprehensive vendor-neutral educational event about data and information management.  This year’s program was bigger than ever before, with more sessions, more case studies, and more can’t-miss content.  With 200 hours of in-depth tutorials, hands-on workshops, practical sessions and insightful keynotes, the conference was a tremendous success.  Congratulations and thanks to Tony Shaw, Maya Stosskopf and the entire Wilshire staff.

I attended Enterprise Data World 2009 as a member of the Iowa Chapter of DAMA and as a Data Quality Journalist for the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ).

I used Twitter to provide live reporting from the sessions that I was attending.

I wish that I could have attended every session, but here are some highlights from ten of my favorites:

8 Ways Data is Changing Everything

Keynote by Stephen Baker from BusinessWeek. 

His article Math Will Rock Your World inspired his excellent book The Numerati.  Additionally, check out his blog: Blogspotting.

Quotes from the keynote:

• "Data is changing how we understand ourselves and how we understand our world"
• "Predictive data mining is about the mathematical modeling of humanity"
• "Anthropologists are looking at social networking (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) to understand the science of friendship"

Master Data Management: Proven Architectures, Products and Best Practices

Tutorial by David Loshin from Knowledge Integrity.

Included material from his excellent book Master Data Management.  Additionally, check out his blog: David Loshin.

Quotes from the tutorial:

• "Master Data are the core business objects used in the different applications across the organization, along with their associated metadata, attributes, definitions, roles, connections and taxonomies"
• "Master Data Management (MDM) provides a unified view of core data subject areas (e.g. Customers, Products)"
• "With MDM, it is important not to over-invest and under-implement - invest in and implement only what you need"

Master Data Management: Ignore the Hype and Keep the Focus on Data

Case Study by Tony Fisher from DataFlux and Jeff Grayson from Equinox Fitness.

Quotes from the case study:

• "The most important thing about Master Data Management (MDM) is improving business processes"
• "80% of any enterprise implementation should be the testing phase"
• "MDM Data Quality (DQ) Challenge: Any % wrong means you’re 100% certain you’re not always right"
• "MDM DQ Solution: Re-design applications to ensure the ‘front-door’ protects data quality"
• "Technology is critical, however thinking through the operational processes is more important"

A Case of Usage: Working with Use Cases on Data-Centric Projects

Case Study by Susan Burk from IBM.

Quotes from the case study:

• "Use Case is a sequence of actions performed to yield a result of observable business value"
• "The primary focus of data-centric projects is data structure, data delivery and data quality"
• "Don’t like use cases? – ok, call them business acceptance criteria – because that’s what a use case is"

Crowdsourcing: People are Smart, When Computers are Not

Session by Sharon Chiarella from Amazon Web Services.

Quotes from the session:

• "Crowdsourcing is outsourcing a task typically performed by employees to a general community of people"
• "Crowdsourcing eliminates over-staffing, lowers costs and reduces work turnaround time"
• "An excellent example of crowdsourcing is open source software development (e.g. Linux)"

Improving Information Quality using Lean Six Sigma Methodology

Session by Atul Borkar and Guillermo Rueda from Intel.

Quotes from the session:

• "Information Quality requires a structured methodology in order to be successful"
• Lean Six Sigma Framework: DMAIC – Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control:
  • Define = Describe the challenge, goal, process and customer requirements
  • Measure = Gather data about the challenge and the process
  • Analyze = Use hypothesis and data to find root causes
  • Improve = Develop, implement and refine solutions
  • Control = Plan for stability and measurement

Universal Data Quality: The Key to Deriving Business Value from Corporate Data

Session by Stefanos Damianakis from Netrics.

Quotes from the session:

• "The information stored in databases is NEVER perfect, consistent and complete – and it never can be!"
• "Gartner reports that 25% of critical data within large businesses is somehow inaccurate or incomplete"
• "Gartner reports that 50% of implementations fail due to lack of attention to data quality issues"
• "A powerful approach to data matching is the mathematical modeling of human decision making"
• "The greatest advantage of mathematical modeling is that there are no data matching rules to build and maintain"

Defining a Balanced Scorecard for Data Management

Seminar by C. Lwanga Yonke, a founding member of the International Association for Information and Data Quality (IAIDQ).

Quotes from the seminar:

• "Entering the same data multiple times is like paying the same invoice multiple times"
• "Good metrics help start conversations and turn strategy into action"
• Good metrics have the following characteristics:
  • Business Relevance
  • Clarity of Definition
  • Trending Capability (i.e. metric can be tracked over time)
  • Easy to aggregate and roll-up to a summary
  • Easy to drill-down to the details that comprised the measurement

Closing Panel: Data Management’s Next Big Thing!

Quotes from Panelist Peter Aiken from Data Blueprint:

• Capability Maturity Levels:
  1. Initial
  2. Repeatable
  3. Defined
  4. Managed
  5. Optimized
• "Most companies are at a capability maturity level of (1) Initial or (2) Repeatable"
• "Data should be treated as a durable asset"

Quotes from Panelist Noreen Kendle from Burton Group:

• "A new age for data and data management is on horizon – a perfect storm is coming"
• "The perfect storm is being caused by massive data growth and software as a service (i.e. cloud computing)"
• "Always remember that you can make lemonade from lemons – the bad in life can be turned into something good"

Quotes from Panelist Karen Lopez from InfoAdvisors:

• "If you keep using the same recipe, then you keep getting the same results"
• "Our biggest problem is not technical in nature - we simply need to share our knowledge"
• "Don’t be a dinosaur! Adopt a ‘go with what is’ philosophy and embrace the future!"

Quotes from Panelist Eric Miller from Zepheira:

• "Applications should not be ON The Web, but OF The Web"
• "New Acronym: LED – Linked Enterprise Data"
• "Semantic Web is the HTML of DATA"

Quotes from Panelist Daniel Moody from University of Twente:

• "Unified Modeling Language (UML) was the last big thing in software engineering"
• "The next big thing will be ArchiMate, which is a unified language for enterprise architecture modeling"

Mark Your Calendar

Enterprise Data World 2010 will take place in San Francisco, California at the Hilton San Francisco on March 14-18, 2010.