Blog Carnival of Data Quality -- Issue #3

Welcome to the January, 2008 edition of carnival of data quality. This month's topic was to discuss how we can impact our world with information quality. An acceptable subtopic was to discuss how we can improve the practice of information quality efforts.

[Editor's note: I posted this a couple days early -- next week's work schedule put me at risk of not posting on January 31.]

Significant pruning was required of the submissions. One blogger seems to think we'd want all his debt-reduction articles on an IQ carnival...which would surely be an example of failing the "relevance' dimension of data quality.

I also added a few posts I noticed this month but who didn't submit, but will indicate when that's the case.

Let's get to it.

Being Green

Steve Sarsfield submitted Data Governance and Data Quality Predictions for 2008. Looking from a "changing our world/profession" perspective, I also liked an article he didn't submit: Data Quality and Being Green

Another Steve, Stephen Buck presented Thinking Green in 2008, noting that when information quality cleans up the database and reduces the proportion of undeliverable mailings, companies can save money and claim "green" results.

Information Quality and Politics

Kudos to Vincent McBurney for tackling the subject of How technology can save Kenyan democracy , saying, "Kenya is one of my favourite travel destinations. It's world famous for the beautiful beaches, national parks, mountains and long distance runners. It's now falling apart due to a tampered election. Could data quality and technology have saved the election?"

Better Processes, Happier Customers

Ralf submitted Example of how Data Quality issues can ripple through a service and reduce the quality of the user experience: the Amazon case revisited (a follow-up to a prior data quality post) saying, "Change the world of information services by improving the data quality!"

Improving our Practice

Looking at our profession, Chris Harris presents Data or Algorithms?. I have to admit I initially thought the submission was off-topic until I read the last few paragraphs. As data and IQ professionals we need to prioritize a limited quantity time and dollars -- his comparison of analysis versus data, and the impact of both on competitive advantage, puts the post into the Carnival's "improve our efforts" subtopic.

Continuing the professional improvement subtopic, I submit MDM via Technology: An Incomplete Recipe, considering the criticality of business process and governance in quality-related initiatives like MDM.

The venerable Larry English contributed to changing our practice by posting a (non-submitted) article titled IQ and Information Product Specifications Quality. He notes that information is truly a "product" of the business, and presents a specification roadmap using that product analogy.

Relevance is certainly a dimension of data quality. Nate Bride's Data Quality and the New England Patriots (non-submitted) article recommends we work to only deal with relevant data. His question "why is this data valuable" is a worthwhile addition to some projects.

Data Security

Though this topic isn't directly related to data quality, the indirect result, identity theft, poses huge data quality challenges that impact our world. Henry Bagdasarian submitted Data Security Breach including a discussion of identity theft.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of data quality using our carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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